Best Of

Third rate government, failing to understand that defence of the Realm should be its first priority.

If you take that view what rating was the government that dropped troop numbers to the lowest ever level and cut defence spending in real terms? - https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8175/

And don’t give me more dangerous world nonsense - the Iran nuclear deal was back in 2015 and Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 - it was already a dangerous world when the previous Conservative government made their “cuts.” The current government has increased spending, but they are not, it seems, doing so to a level deemed appropriate by the people that want the money.

Those people may be right, but that is not a given. I certainly do not believe that if given it they will spend it well.

Oh I’m definitely not letting the last lot off either. If they hadn’t got the hint before, 24th February 2022 should have been a massive wake-up call.

To his vast credit, PM Johnson stood above most with the initial response to the Ukraine war, but the wider issues over defence, especially in the procurement department, are very much still there. Look at the Ajax debacle for one example, they should have stopped throwing good money after bad some time ago, and ordered vehicles off the shelf from elsewhere. The Koreans have a modern IFV that works, licence their design.

There is a lot going on in the background that’s not received much publicity, such as collaborations on cheap drone production for Ukraine, but a lot more needs to be done.

Add the background of the US turning inward when it comes to Europe’s security, after decades of European governments failing to step up to the plate themselves, and a failure to invest becomes critical.

My apologies for biting a bit hard - your comment rang out like a bit of a partisan pearl clutching. As you say Ajax was a disaster and is simply one of many. I stopped with a forces mate of mine last week and over several beers he vented about the many disasters within MOD, and the ranks of top brass topping up their forces pensions in jobs with the suppliers.

I see Dominic Cummings popped up with one of his regular “I told you so”s yesterday. I never know how much to believe - but if you can get past the ego and the odd writing style he does tend to diagnose the issues very well. I tend to be sceptical of his solutions mind.

Third rate government, failing to understand that defence of the Realm should be its first priority.

If you take that view what rating was the government that dropped troop numbers to the lowest ever level and cut defence spending in real terms? - https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8175/

And don’t give me more dangerous world nonsense - the Iran nuclear deal was back in 2015 and Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 - it was already a dangerous world when the previous Conservative government made their “cuts.” The current government has increased spending, but they are not, it seems, doing so to a level deemed appropriate by the people that want the money.

Those people may be right, but that is not a given. I certainly do not believe that if given it they will spend it well.

Oh I’m definitely not letting the last lot off either. If they hadn’t got the hint before, 24th February 2022 should have been a massive wake-up call.

To his vast credit, PM Johnson stood above most with the initial response to the Ukraine war, but the wider issues over defence, especially in the procurement department, are very much still there. Look at the Ajax debacle for one example, they should have stopped throwing good money after bad some time ago, and ordered vehicles off the shelf from elsewhere. The Koreans have a modern IFV that works, licence their design.

There is a lot going on in the background that’s not received much publicity, such as collaborations on cheap drone production for Ukraine, but a lot more needs to be done.

Add the background of the US turning inward when it comes to Europe’s security, after decades of European governments failing to step up to the plate themselves, and a failure to invest becomes critical.

My apologies for biting a bit hard - your comment rang out like a bit of a partisan pearl clutching. As you say Ajax was a disaster and is simply one of many. I stopped with a forces mate of mine last week and over several beers he vented about the many disasters within MOD, and the ranks of top brass topping up their forces pensions in jobs with the suppliers.

I see Dominic Cummings popped up with one of his regular “I told you so”s yesterday. I never know how much to believe - but if you can get past the ego and the odd writing style he does tend to diagnose the issues very well. I tend to be sceptical of his solutions mind.

It’s not a popular view, but IMHO we need more people like Dominic Cummings around government. Very often making the wrong decision is better than not making a decision, or spending years talking about what the decision should be.

Something must be done, now!

Alternatively, there’s a massive amount of institutional inertia across government, and it’s holding the country back significantly.

Up to 90% of Ireland’s asylum seekers may have entered from Northern Ireland, data shows

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/12/ireland-asylum-seekers-northern-land-border
...The UK Home Office revealed overnight that in the past year it had apprehended more than 900 “immigration offenders” abusing the open land border.

Data from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in Dublin, however, showed 16,600 people had sought asylum at an airport or port. Significant numbers in that cohort were thought to have travelled from Great Britain to Ireland via a flight or ferry to Belfast.

The CTA has come under renewed scrutiny this week after a knife attack in Belfast on Monday. The suspect, Hadi Alodid, a 30-year-old Sudanese refugee, has been charged with attempted murder.

