I am told that there is (finally) a "Barrier Removal Programme" starting to move - the Council "put aside a fund"! in 2021.
I'd be interested to hear If anyone notices.
This after a friend who is a Professor at York University who has multiple sclerosis, and now uses a 3-wheeled mobility aid (having gone from cycle to stabilised cycle over the years). sued the Council under the Equality Act 2020 after they blocked the entrance to a green space (Hob Moor) with the following custom-made anti-wheelchair obstruction, which was uniquely abusive of them. They spent taxpayers' money installing barriers quite widely, at several thousand a pop to implement law breaking. Before that he attempted to engage the Council for 3 years. They did the usual things - ignore him, ask for more time, dissemble, then cave at a cost of several thousand.
The problems with facilities designed by people who do not understand disability, or without thinking about it, are covered in his article.
There is a deeper issue, here. A structural one.
The “facilities designed by people who do not understand disability, or without thinking about it”
This pattern repeats - something designed and created at great expense, that is rubbish. And often breaks the rules it is supposed to enforce.
The famous Bat Tunnel was founded on a stupid idea - perfect safety for bats rather than an assessed risk. Nothing can be perfectly safe - even at infinite cost. The specification was created by someone without even a passing interest in reading about engineering and managing physical projects.
It is this deep, ingrained, lack of knowledge that causes much damage in our society.
Yet a number of ancient woodlands have been bulldozed to make way for HS2. The inconsistency is what is so baffling - the idea is that you do a CBA that values all this stuff and therefore you reach an efficient outcome - but HS2 decisions seem to made at random.
I think at this point it would have been cheaper and faster to have bored a tunnel from London to Birmingham!
I've witnessed an interesting case study in getting infrastructure done these last 2 weeks in Turkey, particularly on the most recent stretch in the Erdogan heartland of the Black Sea region.
They are building roads, railways and airports at a breakneck pace. All through the Pontic mountains are new tunnels, vast arrays of diggers and construction equipment. It's impressive. But look closer and you realise why this couldn't be a recipe for Britain without cultural and regulatory changes that I'm not sure we're up for.
They don't close the road during construction, or notably cone off the works. You drive among it. That means:
1. For large stretches you're driving on unmade rough surfaces, kicking up dust (or mud in winter). I expect there are several dents and tyre blowouts from this daily. Can't imagine the British road user tolerating this. But it means they can work at great speed. 2. The health and safety implications don't bear thinking about. The whole set up looks like multiple accidents waiting to happen. But of course that will make things cheaper
Planning and property rights? Erdogan decrees, it gets built
Biodiversity and conservation? Not really something Turkey goes in for. No bat tunnels here.
And of course a low wage workforce with very few protections.
If we were a middle income country like Turkey then we could absolutely build HS2, NPR, a few new motorways and several new cities for a fraction of the cost and rapidly. The trouble is, we are not. So we need to work within What's culturally and socially acceptable.
As I understand it, the three things that made HS2 such a disaster costwise were home counties nimbyism, the way risks were shared in the contracts and the very high speed insisted on. The last of these I guess has some justification, the second seems like the civil service got fucked over drawing up the contracts and the first is a disgrace, they should have been told to get to fuck. Another Cameron era fuck up.
I wonder whether have taken a wrong turn on insisting on laying off all the risk? AIUI (@casinoroyale can comment) it’s risk apportionment which drives up the price.
And then I had coffee with an old colleague who now works for an Australian engineering consultancy. He mentioned that the government had done this with a big infra project in Melbourne.
But then, faced with a £2bn overrun the contractors downed tools. So the government had a choice between delaying work (suing the contractor or retweeting) and having a very big hole in the middle of Melbourne for years or chipping in £1bn to cover half the gap.
So if, in reality, we aren’t laying off the risk shouldn’t we accept that and just price accordingly? Even some form of fixed margin contract.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
It is not a case of new stuff in 10 to 15 years. We need stuff now. We need more personnel (many of the ships we have can't go to sea for lack of manpower). We need massive investment in the new technologies we are seeing dominate the wars around the world - drones and IT being two. We need to end our reliance on the US for much of what we do by providing it ourselves or with our other allies.
This is no longer about shiney new toys - although we do need a lot more ships for example. It is about buying stuff off the shelf which we can integrate and use straight away, not in decades.
I'm a low tax Conservative and I'd whack up income tax by 2p now to pay for it all. In full. Even though it'd personally hurt me and others.
That's how seriously I think we need to take Defence.
It is just 3 billion a year more for 4 years
Take it from welfare - triple lock anyone ?
Removing the triple lock doesn’t save you £4bn next year - it saves money down the line
There is still 3 billion in the welfare budget to pay the cost and saving money down the line is a benefit anyway
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
It is not a case of new stuff in 10 to 15 years. We need stuff now. We need more personnel (many of the ships we have can't go to sea for lack of manpower). We need massive investment in the new technologies we are seeing dominate the wars around the world - drones and IT being two. We need to end our reliance on the US for much of what we do by providing it ourselves or with our other allies.
This is no longer about shiney new toys - although we do need a lot more ships for example. It is about buying stuff off the shelf which we can integrate and use straight away, not in decades.
I'm a low tax Conservative and I'd whack up income tax by 2p now to pay for it all. In full. Even though it'd personally hurt me and others.
That's how seriously I think we need to take Defence.
It is just 3 billion a year more for 4 years
Take it from welfare - triple lock anyone ?
Removing the triple lock doesn’t save you £4bn next year - it saves money down the line
The real issue with the triple lock - cancelling it saves barely anything in the next few years but not cancelling ensures inexorable growth in the long term - the losers will be future retirees who will pay for it in increased state pension age
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
It is not a case of new stuff in 10 to 15 years. We need stuff now. We need more personnel (many of the ships we have can't go to sea for lack of manpower). We need massive investment in the new technologies we are seeing dominate the wars around the world - drones and IT being two. We need to end our reliance on the US for much of what we do by providing it ourselves or with our other allies.
This is no longer about shiney new toys - although we do need a lot more ships for example. It is about buying stuff off the shelf which we can integrate and use straight away, not in decades.
I'm a low tax Conservative and I'd whack up income tax by 2p now to pay for it all. In full. Even though it'd personally hurt me and others.
That's how seriously I think we need to take Defence.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
Given that Russia is currently struggling to hold its own against Ukraine and that we are one of a number of powerful allied European countries, forgive me if I don't quite see the urgency with regard to planning for a war with Russia. It seems to me that the risk to the UK from, for example, climate change is an order of magnitude greater than that from Russia.
The big change we need re climate change is more spend on specific mitigation. Air conditioning fitted into hospitals should be a priority imo, particularly geriatric care.
Maybe schools too...
What you're talking about is adaptation, but yes, we need more spend on both that and mitigation (which means putting out fewer CO2 emissions, etc.). Of course Russia is a threat, but it is a relatively minor one in comparison to climate change, so I don't understand those who claim that we can't afford to spend money to counter the former but must urgently find billions for defence against the latter.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
It is not a case of new stuff in 10 to 15 years. We need stuff now. We need more personnel (many of the ships we have can't go to sea for lack of manpower). We need massive investment in the new technologies we are seeing dominate the wars around the world - drones and IT being two. We need to end our reliance on the US for much of what we do by providing it ourselves or with our other allies.
This is no longer about shiney new toys - although we do need a lot more ships for example. It is about buying stuff off the shelf which we can integrate and use straight away, not in decades.
I'm a low tax Conservative and I'd whack up income tax by 2p now to pay for it all. In full. Even though it'd personally hurt me and others.
That's how seriously I think we need to take Defence.
It is just 3 billion a year more for 4 years
Take it from welfare - triple lock anyone ?
Also slow,down the rate of growth of UC and PIP.
6.4% this year is barmy.
Abuse of the system is in the media alot and well known tbh. Revealed preference is not that people will think "That's awful that must be costing the country a fortune", rather "I'll have some of that for myself thankyou very much".
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
I think the issue is that we think we are wasting the money, and any extra spend will equally be wasted. France apparently gets more defence for less spending for example. We can put one, maybe two, warships to sea etc. Ajax is unusable. Etc. I can see both sides of the argument. We need more defence. We need to stop wasting money.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
Given that Russia is currently struggling to hold its own against Ukraine and that we are one of a number of powerful allied European countries, forgive me if I don't quite see the urgency with regard to planning for a war with Russia. It seems to me that the risk to the UK from, for example, climate change is an order of magnitude greater than that from Russia.
The big change we need re climate change is more spend on specific mitigation. Air conditioning fitted into hospitals should be a priority imo, particularly geriatric care.
Maybe schools too...
What you're talking about is adaptation, but yes, we need more spend on both that and mitigation (which means putting out fewer CO2 emissions, etc.). Of course Russia is a threat, but it is a relatively minor one in comparison to climate change, so I don't understand those who claim that we can't afford to spend money to counter the former but must urgently find billions for defence against the latter.
Our CO2 is a gnat's fart in the grand scheme of things and we've reduced CO2 compared to most other places dramatically. We should not wear the hair shirt on this any longer, it is coming and we can not change it - we need to spend on mitigation (Air-con) rather than throttling our economy.
Even Justin Wokedeau kept the oil flowing in Canada.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
I think it reasonable to expect that a council housebuilding programme could be sustained with a capital subsidy of £100k per home, enough to build substantial homes and to fund the financing costs from the remaining reduced rents. It might even be a bit less than that.
