Suez Canal comment

Letter to the Editor of The Daily Telegraph from Liveryman Carl Stephen Patrick Hunter

SIR – The Suez Canal was opened in 1869 and Cyprus became a British protectorate in 1878. After the Suez Crisis in 1956 it became, in the 1960’s, the UK’s last strategic asset in the eastern Mediterranean.

The latest defence review invests in the British sovereign base areas. This is prescient, given recent events in the Suez Canal, and an example of how Britain’s global trade interests coincide with its strategic ones. As the British admiral Sir John Fisher said, there are “five keys to the world: the Strait of Dover, the Straits of Gibraltar, the Suez Canal, the Straits of Malacca, and the Cape of Good Hope”. Let our maritime nation remember that 96 per cent of its trade is shipped.

Carl Hunter is also a Liveryman of the Hobourable Company of Master Mariners

Published 30 March 2021