At current rate of spending, General Sir David Richards has effectively committed us to an additional £20 billion in public expenditure – this being about the least we can get away with for the five more years he is expecting British troop numbers to remain at current levels in Afghanistan.
With the Labour administration expected to fall in the forthcoming general election, this of course is a sum that Mr Cameron's "modern" Conservatives are going to have to find, on top of the replacements they are going to have to fund as equipment wears out and is destroyed.
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