As Blair’s hostage crisis continues, discontent within the Royal Navy appears to be rising. The Daily Telegraph has an interesting report here. Here’s an extract:

One officer, recently returned from the Gulf, said: “The Government has to realise if they want to carry out gunboat diplomacy then they really need to start spending money on warships that they are willing to use.” The current boarding party course offered by the Navy covered only basic elements that were described by one officer as “elementary and slightly laughable”. The two-day training package was not long enough because the Navy was operating under strict budgets, he added.

To repeat what John O’Sullivan wrote in an important piece published on NRO yesterday, a piece that is well worth rereading in its entirety: “That this might happen—with the half-hearted consent of the British people—is the result of two policies pursued by the Blair government over many years: the running down of Britain’s armed forces and the deliberate official discouragement of British patriotism in favor of the European Union and international institutions.”

Yup. Told you so.