So for a cost of £100bn, the country could have ended up with 1 million new council houses, transforming the lives of people across this country with the countless long term benefits that brings for social cohesion as well as huge long term savings for the government through housing benefit, avoiding childrens social care bills etc.
Instead we've wasted £100bn on a railway that achieves next to nothing and will be an uneconomic millstone even when operational. I write as someone from the West Midlands for whom HS2 will not cut the journey time to London because it will probably be quicker and certainly less stressful and convenient to continue use the WCML because of its better connectivity. And no doubt cheaper too.
1 million council homes v a useless railway. What an epic cock up.
You are going to run into finance issues.
Treasury funds the capital but councils get the rents? Treasury won’t like that. Treasury gets the rents but councils run the properties? How will they fund maintenance?
And don’t get me started on debt consolidation.
One thing that needs to be killed off yesterday is right to buy, or well keep it but right to buy must be at market value not with a huge discount.
And/or when you sell the council takes a cut. After all, by selling you a discounted property they are sharing in the investment. If that had been done there would be a steady stream of money to help fund new social housing.
I think it reasonable to expect that a council housebuilding programme could be sustained with a capital subsidy of £100k per home, enough to build substantial homes and to fund the financing costs from the remaining reduced rents. It might even be a bit less than that.
So for a cost of £100bn, the country could have ended up with 1 million new council houses, transforming the lives of people across this country with the countless long term benefits that brings for social cohesion as well as huge long term savings for the government through housing benefit, avoiding childrens social care bills etc.
Instead we've wasted £100bn on a railway that achieves next to nothing and will be an uneconomic millstone even when operational. I write as someone from the West Midlands for whom HS2 will not cut the journey time to London because it will probably be quicker and certainly less stressful and convenient to continue use the WCML because of its better connectivity. And no doubt cheaper too.
1 million council homes v a useless railway. What an epic cock up.
You are going to run into finance issues.
Treasury funds the capital but councils get the rents? Treasury won’t like that. Treasury gets the rents but councils run the properties? How will they fund maintenance?
And don’t get me started on debt consolidation.
One thing that needs to be killed off yesterday is right to buy, or well keep it but right to buy must be at market value not with a huge discount.
And/or when you sell the council takes a cut. After all, by selling you a discounted property they are sharing in the investment. If that had been done there would be a steady stream of money to help fund new social housing.
I've always seen the current scheme as the right to beggar councils tbh.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
Given that Russia is currently struggling to hold its own against Ukraine and that we are one of a number of powerful allied European countries, forgive me if I don't quite see the urgency with regard to planning for a war with Russia. It seems to me that the risk to the UK from, for example, climate change is an order of magnitude greater than that from Russia.
The big change we need re climate change is more spend on specific mitigation. Air conditioning fitted into hospitals should be a priority imo, particularly geriatric care.
Maybe schools too...
What you're talking about is adaptation, but yes, we need more spend on both that and mitigation (which means putting out fewer CO2 emissions, etc.). Of course Russia is a threat, but it is a relatively minor one in comparison to climate change, so I don't understand those who claim that we can't afford to spend money to counter the former but must urgently find billions for defence against the latter.
Our CO2 is a gnat's fart in the grand scheme of things and we've reduced CO2 compared to most other places dramatically. We should not wear the hair shirt on this any longer, it is coming and we can not change it - we need to spend on mitigation (Air-con) rather than throttling our economy.
Even Justin Wokedeau kept the oil flowing in Canada.
Air con is adaptation, not mitigation, and we'll need a damn sight more than air con to adapt to climate change if it isn't mitigated.
"We had packed lunches every day for 10 years and retired at 40"
So they scrimped and saved and retired at 40.
Fine.
But ALL the examples are couples or singles WITH NO KIDS. FFS. Nowhere is this point mentioned in the story.
We were £40,000 better off over 10 years from just that one lunch habit.
So £2k per person per year.
Alan had worked as a landscape gardener before launching a training and life-coaching business, while Katie was an actuary, or risk assessor, for a financial firm.
So 2-3hr/week more work probably would have got them same result. Or better job / harder negiotating for a pay rise.
In what way is making a packed lunch scrimping and saving? For a start, I got to eat what I wanted to eat, not what the local shops wanted to sell me. Better than working an extra 2-3 hours too.
I also made my own coffee in the office. Cafetiere, ground coffee, as good as paying £4 a cup, if you are not hung up on having espresso-based drinks all the time. And also saved the time going to the shop and getting it.
People do piss money up against the wall and claim it is some sort of necessity*. Or, it seems, humiliating to prepare your own food and beverages.
* In my case it is beer, so I am not immune. I am trying to find more social opportunities that don't involve drinking several pints
On your last point - I am part of a group of men who was in the same boat. We tried table tennis - but that was in a bar. Finally, we landed on padel. That's now my social opportunity, and I enjoy it more than sitting in a pub drinking. But unfortunately per hour it is probably at least as expensive as going to the pub, if not more so. Badminton is much better value for money, and just as much fun as far as I can see. But doesn't seem to catch on in the same way.
I'm a runner, that doesn't take up much time but it gives me a social opportunity three or four times a week. I need to rejoin a gym as at 61 I can't blag the strength work. I have just volunteered for Citizens Advice and one morning a week for my local conservation site. I am thinking about pickleball and will probably join U3A for next year (they operate on an academic year basis and don't do much in the summer). I go walking once a week with friends, we do normally end up in a pub but it is normally only a couple of pints.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
Europe, including the UK, would be better off having a strategic defence review that involved all nations, and designing how to have effective joint capabilities, rather than every nation trying to do everything.
That would have a bigger impact on collective capabilities than X% more spent in this country or that.
And it should be focussed on our own backyard, not power projection into the Middle East or Asia.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
It is not a case of new stuff in 10 to 15 years. We need stuff now. We need more personnel (many of the ships we have can't go to sea for lack of manpower). We need massive investment in the new technologies we are seeing dominate the wars around the world - drones and IT being two. We need to end our reliance on the US for much of what we do by providing it ourselves or with our other allies.
This is no longer about shiney new toys - although we do need a lot more ships for example. It is about buying stuff off the shelf which we can integrate and use straight away, not in decades.
I'm a low tax Conservative and I'd whack up income tax by 2p now to pay for it all. In full. Even though it'd personally hurt me and others.
That's how seriously I think we need to take Defence.
It is just 3 billion a year more for 4 years
Take it from welfare - triple lock anyone ?
Removing the triple lock doesn’t save you £4bn next year - it saves money down the line
The real issue with the triple lock - cancelling it saves barely anything in the next few years but not cancelling ensures inexorable growth in the long term - the losers will be future retirees who will pay for it in increased state pension age
We should keep the triple lock but use the average of the three measures (earnings growth, inflation, 2.5%) instead of the maximum. This would be fair, hard to argue against, and politically would not involve abandoning the triple lock!
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
It is not a case of new stuff in 10 to 15 years. We need stuff now. We need more personnel (many of the ships we have can't go to sea for lack of manpower). We need massive investment in the new technologies we are seeing dominate the wars around the world - drones and IT being two. We need to end our reliance on the US for much of what we do by providing it ourselves or with our other allies.
This is no longer about shiney new toys - although we do need a lot more ships for example. It is about buying stuff off the shelf which we can integrate and use straight away, not in decades.
I'm a low tax Conservative and I'd whack up income tax by 2p now to pay for it all. In full. Even though it'd personally hurt me and others.
That's how seriously I think we need to take Defence.
It is just 3 billion a year more for 4 years
Take it from welfare - triple lock anyone ?
Also slow,down the rate of growth of UC and PIP.
6.4% this year is barmy.
Abuse of the system is in the media alot and well known tbh. Revealed preference is not that people will think "That's awful that must be costing the country a fortune", rather "I'll have some of that for myself thankyou very much".
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
We need to do as much as we can on climate mitigation and defence, and I don't think that squabbling over who did what, when, is the right way to react to a crisis situation.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
Europe, including the UK, would be better off having a strategic defence review that involved all nations, and designing how to have effective joint capabilities, rather than every nation trying to do everything.
That would have a bigger impact on collective capabilities than X% more spent in this country or that.
And it should be focussed on our own backyard, not power projection into the Middle East or Asia.
Europe is part of a global economy. We can't just pretend that what happens to democracies in Asia, or to hydrocarbon supplies in the Middle East, doesn't affect us. If we don't want to end up in a world where China writes the rules then we have to be able to enforce our own.
"We had packed lunches every day for 10 years and retired at 40"
So they scrimped and saved and retired at 40.
Fine.
But ALL the examples are couples or singles WITH NO KIDS. FFS. Nowhere is this point mentioned in the story.
We were £40,000 better off over 10 years from just that one lunch habit.
So £2k per person per year.
Alan had worked as a landscape gardener before launching a training and life-coaching business, while Katie was an actuary, or risk assessor, for a financial firm.
So 2-3hr/week more work probably would have got them same result. Or better job / harder negiotating for a pay rise.
In what way is making a packed lunch scrimping and saving? For a start, I got to eat what I wanted to eat, not what the local shops wanted to sell me. Better than working an extra 2-3 hours too.
I also made my own coffee in the office. Cafetiere, ground coffee, as good as paying £4 a cup, if you are not hung up on having espresso-based drinks all the time. And also saved the time going to the shop and getting it.
