Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, suggested German money should subsidise British forces in Afghanistan, as he called for reform of the 60-year-old Nato military alliance. In an interview with The Sunday Times, Fox claimed it was unfair that the countries doing most of the fighting were also footing the largest bills. Our forces are taking a disproportionate share of casualties and our taxpayers are also taking a disproportionate financial burden, he said. Some countries neither want to fight nor fund. Fox said Nato needed to be reformed so members such as Germany with few troops on the front line would be forced to make cash payments to the states bearing the brunt of the the fighting. He revealed that he planned to work closely with France, a country which also bears a heavy fighting burden, to grasp the Nato nettle. His outspoken remarks come as the Tories wrestle with the need to make huge cuts in the Ministry of Defence budget while ensuring that the war in Afghanistan is properly funded. The Conservatives have already said they would cut the cost of the MoDs bureaucracy by 1 billion, but some estimates suggest that a total of 5 billion may have to be axed from the departmental budget. Everybody knows we are going to be working in a very tight financial situation, Fox said. However, he said the big decisions on cuts would only emerge from a new strategic defence review, which will be launched after the election. He added that the refusal by Gordon Browns government to provide the Tories with vital data meant it was impossible for them to formulate detailed plans in opposition. In none of the major equipment purchases do we know where the penalty clauses lie or what the cost would be of not doing things, he said. We cant know until we are elected. Fox gave one example of how Labour had reclassified previously public information to sabotage Tory planning. We have regularly been asking the government where there are pinch points in skills such as engineers or medics that are limiting ability to operate efficiently, he said. The government had previously given us this information. This is nothing to do with national security. This is the government covering up its own incompetence. Scots-born Fox, 48, has had a seat on the Conservative front benches for the past 16 years making him a veteran compared with David Cameron and George Osborne. In 2005 he stood against Cameron for the leadership on a right-wing platform. There had been speculation that his days were numbered of his unfashionably hardline views until Cameron personally endorsed him at the last Conservative party conference. He made it clear that he has repelled the most recent challenge to his authority the recruitment of General Sir Richard Dannatt to the Tory team. The plan announced last year for the former chief of the general staff to become a Tory peer and possibly a defence minister had been hatched without Foxs knowledge. Yesterday Fox insisted Dannatt was now just one voice among many. We have a large number of advisers, he said. We are also capable of making up our own minds on issues. Fox indicated that the current forces chiefs had vetoed Dannatts appointment as a minister: They think there would be a problem in the constitutional relationships if he were to hold a ministerial role. If Fox does become defence secretary, he will inherit a dysfunctional department where the three services the army, navy and air force are openly hostile to each other. As chief of the general staff, Dannatt was regarded by some as too army-centric and made no secret of his contempt for other services. The shadow defence secretary went out of his way to soothe the fears of the navy chiefs that they might be sidelined. We are a maritime nation, he said. We have to recognise the role that maritime forces will continue to have in the security of the United Kingdom. With the Chilcot inquiry on Iraq grabbing the headlines, few politicians want to raise the prospect of a new foreign war. However, Fox warned that the West needed to be ready to use force to combat the threat posed by Irans nuclear weapons programme. We may be at the early stages of what we may later view as the Iranian crisis, he said. Could he conceive of Britain joining in US-led air strikes on Iran? It is absolutely imperative that Iran knows that everything is on the table. A doctors dilemma Liam Fox has disclosed that when he practised as a GP he prescribed large doses of strong painkillers to terminally ill patients knowing it might cause them to die more quickly. However, he insisted he followed standard medical procedure and said he was opposed to liberalising the laws on assisted suicide. He said: If you give [a patient] very big doses of morphine and you know that the chances are you make them more susceptible to pneumonia and to dying more quickly, thats okay because the primary intention is to alleviate the suffering. I see that as being on one side of the moral and ethical line, but to carry out an action whose primary objective is the death of your patient I see as being on the other side of the line. It is a very painful issue for any of us who have been in that arena. I have always drawn the line between mainstream medical practice and euthanasia. I just cant cross it.(The Sunday Times)