Conservative defence secretary Gavin Williamson

• I CAN safely say that in the United Kingdom hardly a family hasn’t had some past connection to a war veteran, demobbed in 1945 after World War II, and returning to a bombed-out Britain.

At that time, many ex-service men and women put their skills, if they were able-bodied enough, to rebuilding the homes and schools that got Britain back on its feet again.

With the onset of peace in Europe (and the Cold War yet to be declared) the era of rebuilding the UK as a leading defensive military state also began, enabling Britain to enter the atomic age in its own right.

We celebrate our service men and women, and their contribution to peace, each year in November on a day of remembrance. We love our heroes!

Fast-forward to 2018 and the latest news from the Conservative defence secretary, Gavin Williamson. Even though there has not been an invading country on British soil since around 1066 (apart from a French failure at Fishguard in 1797), defence has now become “offence” and Britain is becoming armed to the teeth.

Who is the most likely enemy of the UK today? Having listened to Gavin Williamson, I would venture to suggest it’s him! During this seven-year period of austerity the country has suffered under Conservative governments, the defence (“offence”) budgets, notwithstanding we are a nuclear power, have become proportionally the largest spend of our national GDP.

Today, 2018, announced at conference, the Tory government is preparing to establish a cyber military programme to equip and protect us against “highly likely” invasions from other hostile forces.

This programme is to include employment for service men and women and ex-service men and women with relevant computer skills. The jobs come with housing, affordable and social rent homes close to their work.

I’m all for building and or making homes available near to one’s place of work – read on: cyber military defence is a new industry, and undoubtedly will create jobs. The question is, will non-military personnel’s homes and communities lying in the vicinity of this new industry become expendable?

Two-thousand new jobs are envisaged, I understand. If so, would it render a civilian population subject to ethnic cleansing or gentrification? Are these new military homes being built as part of a department of defence military housing budget? On whom does the cost of homes for the new cyber defence industry employees fall?

It would appear to me that the Conservative party needs to explain what is conservatism, and what is civic malfeasance.

SANDRA HENDERSON
Address supplied