People do piss money up against the wall and claim it is some sort of necessity*. Or, it seems, humiliating to prepare your own food and beverages.
* In my case it is beer, so I am not immune. I am trying to find more social opportunities that don't involve drinking several pints
On your last point - I am part of a group of men who was in the same boat. We tried table tennis - but that was in a bar. Finally, we landed on padel. That's now my social opportunity, and I enjoy it more than sitting in a pub drinking. But unfortunately per hour it is probably at least as expensive as going to the pub, if not more so. Badminton is much better value for money, and just as much fun as far as I can see. But doesn't seem to catch on in the same way.
I'm a runner, that doesn't take up much time but it gives me a social opportunity three or four times a week. I need to rejoin a gym as at 61 I can't blag the strength work. I have just volunteered for Citizens Advice and one morning a week for my local conservation site. I am thinking about pickleball and will probably join U3A for next year (they operate on an academic year basis and don't do much in the summer). I go walking once a week with friends, we do normally end up in a pub but it is normally only a couple of pints.
So I'm getting there.
Where do you find the time?!
I've only played pickleball once but I thought it was brilliant fun.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
We need to do as much as we can on climate mitigation and defence, and I don't think that squabbling over who did what, when, is the right way to react to a crisis situation.
Neither do I, but wasn't that exactly what you were doing in your previous post?
"We had packed lunches every day for 10 years and retired at 40"
So they scrimped and saved and retired at 40.
Fine.
But ALL the examples are couples or singles WITH NO KIDS. FFS. Nowhere is this point mentioned in the story.
We were £40,000 better off over 10 years from just that one lunch habit.
So £2k per person per year.
Alan had worked as a landscape gardener before launching a training and life-coaching business, while Katie was an actuary, or risk assessor, for a financial firm.
So 2-3hr/week more work probably would have got them same result. Or better job / harder negiotating for a pay rise.
In what way is making a packed lunch scrimping and saving? For a start, I got to eat what I wanted to eat, not what the local shops wanted to sell me. Better than working an extra 2-3 hours too.
I also made my own coffee in the office. Cafetiere, ground coffee, as good as paying £4 a cup, if you are not hung up on having espresso-based drinks all the time. And also saved the time going to the shop and getting it.
People do piss money up against the wall and claim it is some sort of necessity*. Or, it seems, humiliating to prepare your own food and beverages.
* In my case it is beer, so I am not immune. I am trying to find more social opportunities that don't involve drinking several pints
On your last point - I am part of a group of men who was in the same boat. We tried table tennis - but that was in a bar. Finally, we landed on padel. That's now my social opportunity, and I enjoy it more than sitting in a pub drinking. But unfortunately per hour it is probably at least as expensive as going to the pub, if not more so. Badminton is much better value for money, and just as much fun as far as I can see. But doesn't seem to catch on in the same way.
I'm a runner, that doesn't take up much time but it gives me a social opportunity three or four times a week. I need to rejoin a gym as at 61 I can't blag the strength work. I have just volunteered for Citizens Advice and one morning a week for my local conservation site. I am thinking about pickleball and will probably join U3A for next year (they operate on an academic year basis and don't do much in the summer). I go walking once a week with friends, we do normally end up in a pub but it is normally only a couple of pints.
So I'm getting there.
Where do you find the time?!
I've only played pickleball once but I thought it was brilliant fun.
Er, I'm retired. Last year I booked in a trip away every month, it made sure I didn't get bored but it got in the way of regular activities. So this summer I'm at home and trying to get some routine.
I had thought about looking for some part time work, but at the moment I am living within my means so lacking the motivation.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
It is not a case of new stuff in 10 to 15 years. We need stuff now. We need more personnel (many of the ships we have can't go to sea for lack of manpower). We need massive investment in the new technologies we are seeing dominate the wars around the world - drones and IT being two. We need to end our reliance on the US for much of what we do by providing it ourselves or with our other allies.
This is no longer about shiney new toys - although we do need a lot more ships for example. It is about buying stuff off the shelf which we can integrate and use straight away, not in decades.
I'm a low tax Conservative and I'd whack up income tax by 2p now to pay for it all. In full. Even though it'd personally hurt me and others.
That's how seriously I think we need to take Defence.
It is just 3 billion a year more for 4 years
Take it from welfare - triple lock anyone ?
Also slow,down the rate of growth of UC and PIP.
6.4% this year is barmy.
Abuse of the system is in the media alot and well known tbh. Revealed preference is not that people will think "That's awful that must be costing the country a fortune", rather "I'll have some of that for myself thankyou very much".
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
Given that Russia is currently struggling to hold its own against Ukraine and that we are one of a number of powerful allied European countries, forgive me if I don't quite see the urgency with regard to planning for a war with Russia. It seems to me that the risk to the UK from, for example, climate change is an order of magnitude greater than that from Russia.
The big change we need re climate change is more spend on specific mitigation. Air conditioning fitted into hospitals should be a priority imo, particularly geriatric care.
Maybe schools too...
What you're talking about is adaptation, but yes, we need more spend on both that and mitigation (which means putting out fewer CO2 emissions, etc.). Of course Russia is a threat, but it is a relatively minor one in comparison to climate change, so I don't understand those who claim that we can't afford to spend money to counter the former but must urgently find billions for defence against the latter.
Our CO2 is a gnat's fart in the grand scheme of things and we've reduced CO2 compared to most other places dramatically. We should not wear the hair shirt on this any longer, it is coming and we can not change it - we need to spend on mitigation (Air-con) rather than throttling our economy.
Even Justin Wokedeau kept the oil flowing in Canada.
Sharon Graham, left wing leader of Unite and strong advocate of workers rights now faces a challenge
Her crime. Criticising Ed Miliband and his net zero politics and undermining his bid to be Chancellor. As well as ‘not doing enough to beat Reform’ even though many of its members are supporters?
So she now faces a challenge due to her wrongthink.
She faces a challenge because it's an elected position, and a section of the membership don't like her. I don't see where "crime" comes in; it's just how the union system works.
It would have been simpler to say that she faces a challenge from the left.
And far less interesting. The article makes it clear the reasons for the challenge.
I felt it worth pointing out. There is a clear campaign to bolster Ed Miliband and his bid for the chancellorship. As we saw with Newsnight last night with Mazzucato out batting for him.
She faces a challenge due to her positioning and views.
She’s a strong advocate of members rights. She’s even been on picket lines up here.
I've just noticed Miliband down at 1.62 to be Chancellor.
I don't think it should be understated that Miliband is the same generation as Burnham. They were in government together at a similar time, and were in shadow government together too..
The Chancellor decision will be his first test. I'd be inclined to regard choosing Miliband as a fail.
Perhaps we should wait to see whatever the new chancellor does before deciding they are a failure?
Ed M is the obvious choice, alongside Yvette Cooper. He's got an economics background and Treasury experience.
I don't disagree on the point that we then have to judge him on what he does. It's only a first test.
But the choice itself is likely to significantly influence policy, and I am not at all convinced by Milliband's record at Energy, where his economic background doesn't seem to have led to any useful insights.
You might not like his policies at energy but he has been consistent in his goal of decarbonisation of the economy. Most of our govt have dithered.
He's overseen enormous increases in renewable capacity, removed harmful ban on onshore wind, pushed through large solar farms past pointless planning delays, championed British nuclear, funded Sizewell C and faced down the threats from American lobby, launched Great British energy etc.
Yes, I really hope Ed Milliband doesn't become chancellor precisely of the good work he's been doing at Energy. He's put in the effort there and obviously has a passion for the job and, in the grand scheme of things, it's probably a more important job than chancellor.
Yes, bit perverse to move somebody who is well suited to where they are. He is the odds-on betting fav though.
I have a speculative punt on Pat McFadden.
If Milliband is best choice for chancellor then Burnham is doomed from the start
Jeez. Already the media hyena pack are now off on one wondering out loud how many nights Burnham will sleep at No 10 and how many at home in the North and so on.
FFS.
Focus on something important for a change.
quite astute from burnham, get the meeja interested in frivolous stuff and not policy
It's one thing wanting this to happen, but realistically is there long enough left of this term to put it into practice? It's surely quite a big project, duplicating No 10? Suitable property to buy or build, for one thing.
House of Commons is falling apart anyway and needs a big refurb. Other countries manage having power spread out across different locations. Plus it will be a hugely visible change. It really is quite amusing watching all London elite getting vapours at the idea we might try something different
Closing Westminstrr for 5-10 years and moving Parliament to Manchester for the duration is an excellent idea.
Closing Westminster and moving Parliament elsewhere is a brilliant idea fullstop.
But unless you move Westminster to the NEC it's got to be a permanent move..
A permanent move is a truly stupid idea. It will cost vast billions and achieve nothing
Unless you really wanted to break the Westminster stranglehold on all things in this country.
Still a stupid idea. All you do is cause chaos in Government
The only first world country that has their seat of Government elsewhere than their capital is the Netherlands. And the distance from The Hague to Amsterdam? 37 miles. Almost exactly the same distance as from one side of Greater London to the other.
Only because you are defining it based on the capital and not based on their primary city.
