Conservative Manifesto 2010 Promote Our National Interest Defend Our Security

Conservative Manifesto 2010 Promote Our National Interest Defend Our Security

We will create a National Security Council to oversee all aspects of our security, chaired by the Prime Minister. We are committed to succeeding in our mission in Afghanistan and will not leave our Forces without the resources they need to fulfil this goal. We will repair the Military Covenant with a series of measures to support service personnel, their families and veterans.

Labour have failed to deliver a unified and coherent approach to national security. they have not even kept their promise of a comprehensive national Security budget. their incompetence places our nation at risk.

Despite fighting two major wars in the last decade, Labour have cut the target for the trained strength of the army, shrunk the size of the Navy by a fifth and run down the RAF.

the men and women of our armed forces are the ones charged with protecting our nation’s security. but Labour’s dangerous mismanagement has endangered lives and harmed britain’s capacity to defend itself. Labour have been too slow to provide the equipment, such as helicopters, which our forces on operations have badly needed. our brave men and women, their families, and our veterans deserve the best for putting their lives on the line to protect our liberties. We will ensure they get the best.

a resilient nation

We understand the severity of the threats that exist and will do all we can to make Britain safe. We will establish a national Security Council to co-ordinate responses to the dangers we face, which will be chaired by the Prime minister. in addition, we will:

• create a national Security adviser and a new national resilience team for homeland Security;

• develop a national Security Strategy and oversee a Strategic Defence and Security review that implements that strategy; and,

• establish a new Permanent military Command for homeland Defence and Security to provide a more structured military contribution to homeland security. terrorism remains a major threat to our country and some of the biggest threats to our security do not come from abroad – they are home grown. a Conservative government will ban any organisations which advocate hate or the violent overthrow of our society, such as hizb-ut-tahrir, and close down organisations which attempt to fund terrorism from the UK.

in northern ireland, we will continue to give our fullest support to the police and other agencies in their efforts to combat the threat from dissident republican and other terrorist organisations.

Support our brave armed forces

our mission in afghanistan is vital to our national security. Success in afghanistan will be achieved when it is a more stable state, able to manage its own security, resist outside interference, and prevent terrorists from using its territory as a safe haven. We will always ensure our forces have the resources they need to carry out their mission properly, and we will press other members of nato to take their fair share of the military burden. the training of afghanistan’s own security forces is key to the success of the mission, and we will continue to make it a priority.

our Strategic Defence and Security review will ensure that resources for our armed forces are matched to our foreign policy requirements. We support the decision to renew britain’s submarine-based nuclear deterrent, based on the trident missile system.

the hopeless mismanagement of defence procurement by this government has wasted billions of taxpayers’ money and left our armed forces underequipped and dangerously exposed. We will review the structure of the ministry of Defence to reduce running costs by 25 per cent. We will reform the procurement

process to ensure the delivery of equipment on time and on budget. We will release spending on unnecessary and bureaucratic eU defence initiatives and spend the money on our armed forces. as part of that process, we will re-evaluate our position with the european Defence agency.

our commitment to look after the armed forces and their families – the military Covenant – has been allowed to fall into disrepair. this is one of the most damning failures of gordon brown’s government. We will restore the military Covenant and ensure that our armed forces, their families and veterans are properly taken care of. to make that happen, we will:

• double the operational allowance;

• maximise rest and recuperation leave;

• ensure our servicemen and women are treated in dedicated military wards in hospital;

• change the rules so that service personnel are not locked out of the voting system by rules that Labour have introduced;

• use ‘pupil level annual school census’ data to include service children within our plans for a pupil premium in schools, ensuring they attract extra funding;

• provide university and further education scholarships for the children of servicemen and women killed while on active duty, backdated to 1990;

• pilot a mental health follow-up service for those who have left the services; and,

• review the rules governing the awarding of medals. 107

Iran
In Iran, hundreds of thousands of citizens calling for democratic reforms are using new technologies to come together, coordinate their protests against the state, and communicate with the outside world. The power of these information flows is growing rapidly. Every time the Iranian state has tried to choke the flow of information to dampen down the protests, people have turned to new technologies to share and access information. When the state cut off text messaging services, protesters switched to social media like twitter and facebook. When foreign journalists had their visas removed and had to leave the country, iranians began to upload video clips onto Youtube so that the government’s actions could continue to be scrutinised. and when the government tried to ban popular websites, private citizens outside Iran set up proxy internet servers so that iranians could continue to access information.