David Cameron had an Oliver Hardy moment at the weekend when he all but told the last Labour Government: “That’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into.” writes John Hipwood.

He was talking about the United Kingdom’s defences and the spending dilemma bequeathed to him by the Blair and Brown administrations.

In a piece of scheduling which can only please the Coalition Government’s opponents, all of the Conservative Party’s angst over defence issues will be exposed in Birmingham on Wednesday just a few hours before Mr Cameron takes centre stage to deliver his keynote speech to the Tory conference.

In what will be the first prime ministerial speech to a Tory conference for 14 years, Mr Cameron will probably utter a phrase along the lines of: “The first duty of any government is the protection of its people.”

But what does that mean exactly?

The Ministry of Defence is a bit like the National Health Service in that it’s possible to spend any amount of money on it and it still wouldn’t be enough.

There will be many in the hall on Wednesday to hear Defence Secretary Liam Fox’s speech who are worried about the Coalition’s approach to the Strategic Defence and Security Review currently taking place.

Dr Fox wrote to the PM last week, describing the cuts being considered as “draconian” and “intellectually and financially” indefensible. He joined other ministers in criticising the leak of the letter. But in terms of open government, which the Coalition says it’s committed to, it did the nation a favour because it gave those of us who don’t sit around the cabinet table a window through which to look at the arguments.

The principal complaint against the Government’s approach is that the defence review is being rushed and that it being seen as part of the Coalition’s programme of cuts rather than as a considered view of Britain’s defence needs for the next 20 years or more hopefully well beyond our commitment in Afghanistan.

Mr Cameron has said proper funding of the operation in Afghanistan is a given, but he clearly sees a lot of the programmes and equipment in the MoD budget as a complete waste of taxpayers’ (or borrowed) money.

“We have inherited a situation where we have lots of battle tanks that are ready to roll into Russia that’s not what you need today,” he said yesterday. “We have lots of aeroplanes which are ready to do dogfights with the Soviet Union (sic) airforce that’s not right,” he added.

Well some people might think that those fighters could be very useful in shooting down an aircraft or two headed our way and bent on repeating the 9/11 carnage.

Mr Cameron seemed to be suggesting that the Royal Navy will get at least the first of the two aircraft carriers that it has been promised, although he condemns Labour for failing to work out which planes were going to be put on them.

General Sir Mike Jackson, former head of the Army, said at the weekend that, with less than three weeks to go before details of the spending cuts are announced, it was still unclear what the Government was thinking about defence. “My concern is we are going to live with the outcome of these decisions for a decade or more. It seems a short time to take measures that are being confused with getting the public finances right,” he said.

Another former army commander, Major General Patrick Cordingley said: “This is being rushed and we’re not getting a clear steer from the Government because they probably don’t know what they are doing themselves.” Mr Cameron will get a clear idea of the Conservative Party’s view in Wednesday’s defence and foreign affair debate, and some of those opinions will be in the back of his mind when he chairs a vital meeting of the National Security Council the following day.

He said yesterday that the Coalition had been set an “impossible question” in having to deal with a £38 billion overspend in the defence budget.

The PM declared: “Of all the things I have inherited as prime minister, this is the biggest mess.”

Clearing up the mess is important, but it must not be done with such haste that decisions made in the next week or two will be deeply regretted in 10 years’ time.

***

Also on Thursday, the result of the shadow cabinet elections will be announced, and we presume that, at last, Ed Miliband will tell us who is going to fill the vital role of shadow chancellor.

He’s in danger of igniting another potential family feud if he appoints Yvette Cooper as shadow chancellor in preference to her husband, Ed Balls.

Imagine the conversation at breakfast…

Yvette: “I’m making a major statement on our fiscal policy today, Ed. Want to take a look?”

Ed (after a quick glance at the document): “Nah, you don’t want to do it like that. You want to do it like this . . .”