Washington DC is a tertiary city compared to New York, Los Angeles etc Canberra is a tertiary city compared to Sydney and Melbourne. Ottowa is a tertiary city compared to Toronto, Vancouver etc
Actually separating the capital/seat of government from the primary cities which can concentrate on finance and other issues without government being there is quite common across the first world. Move government wholesale out of London.
Like I said an idiotic idea that will set back both governance and the economy in this country for decades. Don't get me wrong, I detest London and do everything I can to avoid going anywhere near it. But tghis is a truly stupid and self harming idea.
Tell me what infrastructure we have had approved by London up here in the past couple of decades?
London keeps getting new train lines. Crossrail, HS2 etc
Have we had any new train lines? Any new motorways? Anything?
The Civil Servants who make the decisions don't give a shit beyond London. Kick them out of the city and see how soon they wake up.
You call that setting things back? I can live with that.
Developed countries with successful cities and separate capitals tend to work very well, not badly.
This isn't true. HS2 was for the North, and there's the Transpennine Upgrade Programme and before that the West Coast Mainline Upgrade.
Northern Rail does get the shitty stick, and that needs to change, but let's not pretend that no-one cares.
PMSL!
Tell me how the absolute hell is a train line in the South of England that goes to London and terminates up in the Midlands in Birmingham is "for the North"?
If HS2 were actually for the North then it would have made sense to start construction with the Northern legs of it and deal with the Chilterns and South of England later on, and scrap that if anything were to be scrapped. But no, it was never for us.
Only a Southerner could think that what the North is desperately crying out for is another line in London.
It was originally for the North, that's why it was planned to go to Manchester and Leeds. The fact it's been cut back is a travesty, but you can't just represent it as a London thing. It was intended to provide a fast spine right up the whole country to deliver better economic integration for the Midlands and the North.
How much would HS2 have to cost before you conceded that cutting it back was not a "travesty"? From the tone of your comment it would be a lot more than the £100bn just for Euston (possibly) to East Birmingham alone, that is about £1 billion per mile.
I'm not here to defend how the Government cliented and sponsored it, I think the line speed spec and all the tunnels in the Chilterns were ridiculous and drove up cost - unnecessarily. Not to mention the flip-flopping.
The whole thing could have been built for £100bn had the scope been stabilised and calibrated properly and Phase 2A to Crewe, in particular, is an affordable one.
The tunnels aren't neccessary, I'm not so sure about the speed - I don't think it cost that much extra.
I think the issue came down to continual tinkering - we really should be deciding on a route and then issuing primary legislation that allows it to be built without court interference.
Equally it's one of a number of projects (electrification is another) where we just need a team of people employed for x decades who move from project to project to complete things.
The HS2 project included a massive training centre, basically a college of railway engineering and construction, because they didn’t have enough people with the required skills.
It would be a massive waste of both money and human capital, if these skills end up lost again because there’s not sufficient work in the pipeline as the project concludes. Government and industry need to ensure that the pipeline continues, and people can seamlessly move from one project to the next.
I pass by the one near YWP in Doncaster, it doesn't look like it has cost THAT much tbh.
Now the works going over the M45 re Birmingham.... I've passed those in what should be peak working time, couple of pieces of plant on the go with most sitting idle...
The Railway College at Doncaster Lakeside has been empty pretty much since it was built. It doesn't look terribly expensive as these things go but I do wonder what the original point of it was.
Bart is right though. Getting to London faster is not what we actually need. Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester are all barely 30 miles apart with just about the worst transport network anywhere.
The best use of cash to fix that isn't dropping billions on a railway between them, but to extend the M67 to the M1 somewhere near Dodworth, replacing the Snake and Woodhead passes for most traffic.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
Europe, including the UK, would be better off having a strategic defence review that involved all nations, and designing how to have effective joint capabilities, rather than every nation trying to do everything.
That would have a bigger impact on collective capabilities than X% more spent in this country or that.
And it should be focussed on our own backyard, not power projection into the Middle East or Asia.
Europe is part of a global economy. We can't just pretend that what happens to democracies in Asia, or to hydrocarbon supplies in the Middle East, doesn't affect us. If we don't want to end up in a world where China writes the rules then we have to be able to enforce our own.
It goes far beyond Russia.
We should share resources and investments with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan etc to help them defend themselves. But I wouldn't expect the Japanese army to help if Estonia is invaded, they shouldn't expect us to fight China in the Pacific.
Europe doesn't need to take on the US role of policeman of the world. We need to defend against threats on our border, primarily Russia but extending to North Africa if any were to arise there. Keeping Turkey on our side creates a buffer against the Middle East.
In any case, I wish people would define what they want our armed forces to achieve and debate that, rather than people throwing our huge increases in spending without purpose. Once we decide what we want to be able to do, spend as a continent to ensure we can deliver that.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
Given that Russia is currently struggling to hold its own against Ukraine and that we are one of a number of powerful allied European countries, forgive me if I don't quite see the urgency with regard to planning for a war with Russia. It seems to me that the risk to the UK from, for example, climate change is an order of magnitude greater than that from Russia.
The big change we need re climate change is more spend on specific mitigation. Air conditioning fitted into hospitals should be a priority imo, particularly geriatric care.
Maybe schools too...
And whack in some HEPA filters in case we ever have an airborne virus pandemic.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
Given that Russia is currently struggling to hold its own against Ukraine and that we are one of a number of powerful allied European countries, forgive me if I don't quite see the urgency with regard to planning for a war with Russia. It seems to me that the risk to the UK from, for example, climate change is an order of magnitude greater than that from Russia.
The big change we need re climate change is more spend on specific mitigation. Air conditioning fitted into hospitals should be a priority imo, particularly geriatric care.
Maybe schools too...
And whack in some HEPA filters in the new aircon in case we ever have an airborne virus pandemic.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
Europe, including the UK, would be better off having a strategic defence review that involved all nations, and designing how to have effective joint capabilities, rather than every nation trying to do everything.
That would have a bigger impact on collective capabilities than X% more spent in this country or that.
And it should be focussed on our own backyard, not power projection into the Middle East or Asia.
Jeez. Already the media hyena pack are now off on one wondering out loud how many nights Burnham will sleep at No 10 and how many at home in the North and so on.
FFS.
Focus on something important for a change.
quite astute from burnham, get the meeja interested in frivolous stuff and not policy
It's one thing wanting this to happen, but realistically is there long enough left of this term to put it into practice? It's surely quite a big project, duplicating No 10? Suitable property to buy or build, for one thing.
House of Commons is falling apart anyway and needs a big refurb. Other countries manage having power spread out across different locations. Plus it will be a hugely visible change. It really is quite amusing watching all London elite getting vapours at the idea we might try something different
Closing Westminstrr for 5-10 years and moving Parliament to Manchester for the duration is an excellent idea.
Closing Westminster and moving Parliament elsewhere is a brilliant idea fullstop.
But unless you move Westminster to the NEC it's got to be a permanent move..
A permanent move is a truly stupid idea. It will cost vast billions and achieve nothing
Unless you really wanted to break the Westminster stranglehold on all things in this country.
Still a stupid idea. All you do is cause chaos in Government
The only first world country that has their seat of Government elsewhere than their capital is the Netherlands. And the distance from The Hague to Amsterdam? 37 miles. Almost exactly the same distance as from one side of Greater London to the other.
Only because you are defining it based on the capital and not based on their primary city.
Washington DC is a tertiary city compared to New York, Los Angeles etc Canberra is a tertiary city compared to Sydney and Melbourne. Ottowa is a tertiary city compared to Toronto, Vancouver etc
Actually separating the capital/seat of government from the primary cities which can concentrate on finance and other issues without government being there is quite common across the first world. Move government wholesale out of London.
Like I said an idiotic idea that will set back both governance and the economy in this country for decades. Don't get me wrong, I detest London and do everything I can to avoid going anywhere near it. But tghis is a truly stupid and self harming idea.
Tell me what infrastructure we have had approved by London up here in the past couple of decades?
London keeps getting new train lines. Crossrail, HS2 etc
Have we had any new train lines? Any new motorways? Anything?
The Civil Servants who make the decisions don't give a shit beyond London. Kick them out of the city and see how soon they wake up.
You call that setting things back? I can live with that.
Developed countries with successful cities and separate capitals tend to work very well, not badly.
This isn't true. HS2 was for the North, and there's the Transpennine Upgrade Programme and before that the West Coast Mainline Upgrade.
Northern Rail does get the shitty stick, and that needs to change, but let's not pretend that no-one cares.
PMSL!
Tell me how the absolute hell is a train line in the South of England that goes to London and terminates up in the Midlands in Birmingham is "for the North"?
If HS2 were actually for the North then it would have made sense to start construction with the Northern legs of it and deal with the Chilterns and South of England later on, and scrap that if anything were to be scrapped. But no, it was never for us.
Only a Southerner could think that what the North is desperately crying out for is another line in London.
It was originally for the North, that's why it was planned to go to Manchester and Leeds. The fact it's been cut back is a travesty, but you can't just represent it as a London thing. It was intended to provide a fast spine right up the whole country to deliver better economic integration for the Midlands and the North.
How much would HS2 have to cost before you conceded that cutting it back was not a "travesty"? From the tone of your comment it would be a lot more than the £100bn just for Euston (possibly) to East Birmingham alone, that is about £1 billion per mile.
I'm not here to defend how the Government cliented and sponsored it, I think the line speed spec and all the tunnels in the Chilterns were ridiculous and drove up cost - unnecessarily. Not to mention the flip-flopping.
