A press notice at Conservative party conference grabbed headlines today, as it set out ambitious plans for a £10bn national defensive missile shield over Britain. Eyebrows were raised by the claim that it would also extend to protect the Falkland Islands, making it an extremely large missile system – but the impressively named “Britannia Shield” would be, the Conservative press release stated, “in essence, a British Iron Dome”.
“Iron Dome” is the name of the protective system operated by Israel to intercept aerial attacks against that country.
But when Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative party leader, went on LBC radio to discuss her new idea, there was an outbreak of confusion. “A lot of people talk about what Israel has – the ‘Iron Dome’,” said Badenoch. It should be remembered that those “people” in fact included the Conservative party’s own press office.
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And yet, Badenoch told LBC, her own proposed defence system was different to the Israeli Iron Dome. She informed the interviewer, “it’s not quite like that,” and then added, “but it’s doing the same job,” which suggests that it is in fact exactly like that.
“Why is this shield not like a dome?” asked the LBC interviewer, Nick Ferrari, not entirely unreasonably, and sounding a little lost.
“Well, it’s mobile for one thing,” replied the Tory leader, at which the interviewer asked the obvious follow-up question: well, if it’s mobile, how does it move? This is when Badenoch hit trouble.
“Er, well, James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary,” Badenoch said, “he’s a former defence procurement minister – he knows more of the ins and outs of this. I do know that it would move, um, er, I think, just, certainly, by sea, I think that there is, er, there is that capability. But I’m not, I’m not the – you’ve got to speak to a defence expert about exactly how it works…”
With the distinct whiff of unread briefing notes hanging in the air, the interviewer pressed on, asking Badenoch if her “Britannia Shield” were to be sitting in the English Channel and there were an incident in northern Scotland, how does her “shield” get up there?
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“Well this is – this is – this is – this is a system,” said Badenoch, a little testily. “It’s not one – it’s not one thing that’s sitting in, in one place…” When asked how many things the system would be made of, Badenoch was unable to answer. When challenged about why she didn’t know how many bits her new system would be made of, her answer began: “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no…”
The interviewer asked why, when the Tories failed to build HS2 in 14 years, anyone should believe these outlandish plans for a missile shield.
“Well I will tell them,” replied Badenoch, “that I have actually written a booklet.”
After this performance of Churchillian defiance, wit and determination, the hard-liners in Moscow and Tehran will surely be quaking in their boots.
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