The top of Portsmouth’s iconic Spinnaker Tower offers a breathtaking view of the exceptionally proportioned harbor of this large Hampshire town. In the old shipyards transformed into a museum, the Warriorthe first armored frigate of the Royal Navy built in 1860, alongside the victory on board which the illustrious Vice-Admiral Nelson won the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, which cost him his life. To the north lies the main base of the British navy: it houses two thirds of its fleet, or around thirty ships, including its two aircraft carriers, the Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales.
At the beginning of April, the Queen Elizabeth is in Scotland, at the Clyde naval base in Faslane, for maintenance work. THE Prince of Wales, he has just returned to Portsmouth after participating in “Steadfast Defender 24”, the vast military exercise launched in January by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in northern Europe. Technicians are busy on the deck of this enormous 65,000-ton building which can accommodate around thirty F-35B fighter planes.
“ We fought in the early 2000s for the Navy to keep two aircraft carriers [leur construction a été approuvée en 2007, le Queen-Elizabeth a été mis en service en 2017, le Prince-of-Wales, en 2019]. This was the condition for the Navy to remain in Portsmouth, the only port capable of welcoming them., explains Gerald Vernon-Jackson, former president of the city’s municipal council between 2004 and 2023 (with an interruption between 2014 and 2018). This distinguished member of the Liberal Democrat party arranged to meet at the top of the Spinnaker Tower in order to better understand the importance of the Navy for this city of 200,000 souls, which “lived by and for the Navy for centuries”. “Without her, Portsmouth would lose its soul”, he adds. Many residents of Portsmouth have family in the navy: when a ship returns to port, they still crowd around the Round Tower which has defended the entrance since the end of the Middle Ages, and greet the crews.
“On a war footing”
At the end of winter, a rumor stirred up the local media. Victim of technical problems, the Prince of Wales could be sold to fund other Navy programs. “People were worried because, for ten years, they have seen the fleet diminish”, explains Charlie Murphy, Liberal Democrat legislative candidate for Portsmouth South. In the 1960s, when defense spending represented still 7% of British GDP, the Navy fielded eight aircraft carriers, 54 submarines and 156 destroyers and frigates. In Portsmouth, it employed 40,000 people.
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