The whole thing could have been built for £100bn had the scope been stabilised and calibrated properly and Phase 2A to Crewe, in particular, is an affordable one.
The tunnels aren't neccessary, I'm not so sure about the speed - I don't think it cost that much extra.
I think the issue came down to continual tinkering - we really should be deciding on a route and then issuing primary legislation that allows it to be built without court interference.
Equally it's one of a number of projects (electrification is another) where we just need a team of people employed for x decades who move from project to project to complete things.
The HS2 project included a massive training centre, basically a college of railway engineering and construction, because they didn’t have enough people with the required skills.
It would be a massive waste of both money and human capital, if these skills end up lost again because there’s not sufficient work in the pipeline as the project concludes. Government and industry need to ensure that the pipeline continues, and people can seamlessly move from one project to the next.
I pass by the one near YWP in Doncaster, it doesn't look like it has cost THAT much tbh.
Now the works going over the M45 re Birmingham.... I've passed those in what should be peak working time, couple of pieces of plant on the go with most sitting idle...
The Railway College at Doncaster Lakeside has been empty pretty much since it was built. It doesn't look terribly expensive as these things go but I do wonder what the original point of it was.
Bart is right though. Getting to London faster is not what we actually need. Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester are all barely 30 miles apart with just about the worst transport network anywhere.
The best use of cash to fix that isn't dropping billions on a railway between them, but to extend the M67 to the M1 somewhere near Dodworth, replacing the Snake and Woodhead passes for most traffic.
Agreed.
We should have had over recent decades major investment into new motorways and it is ridiculous that we have stopped building them. Connect places that are not currently connected.
Take Blackpool for example. Very run down but it is completely out of touch with even places it is reasonably close to geographically.
We should build a line like the cancelled M59 project linking Liverpool, Southport and Blackpool, with a bridge over the Ribble. That would enable a lot of smoother connections that don't exist today without driving everyone into the M6, even if people have no desire to be on the M6 or anywhere near anywhere it services.
The problem is that people in London have got in their heads the idea that North to South is serviced by the M6 so nothing else is necessary.
Parallel lines like that would also mean that in the event one motorway had an issue, then the other could be used as an emergency detour, rather than every town nearby that can be used as a rat run getting completely congested when motorway traffic is forced into it as the only bypass.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
IMO there is a need to spend more on defence but the reason for that isn't Russia, it's America. That's where the big adverse change has occurred recently.
Russia is the main threat to us, no question, but this has been the case for many years. Is the threat greater now than it was? Otoh, yes, because they've shown they are willing to invade our continent on its Eastern border. But otoh, no, because the invasion is failing. Instead of (as was feared and expected at the time) conquering Ukraine within days they have engaged in over 4 years of bloody and expensive warfare to occupy a relatively small part of it, and are struggling to hold that. So on balance I'm not sure it's true to say there is now a greatly enhanced military threat from Russia.
What we indisputably do have is a different America. They can no longer be counted on to help defend Europe. Indeed they can barely be described as an ally now. That is a massive development. It leaves a very big gap to be filled (defencewise) and we have to play our part in that. Ok it might be an aberration due to Trump and things might revert after he's gone. But it wouldn't be prudent to assume that in our planning.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
We need to do as much as we can on climate mitigation and defence, and I don't think that squabbling over who did what, when, is the right way to react to a crisis situation.
Neither do I, but wasn't that exactly what you were doing in your previous post?
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
Europe, including the UK, would be better off having a strategic defence review that involved all nations, and designing how to have effective joint capabilities, rather than every nation trying to do everything.
That would have a bigger impact on collective capabilities than X% more spent in this country or that.
And it should be focussed on our own backyard, not power projection into the Middle East or Asia.
Europe is part of a global economy. We can't just pretend that what happens to democracies in Asia, or to hydrocarbon supplies in the Middle East, doesn't affect us. If we don't want to end up in a world where China writes the rules then we have to be able to enforce our own.
It goes far beyond Russia.
We should share resources and investments with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan etc to help them defend themselves. But I wouldn't expect the Japanese army to help if Estonia is invaded, they shouldn't expect us to fight China in the Pacific.
Europe doesn't need to take on the US role of policeman of the world. We need to defend against threats on our border, primarily Russia but extending to North Africa if any were to arise there. Keeping Turkey on our side creates a buffer against the Middle East.
In any case, I wish people would define what they want our armed forces to achieve and debate that, rather than people throwing our huge increases in spending without purpose. Once we decide what we want to be able to do, spend as a continent to ensure we can deliver that.
Agreed - but we have a number of interests in common with those Asian countries (and increasingly, defence procurement cooperation). It was the rapid availability of S Korean aircraft and armoured vehicles which allowed Poland to gift so much kit to Ukraine early on after the Russian invasion, for example.
Jeez. Already the media hyena pack are now off on one wondering out loud how many nights Burnham will sleep at No 10 and how many at home in the North and so on.
FFS.
Focus on something important for a change.
quite astute from burnham, get the meeja interested in frivolous stuff and not policy
It's one thing wanting this to happen, but realistically is there long enough left of this term to put it into practice? It's surely quite a big project, duplicating No 10? Suitable property to buy or build, for one thing.
House of Commons is falling apart anyway and needs a big refurb. Other countries manage having power spread out across different locations. Plus it will be a hugely visible change. It really is quite amusing watching all London elite getting vapours at the idea we might try something different
Closing Westminstrr for 5-10 years and moving Parliament to Manchester for the duration is an excellent idea.
Closing Westminster and moving Parliament elsewhere is a brilliant idea fullstop.
But unless you move Westminster to the NEC it's got to be a permanent move..
A permanent move is a truly stupid idea. It will cost vast billions and achieve nothing
Unless you really wanted to break the Westminster stranglehold on all things in this country.
Still a stupid idea. All you do is cause chaos in Government
The only first world country that has their seat of Government elsewhere than their capital is the Netherlands. And the distance from The Hague to Amsterdam? 37 miles. Almost exactly the same distance as from one side of Greater London to the other.
Only because you are defining it based on the capital and not based on their primary city.
Washington DC is a tertiary city compared to New York, Los Angeles etc Canberra is a tertiary city compared to Sydney and Melbourne. Ottowa is a tertiary city compared to Toronto, Vancouver etc
Actually separating the capital/seat of government from the primary cities which can concentrate on finance and other issues without government being there is quite common across the first world. Move government wholesale out of London.
Like I said an idiotic idea that will set back both governance and the economy in this country for decades. Don't get me wrong, I detest London and do everything I can to avoid going anywhere near it. But tghis is a truly stupid and self harming idea.
Tell me what infrastructure we have had approved by London up here in the past couple of decades?
London keeps getting new train lines. Crossrail, HS2 etc
Have we had any new train lines? Any new motorways? Anything?
The Civil Servants who make the decisions don't give a shit beyond London. Kick them out of the city and see how soon they wake up.
You call that setting things back? I can live with that.
Developed countries with successful cities and separate capitals tend to work very well, not badly.
This isn't true. HS2 was for the North, and there's the Transpennine Upgrade Programme and before that the West Coast Mainline Upgrade.
Northern Rail does get the shitty stick, and that needs to change, but let's not pretend that no-one cares.
PMSL!
Tell me how the absolute hell is a train line in the South of England that goes to London and terminates up in the Midlands in Birmingham is "for the North"?
If HS2 were actually for the North then it would have made sense to start construction with the Northern legs of it and deal with the Chilterns and South of England later on, and scrap that if anything were to be scrapped. But no, it was never for us.
Only a Southerner could think that what the North is desperately crying out for is another line in London.
It was originally for the North, that's why it was planned to go to Manchester and Leeds. The fact it's been cut back is a travesty, but you can't just represent it as a London thing. It was intended to provide a fast spine right up the whole country to deliver better economic integration for the Midlands and the North.
How much would HS2 have to cost before you conceded that cutting it back was not a "travesty"? From the tone of your comment it would be a lot more than the £100bn just for Euston (possibly) to East Birmingham alone, that is about £1 billion per mile.
I'm not here to defend how the Government cliented and sponsored it, I think the line speed spec and all the tunnels in the Chilterns were ridiculous and drove up cost - unnecessarily. Not to mention the flip-flopping.
The whole thing could have been built for £100bn had the scope been stabilised and calibrated properly and Phase 2A to Crewe, in particular, is an affordable one.
The tunnels aren't neccessary, I'm not so sure about the speed - I don't think it cost that much extra.
I think the issue came down to continual tinkering - we really should be deciding on a route and then issuing primary legislation that allows it to be built without court interference.
Equally it's one of a number of projects (electrification is another) where we just need a team of people employed for x decades who move from project to project to complete things.
The speed does cost a lot more because you need far shallower gradients and curves, and therefore much more civil engineering, and slab based track rather than ballast, which is much more expensive. At that speed you also have to consider the pressure waves entering tunnels in front of and around trains due to "air hammer" which is because the trains are so fast you have to consider air as a fluid. It means their diameters are much larger.
We might avoid some of this if just a few more politicians had something even close to an engineering background.
I remember this argument at the start of the interminable arguments over the project. Very few people accepted that the (completely unnecessary) top speed would cost a lot more. A common attitude was the reducing the headline figure was penny pinching.
A better informed debate might have avoided some if the years of delay.