The attack triggered two nights of violence after it emerged Alodid had travelled from Sudan to Paris and then Dublin before taking a bus to Belfast where he claimed asylum in 2023. Police reinforcements were sent from Great Britain to Northern Ireland on Thursday.

Before 2019, the number of people seeking asylum in Ireland was relatively small, about 5,000, commensurate with the experience of a small country on the farthest outreaches of Europe...

So, rather than us complaining about illegal migration from Eire they have much more to complain about in terms of illegal migration from Ulster. And of course those complaining will presumably acknowledge that the UK is a safe country.

Er, not at the moment.
..It was also expecting to revive a post-Brexit returns agreement that has so far seen only one asylum seeker returned to Ireland from the UK.
The deal agreed in 2020 was delayed after Ireland’s high court ruled that the UK’s policy on sending asylum seekers to Rwanda meant it was not a legally defined “safe country”...

LOL, it just gets more and more ridiculous. As I have said before the only way to address this is to remove the right to asylum and to make it invitation only. Sooner or later all of Western Europe are going to go down that route. It would be nice if we did before electing the likes of Farage to power.

What happens to refugees if no country takes them? Do we drown them at sea? Shoot them?

That's moot since there are country willing to take them.

So our line is we won't take any refugees but other (mostly far poorer and more stretched) countries will? I wonder how long that lasts as an equilibrium.

Economy contracts in April by 0.1%

Thanks, Donald!

Economy contracts in April by 0.1%

Thanks, Donald!

The businesses I run have nothing to do with Trump

April was a shit month because everone is holding on to their cash

Nobody has any confidence in the economy/

Al Carns on R4 Today this morning. two notes: Tremendously matey to the audience. No willingness to say anything that might upset any Labour MP, and referred all hard questions to the PM for that reason, so he had no interest in either untangling or cutting Labour's Gordian knots about money. Not great at appearing to answer hard questions.

Not as good I had expected.

It look to me like naked leadership ambition. Same as Burnham but with less substance to go with it.

Less substance than Burnham.

Ouch

Third rate government, failing to understand that defence of the Realm should be its first priority.

If you take that view what rating was the government that dropped troop numbers to the lowest ever level and cut defence spending in real terms? - https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8175/

And don’t give me more dangerous world nonsense - the Iran nuclear deal was back in 2015 and Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 - it was already a dangerous world when the previous Conservative government made their “cuts.” The current government has increased spending, but they are not, it seems, doing so to a level deemed appropriate by the people that want the money.

Those people may be right, but that is not a given. I certainly do not believe that if given it they will spend it well.

Third rate government, failing to understand that defence of the Realm should be its first priority.

You've already had (and to your credit admitted) mention of the massive failings of previous Governments notably (but not exclusively) 2010-24.

I continue to struggle with the nature of the Russian "threat" and what seems to be an over-reaction. Is there a "threat"? Yes, inasmuch as I'm sure Putin (like every Russian ruler since Peter the Great) would prefer to dominate Europe but the will to do it and the means to do it?

The notion of a 100 division armoured thrust sweeping across Poland, Germany and France to the Channel is absurd at this time - the failings of the current Russian military machine have been laid bare in Ukraine where (as far as this cynical old soul is concerned) the war continues as much for defence analysts to observe the evolution of war as it does for any sensible military or political purpose.

There are those who argue the "threat" is cyber and there's a lot of truth in that - we look to be vulnerable (though I suspect less so than is often believed) to "inconvenience terrorism" - such things as hacking into bank systems and preventing transactions or stock control and production systems so we run out of the essentials such as toilet paper, avocado or the Racing Post.

Taking down the Internet for 24 hours would be seen as a national catastrophe and would make this forum a lot quieter but the notion of a prolonged power cut (a week or two) is one that really worries me.

I'm fully supportive therefore of cyber defence capabilities being enhanced (and I imagine we can do a fair bit of damage as well though we don't talk about it) but I sense a broader overplaying of the hand. This isn't Cold War 2.0 and while the nuclear shadow hangs over us every much now as it did then, the reasons why no one uses nuclear weapons now are the same as they ever were.

What then is the debate really about? Is it about defence or identity? Having (or appearing to have) strong armed forces is often a virility test though as history has often told us simply having the men and the materiel can be more a comfort blanket than a statement of military fact.

A lot of it is, I think, back to the old questions about struggling to define ourselves - what is Britain? What should it be? What do we want it to be? Indeed, those questions have sat at the core of our national debate for a couple of generations and a lot that has happened (and is happening) flows from them.