In recent years, defence has fallen low on the list of national priorities. While other government departments have ring-fenced budgets, that of the MoD is completely unprotected. On Monday Lord Richards, a former chief of the Armed Forces, said, ‘Britain must accept that sooner or later ground troops and tanks will have to be sent into combat to overcome IS.’ He said that David Cameron needed to put the country on a ‘war footing’ and rethink its military strategy to extinguish the threat posed by Islamic State militants. See also: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/politics-blog/11722780/By-not-spending-enough-on-defence-Britain-puts-the-West-at-risk.html