Politicians love things which can be describe as 'world beating' or 'biggest in Europe'.
There was lots more money to be made for lawyers and consultants from a high speed railway than an ordinary railway.
Put them together and the mentality of "if we're building a new railway it might as well be high speed".
Now consider how you would view a business which wanted a new car and said "if we're buying a new car it might as well be a Ferrari".
My first act as PM would be to ban the phrase "world beating".
The NHS is the envy of the world, said no-one who’s ever lived in another OECD country.
Well the NHS sits in the mid/high scores among OECD countries, notably on cost per patient treated- the US spends a fortune for pretty ho-hum results. The point about health, as with so many things in the UK is not that it is so terrible, it is that it is so patchy- when it is good it is very very good, when it is bad, it is horrid.
The problem for the UK is not that things are so disastrous, it is that they are so mediocre.
If the purpose of the NHS is to treat patients cheaply, irrespective of outcomes, then you are right. But in terms of medical outcomes the NHS comes last out of the 11 countries regularly compared. At times we are even worse than the US when it comes to medical outcomes.
Personally I would suggest that medical outcomes is the overwhemingly important measure when comparing medical systems. Others may have different ideas.
With the notable exception of the US, medical outcomes are correlated with spend. If you want better medical outcomes, spend more on the NHS. Put in those terms, voters often seem to decide that the NHS is good enough.
That suggests that medical outcomes per spend is an important metric. The UK does pretty well on that.
money gets poured in and we are still bottom of league table in outcomes, kind of bursts your balloon.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
IMO there is a need to spend more on defence but the reason for that isn't Russia, it's America. That's where the big adverse change has occurred recently.
Russia is the main threat to us, no question, but this has been the case for many years. Is the threat greater now than it was? Otoh, yes, because they've shown they are willing to invade our continent on its Eastern border. But otoh, no, because the invasion is failing. Instead of (as was feared and expected at the time) conquering Ukraine within days they have engaged in over 4 years of bloody and expensive warfare to occupy a relatively small part of it, and are struggling to hold that. So on balance I'm not sure it's true to say there is now a greatly enhanced military threat from Russia.
What we indisputably do have is a different America. They can no longer be counted on to help defend Europe. Indeed they can barely be described as an ally now. That is a massive development. It leaves a very big gap to be filled (defencewise) and we have to play our part in that. Ok it might be an aberration due to Trump and things might revert after he's gone. But it wouldn't be prudent to assume that in our planning.
I wonder if even that is out of date. There is a good chance the next world war will be between AI companies and national governments, and that is the one we are least prepared for and unlike a Russian attempted invasion, we would probably lose.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
Europe, including the UK, would be better off having a strategic defence review that involved all nations, and designing how to have effective joint capabilities, rather than every nation trying to do everything.
That would have a bigger impact on collective capabilities than X% more spent in this country or that.
And it should be focussed on our own backyard, not power projection into the Middle East or Asia.
Europe is part of a global economy. We can't just pretend that what happens to democracies in Asia, or to hydrocarbon supplies in the Middle East, doesn't affect us. If we don't want to end up in a world where China writes the rules then we have to be able to enforce our own.
It goes far beyond Russia.
We should share resources and investments with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan etc to help them defend themselves. But I wouldn't expect the Japanese army to help if Estonia is invaded, they shouldn't expect us to fight China in the Pacific.
Europe doesn't need to take on the US role of policeman of the world. We need to defend against threats on our border, primarily Russia but extending to North Africa if any were to arise there. Keeping Turkey on our side creates a buffer against the Middle East.
In any case, I wish people would define what they want our armed forces to achieve and debate that, rather than people throwing our huge increases in spending without purpose. Once we decide what we want to be able to do, spend as a continent to ensure we can deliver that.
We've done that. Britain keeps on having Defence reviews. We've just had one, and now we're failing to fund it and the response is we need another review to work out what to do?
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
It is not a case of new stuff in 10 to 15 years. We need stuff now. We need more personnel (many of the ships we have can't go to sea for lack of manpower). We need massive investment in the new technologies we are seeing dominate the wars around the world - drones and IT being two. We need to end our reliance on the US for much of what we do by providing it ourselves or with our other allies.
This is no longer about shiney new toys - although we do need a lot more ships for example. It is about buying stuff off the shelf which we can integrate and use straight away, not in decades.
I'm a low tax Conservative and I'd whack up income tax by 2p now to pay for it all. In full. Even though it'd personally hurt me and others.
That's how seriously I think we need to take Defence.
It is just 3 billion a year more for 4 years
Take it from welfare - triple lock anyone ?
Also slow,down the rate of growth of UC and PIP.
6.4% this year is barmy.
Yes and PIP for piles , constipation and many other made up illnesses is the root cause. Get a grip on benefits where they are given out far too easily and get above inflation additions every year and no checks on it so it is now a lifestyle/career choice. Choice nowadays for many many is work your butt off , get taxed ferociously or you become "disabled" / unemployed and live a much better lifestyle with no accommodation costs , no tax and more money than if you were working, it is madness.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
Jeez. Already the media hyena pack are now off on one wondering out loud how many nights Burnham will sleep at No 10 and how many at home in the North and so on.
FFS.
Focus on something important for a change.
quite astute from burnham, get the meeja interested in frivolous stuff and not policy
It's one thing wanting this to happen, but realistically is there long enough left of this term to put it into practice? It's surely quite a big project, duplicating No 10? Suitable property to buy or build, for one thing.
House of Commons is falling apart anyway and needs a big refurb. Other countries manage having power spread out across different locations. Plus it will be a hugely visible change. It really is quite amusing watching all London elite getting vapours at the idea we might try something different
Closing Westminstrr for 5-10 years and moving Parliament to Manchester for the duration is an excellent idea.
Closing Westminster and moving Parliament elsewhere is a brilliant idea fullstop.
But unless you move Westminster to the NEC it's got to be a permanent move..
A permanent move is a truly stupid idea. It will cost vast billions and achieve nothing
Unless you really wanted to break the Westminster stranglehold on all things in this country.
Still a stupid idea. All you do is cause chaos in Government
The only first world country that has their seat of Government elsewhere than their capital is the Netherlands. And the distance from The Hague to Amsterdam? 37 miles. Almost exactly the same distance as from one side of Greater London to the other.
Only because you are defining it based on the capital and not based on their primary city.
Washington DC is a tertiary city compared to New York, Los Angeles etc Canberra is a tertiary city compared to Sydney and Melbourne. Ottowa is a tertiary city compared to Toronto, Vancouver etc
Actually separating the capital/seat of government from the primary cities which can concentrate on finance and other issues without government being there is quite common across the first world. Move government wholesale out of London.
Like I said an idiotic idea that will set back both governance and the economy in this country for decades. Don't get me wrong, I detest London and do everything I can to avoid going anywhere near it. But tghis is a truly stupid and self harming idea.
Tell me what infrastructure we have had approved by London up here in the past couple of decades?
London keeps getting new train lines. Crossrail, HS2 etc
Have we had any new train lines? Any new motorways? Anything?
The Civil Servants who make the decisions don't give a shit beyond London. Kick them out of the city and see how soon they wake up.
You call that setting things back? I can live with that.
Developed countries with successful cities and separate capitals tend to work very well, not badly.
This isn't true. HS2 was for the North, and there's the Transpennine Upgrade Programme and before that the West Coast Mainline Upgrade.
Northern Rail does get the shitty stick, and that needs to change, but let's not pretend that no-one cares.
PMSL!
Tell me how the absolute hell is a train line in the South of England that goes to London and terminates up in the Midlands in Birmingham is "for the North"?
If HS2 were actually for the North then it would have made sense to start construction with the Northern legs of it and deal with the Chilterns and South of England later on, and scrap that if anything were to be scrapped. But no, it was never for us.
Only a Southerner could think that what the North is desperately crying out for is another line in London.
It was originally for the North, that's why it was planned to go to Manchester and Leeds. The fact it's been cut back is a travesty, but you can't just represent it as a London thing. It was intended to provide a fast spine right up the whole country to deliver better economic integration for the Midlands and the North.
How much would HS2 have to cost before you conceded that cutting it back was not a "travesty"? From the tone of your comment it would be a lot more than the £100bn just for Euston (possibly) to East Birmingham alone, that is about £1 billion per mile.
I'm not here to defend how the Government cliented and sponsored it, I think the line speed spec and all the tunnels in the Chilterns were ridiculous and drove up cost - unnecessarily. Not to mention the flip-flopping.
The whole thing could have been built for £100bn had the scope been stabilised and calibrated properly and Phase 2A to Crewe, in particular, is an affordable one.
The tunnels aren't neccessary, I'm not so sure about the speed - I don't think it cost that much extra.
I think the issue came down to continual tinkering - we really should be deciding on a route and then issuing primary legislation that allows it to be built without court interference.
Equally it's one of a number of projects (electrification is another) where we just need a team of people employed for x decades who move from project to project to complete things.
The speed does cost a lot more because you need far shallower gradients and curves, and therefore much more civil engineering, and slab based track rather than ballast, which is much more expensive. At that speed you also have to consider the pressure waves entering tunnels in front of and around trains due to "air hammer" which is because the trains are so fast you have to consider air as a fluid. It means their diameters are much larger.
We might avoid some of this if just a few more politicians had something even close to an engineering background.
