A tilt or a nod?

So today we saw the Integrated Review ‘refresh’. Some good stuff in it. But: this government’s challenge is that they are a serially unserious government.

Since the last Integrated Review with its much trumpeted ‘tilt’ to the Indo-Pacific, a region of 4.3 billion people we seen…

• £3 million extra invested in the region by the foreign office

• Two extra warships

• Three new High Commissioners to the Pacific Islands, and

• An MOD headcount of 1,300 - which is less than 1% of its establishment.

That’s not a tilt. It’s a glance in the right direction. And today the Foreign Secretary could say very little about how much in new resource would go into reinforcing the shift. So. Don’t expect much to change.

Interested in the facts? Here’s the parliamentary questions I put down to every key department asking them what they had shifted into Indo-Pacific, as part of the tilt….

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2022-11-30.99737.h&s=speaker%3A11360#g99737.q0

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2022-11-30.99738.h&s=speaker%3A11360#g99738.q0

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2022-11-30.99734.h&s=speaker%3A11360#g99734.q0

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2022-11-30.99734.h&s=speaker%3A11360#g99734.q0

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2022-11-30.99735.h&s=speaker%3A11360#g99735.q0

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2022-11-30.99733.h&s=speaker%3A11360#g99733.q0

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2022-11-30.99743.h&s=speaker%3A11360#g99743.q0

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2022-11-30.99739.h&s=speaker%3A11360#g99739.q0