Labour peer George Robertson – author of the landmark Strategic Defence Review- has today aimed all of his guns at Starmer and his government for “corrosive complacency” on defence. The Defence Investment Plan was meant to set out funding for the SDR’s proposals – it has been delayed by half a year so far…
Robertson was Defence Secretary from 1997 to 1999 and NATO Secretary General from then until 2003. He has trailed remarks from a speech to be given tonight in the FT:
“There is a corrosive complacency today in Britain’s political leadership. Lip service is paid to the risks, the threats, the bright red signals of danger — but even a promised national conversation about defence can’t be started.
We are underprepared. We are underinsured. We are under attack. We are not safe . . . Britain’s national security and safety is in peril.”
Robertson has it in for Rachel Reeves, who he points out used “a mere 40 words on defence in over an hour” in her Budget speech and in the Spring Statement “she used none.” In addition he accuses “non-military experts in the Treasury” of “vandalism”…
He adds: “We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.” Something that has been blindingly obvious to some of us for something approaching decades now – while main domestic plank of Starmer’s government has been increasing spending on benefits…
Speaking at an IPPR think tank event in London, the Health Secretary compared striking junior doctors to mutinous sailors.
“I feel like we’ve turned the ship, the boat’s going in the right direction, except some of the crew are trying to row in one direction while the rest of us are going in the other. You can’t make progress that way. We are seeing an improving NHS, and we’ve seen improvement despite resident doctors’ strikes, but the fact is, performance would have been better and there would have been more money to invest in staff and services if the BMA hadn’t been undertaking the strike action.”