I remember this argument at the start of the interminable arguments over the project. Very few people accepted that the (completely unnecessary) top speed would cost a lot more. A common attitude was the reducing the headline figure was penny pinching.
A better informed debate might have avoided some if the years of delay.
Politicians love things which can be describe as 'world beating' or 'biggest in Europe'.
There was lots more money to be made for lawyers and consultants from a high speed railway than an ordinary railway.
Put them together and the mentality of "if we're building a new railway it might as well be high speed".
Now consider how you would view a business which wanted a new car and said "if we're buying a new car it might as well be a Ferrari".
My first act as PM would be to ban the phrase "world beating".
The NHS is the envy of the world, said no-one who’s ever lived in another OECD country.
Well the NHS sits in the mid/high scores among OECD countries, notably on cost per patient treated- the US spends a fortune for pretty ho-hum results. The point about health, as with so many things in the UK is not that it is so terrible, it is that it is so patchy- when it is good it is very very good, when it is bad, it is horrid.
The problem for the UK is not that things are so disastrous, it is that they are so mediocre.
If the purpose of the NHS is to treat patients cheaply, irrespective of outcomes, then you are right. But in terms of medical outcomes the NHS comes last out of the 11 countries regularly compared. At times we are even worse than the US when it comes to medical outcomes.
Personally I would suggest that medical outcomes is the overwhemingly important measure when comparing medical systems. Others may have different ideas.
With the notable exception of the US, medical outcomes are correlated with spend. If you want better medical outcomes, spend more on the NHS. Put in those terms, voters often seem to decide that the NHS is good enough.
That suggests that medical outcomes per spend is an important metric. The UK does pretty well on that.
money gets poured in and we are still bottom of league table in outcomes, kind of bursts your balloon.
Without Farage the Reform vote would likely collapse. Zia Yusuf as leader would likely see Restore squeeze their vote heavily and Lee Anderson as leader would likely leak significantly to the Tories. However even against Burnham Labour Farage's Reform are still relatively resilient, only squeezed a little and still only a point or two behind
I presume you have some evidence for the first part of this or is it just some hopecasting from the Conservative side?
Since Reform is made up of both ex-Conservative and ex-Labour voters (as well as those who had previously not voted), it seems reasonable to suppose were their vote to fragment, it would go several ways including to Labour, Restore and Will Not Vote rather than going en bloc to the Conservatives.
The Reform vote was less than half what it is now before Farage returned to leave it. I highly doubt many Reform voters would to be that enthusiastic about a non white leader given and Anderson isn’t anywhere near as articulate and charismatic as Farage.
Of course a post Farage Reform vote would fragment but those Reform voters who voted Conservative in 2019 would likely mostly return to the Tories
That last paragraph is why you are going to lose the next election.
Yes, many of those who voted Reform in 2024 and indeed since were Conservative voters in 2019 (and quite likely LEAVE voters in 2016) but you can't assume a loyalty based on one vote at one election. Why should they return to the Conservatives - why not Labour or Restore?
Farage will likely lead Reform into the next general election, a post Farage Reform likely won’t happen unless and until Reform lose that general election.
The clear majority of current Reform voters voted Conservative in 2017 and 2019 and some of them even voted Conservative in 2014. Those voters aren’t going Labour, certainly not under leftwing Burnham and only the Reform diehard core white nationalist core vote, some of whom are ex UKIP and Brexit party would go Restore
I'm not sure that's true.
The 2017 election certainly had a high Labour vote share and in seats like Amber Valley Labour improved its VI taking a share of those who voted UKIP in 2015.
In 2019, Nigel Mills had a majority of nearly 17,000 but in 2024 his vote collapsed roughly 3: 1 in favour of Reform over Labour. The Labour share went up to the 2010 level (below 2017 but not far below) while the Conservative share crashed to its lowest level in a seat which is a good barometer. Had all the 2019 Conservative vote gone to Reform, Reform would have won the seat - about a quarter went to Labour and I imagine a smaller group abstained.
I think there's much more volatility out there and to lazily assume because people once or twice voted Conservative and then switched to Reform at both national and local elections they will automatically come back to the Conservatives might be valid in Brentwood & Ongar but I'm less convinced about Amber Valley.
If HY's complacency is common across the residual Conservative PArty then it truly is doomed.
Then could get a Reform government you hate even more
I think it reasonable to expect that a council housebuilding programme could be sustained with a capital subsidy of £100k per home, enough to build substantial homes and to fund the financing costs from the remaining reduced rents. It might even be a bit less than that.
So for a cost of £100bn, the country could have ended up with 1 million new council houses, transforming the lives of people across this country with the countless long term benefits that brings for social cohesion as well as huge long term savings for the government through housing benefit, avoiding childrens social care bills etc.
Instead we've wasted £100bn on a railway that achieves next to nothing and will be an uneconomic millstone even when operational. I write as someone from the West Midlands for whom HS2 will not cut the journey time to London because it will probably be quicker and certainly less stressful and convenient to continue use the WCML because of its better connectivity. And no doubt cheaper too.
1 million council homes v a useless railway. What an epic cock up.
You are going to run into finance issues.
Treasury funds the capital but councils get the rents? Treasury won’t like that. Treasury gets the rents but councils run the properties? How will they fund maintenance?
And don’t get me started on debt consolidation.
ALMO/Social Landlords can raise the capital on the markets. But it would help underpin the loans if Housing Benefits were paid to them exclusively in return for providing the affordable rental properties we need - in the correct locations too. Just needs some joined up planning.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
It is not a case of new stuff in 10 to 15 years. We need stuff now. We need more personnel (many of the ships we have can't go to sea for lack of manpower). We need massive investment in the new technologies we are seeing dominate the wars around the world - drones and IT being two. We need to end our reliance on the US for much of what we do by providing it ourselves or with our other allies.
This is no longer about shiney new toys - although we do need a lot more ships for example. It is about buying stuff off the shelf which we can integrate and use straight away, not in decades.
I'm a low tax Conservative and I'd whack up income tax by 2p now to pay for it all. In full. Even though it'd personally hurt me and others.
That's how seriously I think we need to take Defence.
It is just 3 billion a year more for 4 years
Take it from welfare - triple lock anyone ?
Also slow,down the rate of growth of UC and PIP.
6.4% this year is barmy.
Abuse of the system is in the media alot and well known tbh. Revealed preference is not that people will think "That's awful that must be costing the country a fortune", rather "I'll have some of that for myself thankyou very much".
Jeez. Already the media hyena pack are now off on one wondering out loud how many nights Burnham will sleep at No 10 and how many at home in the North and so on.
FFS.
Focus on something important for a change.
quite astute from burnham, get the meeja interested in frivolous stuff and not policy
It's one thing wanting this to happen, but realistically is there long enough left of this term to put it into practice? It's surely quite a big project, duplicating No 10? Suitable property to buy or build, for one thing.
House of Commons is falling apart anyway and needs a big refurb. Other countries manage having power spread out across different locations. Plus it will be a hugely visible change. It really is quite amusing watching all London elite getting vapours at the idea we might try something different
Closing Westminstrr for 5-10 years and moving Parliament to Manchester for the duration is an excellent idea.
Closing Westminster and moving Parliament elsewhere is a brilliant idea fullstop.
But unless you move Westminster to the NEC it's got to be a permanent move..
A permanent move is a truly stupid idea. It will cost vast billions and achieve nothing
Unless you really wanted to break the Westminster stranglehold on all things in this country.
Still a stupid idea. All you do is cause chaos in Government
The only first world country that has their seat of Government elsewhere than their capital is the Netherlands. And the distance from The Hague to Amsterdam? 37 miles. Almost exactly the same distance as from one side of Greater London to the other.
Only because you are defining it based on the capital and not based on their primary city.
Washington DC is a tertiary city compared to New York, Los Angeles etc Canberra is a tertiary city compared to Sydney and Melbourne. Ottowa is a tertiary city compared to Toronto, Vancouver etc
Actually separating the capital/seat of government from the primary cities which can concentrate on finance and other issues without government being there is quite common across the first world. Move government wholesale out of London.
Like I said an idiotic idea that will set back both governance and the economy in this country for decades. Don't get me wrong, I detest London and do everything I can to avoid going anywhere near it. But tghis is a truly stupid and self harming idea.
Tell me what infrastructure we have had approved by London up here in the past couple of decades?
London keeps getting new train lines. Crossrail, HS2 etc
Have we had any new train lines? Any new motorways? Anything?
The Civil Servants who make the decisions don't give a shit beyond London. Kick them out of the city and see how soon they wake up.
You call that setting things back? I can live with that.
Developed countries with successful cities and separate capitals tend to work very well, not badly.
This isn't true. HS2 was for the North, and there's the Transpennine Upgrade Programme and before that the West Coast Mainline Upgrade.
Northern Rail does get the shitty stick, and that needs to change, but let's not pretend that no-one cares.
PMSL!
Tell me how the absolute hell is a train line in the South of England that goes to London and terminates up in the Midlands in Birmingham is "for the North"?
If HS2 were actually for the North then it would have made sense to start construction with the Northern legs of it and deal with the Chilterns and South of England later on, and scrap that if anything were to be scrapped. But no, it was never for us.
Only a Southerner could think that what the North is desperately crying out for is another line in London.
