Hutton’s half-cocked cuts are no use to anyone

The new Defence Secretary John Hutton today announced his 'reprioritising' plans for the UK's defence equipment. The office of circumlocution should be proud of such verbal dexterity. In the language you and I speak, he was talking about cuts.

Hutton has to reduce the current £1.5bn overspend on equipment this year - an overspend that is likely to recur for the next three years. His tactics for cutting and trimming seem more Vidal Sassoon, a modish snip here and there, rather than Sweeney Todd.

Savings are to be made by postponing the introduction of the two aircraft carriers ordered earlier this year for £3.9bn. Now they won't join the Navy until the Joint Combat Aircraft, the Lockheed F-35, is ready. At approaching $300bn it is now the most expensive fast jet programme in history, and won't be ready for another 11 years at the earliest.

Similarly the Army and Navy are not to get their 70 Future Lynx helicopters until 2014 - the first were due at the end of next year. Their builders, AgustaWestland in Yeovil, get a consolation prize in orders for new engines for 12 Lynx Mark 9 helicopters for Afghanistan.

The Army wants a new general utility carrier as part of the FRES (Future Rapid Effects System) family of fighting vehicles. There is no sign of this in Hutton's statement - which means it isn't going to happen soon, if at all. Instead the Warrior tracked vehicle will be 'upgraded' and a new reconnaissance and command vehicle will be bought off the shelf.

The commanders of the services say a full defence and strategy review is now urgent, and it must be properly costed. Hutton doesn't want one before the general election.

Yet the wooliness of today's announcements make the case for review even stronger. Even with the new cuts, the 2008 budget is £450m overspent. And what happens when Barack Obama asks Gordon Brown for another 4,000 British troops for Afghanistan - a request Brown knows he cannot refuse?