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# Paul Rogers on Brown's Carrier Folly
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/paul-rogers-on-browns-carrier-folly/
- Published: 2007-07-26T16:07:54.000Z
- Updated: 2019-02-14T22:36:54.000Z
- Author: openDemocracy Supporters
- Tags: #en, #Migrated, #Import 2026-04-09 18:23

**Jon Bright (London,** [**OK**](http://ourkingdom.opendemocracy.net/2007/05/08/hot-off-press-call-for-new-settlement/?ref=opendemocracy.net)**):** Overshadowed by the headlines of his announcement about a unified border police and extending detention, Gordon Brown has approved the decision to build two vast aircraft carriers, which according to [Richard Norton Taylor](http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2134782,00.html?ref=opendemocracy.net) in the Guardian have already been given their respective names, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales. If delivered on time they will sail out to sea battle-ready and full of Blairite [hard power](http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict/blair%5Fvision%5Freality%5F4258.jsp) in 2014 and 2016\. How will the Kingdom be safe for seven years without one?

Sorry, this is no laughing matter, even if it does have a last days of the Soviet Union feel about it. Paul Rogers, who has long warned in his oD columns against this folly, has just [published an assessment](http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflicts/global%5Fsecurity/white%5Felephants) written in anger laced with sorrow, at the stupendously expensive stupidity. The article should be read on openDemocracy's front page and can be commented on here, this is Paul's conclusion:

What is really dismaying at this early stage of the Gordon Brown government is the missed opportunity to take a hard look at Britain's defence policy and engage in a fundamental review of the country's long-term security needs. Instead, it seems that in this key area of Whitehall - notwithstanding the rhetoric of change from the new prime minister - it is business as usual.

There is a remote possibility that wiser counsel will prevail, perhaps after the next election (due by 2010, expected in 2009, but increasingly likely in 2008) when a re-elected Brown government might have the confidence and authority to start thinking the unthinkable. For now, though, the moment is lost; and so for the time being is any chance of innovative thinking on the real security issues facing Britain and the world in the 21st century.