It was originally for the North, that's why it was planned to go to Manchester and Leeds. The fact it's been cut back is a travesty, but you can't just represent it as a London thing. It was intended to provide a fast spine right up the whole country to deliver better economic integration for the Midlands and the North.
How much would HS2 have to cost before you conceded that cutting it back was not a "travesty"? From the tone of your comment it would be a lot more than the £100bn just for Euston (possibly) to East Birmingham alone, that is about £1 billion per mile.
I'm not here to defend how the Government cliented and sponsored it, I think the line speed spec and all the tunnels in the Chilterns were ridiculous and drove up cost - unnecessarily. Not to mention the flip-flopping.
The whole thing could have been built for £100bn had the scope been stabilised and calibrated properly and Phase 2A to Crewe, in particular, is an affordable one.
The tunnels aren't neccessary, I'm not so sure about the speed - I don't think it cost that much extra.
I think the issue came down to continual tinkering - we really should be deciding on a route and then issuing primary legislation that allows it to be built without court interference.
Equally it's one of a number of projects (electrification is another) where we just need a team of people employed for x decades who move from project to project to complete things.
The speed does cost a lot more because you need far shallower gradients and curves, and therefore much more civil engineering, and slab based track rather than ballast, which is much more expensive. At that speed you also have to consider the pressure waves entering tunnels in front of and around trains due to "air hammer" which is because the trains are so fast you have to consider air as a fluid. It means their diameters are much larger.
We might avoid some of this if just a few more politicians had something even close to an engineering background.
I remember this argument at the start of the interminable arguments over the project. Very few people accepted that the (completely unnecessary) top speed would cost a lot more. A common attitude was the reducing the headline figure was penny pinching.
A better informed debate might have avoided some if the years of delay.
Politicians love things which can be describe as 'world beating' or 'biggest in Europe'.
There was lots more money to be made for lawyers and consultants from a high speed railway than an ordinary railway.
Put them together and the mentality of "if we're building a new railway it might as well be high speed".
Now consider how you would view a business which wanted a new car and said "if we're buying a new car it might as well be a Ferrari".
My first act as PM would be to ban the phrase "world beating".
The NHS is the envy of the world, said no-one who’s ever lived in another OECD country.
Well the NHS sits in the mid/high scores among OECD countries, notably on cost per patient treated- the US spends a fortune for pretty ho-hum results. The point about health, as with so many things in the UK is not that it is so terrible, it is that it is so patchy- when it is good it is very very good, when it is bad, it is horrid.
The problem for the UK is not that things are so disastrous, it is that they are so mediocre.
If the purpose of the NHS is to treat patients cheaply, irrespective of outcomes, then you are right. But in terms of medical outcomes the NHS comes last out of the 11 countries regularly compared. At times we are even worse than the US when it comes to medical outcomes.
Personally I would suggest that medical outcomes is the overwhemingly important measure when comparing medical systems. Others may have different ideas.
With the notable exception of the US, medical outcomes are correlated with spend. If you want better medical outcomes, spend more on the NHS. Put in those terms, voters often seem to decide that the NHS is good enough.
That suggests that medical outcomes per spend is an important metric. The UK does pretty well on that.
money gets poured in and we are still bottom of league table in outcomes, kind of bursts your balloon.
Our spend per capita is lower than many comparable countries.
In 1970/71 the UK spent 3.8% of GDP on healthcare and 5.4% on education.
We used to consistently spend more on education than healthcare.
Today we have completely reversed that. It is 8.2% on healthcare and 4.2% on education.
We are spending on healthcare. More than double what we were as a percentage of GDP, at the expense of everthing else.
More evidence that Trump either is, or might as well be a Russian asset. This is an absolutely terrible idea for intelligence security. Compartmentalisation of knowledge has been a basic premise of operational intelligence since forever.
"The Trump administration is demanding that ... officials turn over the names of all foreign espionage targets, including suspected spies and potential recruits, to create a master list". https://x.com/Sandbagger_01/status/2071850885836087560
I have thought (and said here) that Reform can't win the next election. This is becoming more true all the time. Moving on to what happens next is interesting.
Farage is on the downhill, but the reasons for the far right surge have not gone away. Farage not being centre stage leaves a horrible gap for some equally horrible people to fill, even though winning is out of the question.
As things stand only Labour can lead the next government, not because Labour are great but because the Tories are not close to being good enough. The moderate Tory middle class backbone of the country has dissolved, both in party terms and demographically.
Returning politics to sanity requires a Tory leader who, first of all, can set out an affirmative Burkean liberal and democratic vision as well as Burnham can set out his.
Central to this is, because of the far right, affirming the difference between controlling our borders (fine) and demonising millions of people who are already lawfully here (the roots of fascism). The centre right and the far right are not the same but the Tories have no really clarified the difference. I don't think Kemi is the person to do it. It needs a visionary communicator.
In other words,
I think "Margot Leadbetter is dead" is a fairly good statement of where the Conservative Party now sits, tbh.
Audrey Fforbes Hamilton would certainly still be a Tory, she might vote LD only on a forced choice tactical vote to beat Reform or Burnham Labour
She would not face that tactical choice as she would live in a Conservative/LD marginal. I think you are right on Audrey but may well have lost Margot. Both would be conflicted in a way that would have felt inconceivable to them a few decades ago.
Peter de Vere is probably still voting Conservative, but Audrey is too maternalistic, if such a word exists. The sort of lady who believes in fixing the church roof, and that strand of the Tory tradition has very largely wandered off.
Most of our rural church congregation still votes Tory. Peter de Vere likely now votes Reform
Jeez. Already the media hyena pack are now off on one wondering out loud how many nights Burnham will sleep at No 10 and how many at home in the North and so on.
FFS.
Focus on something important for a change.
quite astute from burnham, get the meeja interested in frivolous stuff and not policy
It's one thing wanting this to happen, but realistically is there long enough left of this term to put it into practice? It's surely quite a big project, duplicating No 10? Suitable property to buy or build, for one thing.
House of Commons is falling apart anyway and needs a big refurb. Other countries manage having power spread out across different locations. Plus it will be a hugely visible change. It really is quite amusing watching all London elite getting vapours at the idea we might try something different
Closing Westminstrr for 5-10 years and moving Parliament to Manchester for the duration is an excellent idea.
Closing Westminster and moving Parliament elsewhere is a brilliant idea fullstop.
But unless you move Westminster to the NEC it's got to be a permanent move..
A permanent move is a truly stupid idea. It will cost vast billions and achieve nothing
Unless you really wanted to break the Westminster stranglehold on all things in this country.
Still a stupid idea. All you do is cause chaos in Government
The only first world country that has their seat of Government elsewhere than their capital is the Netherlands. And the distance from The Hague to Amsterdam? 37 miles. Almost exactly the same distance as from one side of Greater London to the other.
Only because you are defining it based on the capital and not based on their primary city.
Washington DC is a tertiary city compared to New York, Los Angeles etc Canberra is a tertiary city compared to Sydney and Melbourne. Ottowa is a tertiary city compared to Toronto, Vancouver etc
Actually separating the capital/seat of government from the primary cities which can concentrate on finance and other issues without government being there is quite common across the first world. Move government wholesale out of London.
Like I said an idiotic idea that will set back both governance and the economy in this country for decades. Don't get me wrong, I detest London and do everything I can to avoid going anywhere near it. But tghis is a truly stupid and self harming idea.
Tell me what infrastructure we have had approved by London up here in the past couple of decades?
London keeps getting new train lines. Crossrail, HS2 etc
Have we had any new train lines? Any new motorways? Anything?
The Civil Servants who make the decisions don't give a shit beyond London. Kick them out of the city and see how soon they wake up.
You call that setting things back? I can live with that.
Developed countries with successful cities and separate capitals tend to work very well, not badly.
This isn't true. HS2 was for the North, and there's the Transpennine Upgrade Programme and before that the West Coast Mainline Upgrade.
Northern Rail does get the shitty stick, and that needs to change, but let's not pretend that no-one cares.
PMSL!
Tell me how the absolute hell is a train line in the South of England that goes to London and terminates up in the Midlands in Birmingham is "for the North"?
If HS2 were actually for the North then it would have made sense to start construction with the Northern legs of it and deal with the Chilterns and South of England later on, and scrap that if anything were to be scrapped. But no, it was never for us.
Only a Southerner could think that what the North is desperately crying out for is another line in London.
It was originally for the North, that's why it was planned to go to Manchester and Leeds. The fact it's been cut back is a travesty, but you can't just represent it as a London thing. It was intended to provide a fast spine right up the whole country to deliver better economic integration for the Midlands and the North.
How much would HS2 have to cost before you conceded that cutting it back was not a "travesty"? From the tone of your comment it would be a lot more than the £100bn just for Euston (possibly) to East Birmingham alone, that is about £1 billion per mile.
I'm not here to defend how the Government cliented and sponsored it, I think the line speed spec and all the tunnels in the Chilterns were ridiculous and drove up cost - unnecessarily. Not to mention the flip-flopping.
The whole thing could have been built for £100bn had the scope been stabilised and calibrated properly and Phase 2A to Crewe, in particular, is an affordable one.
The tunnels aren't neccessary, I'm not so sure about the speed - I don't think it cost that much extra.
I think the issue came down to continual tinkering - we really should be deciding on a route and then issuing primary legislation that allows it to be built without court interference.
Equally it's one of a number of projects (electrification is another) where we just need a team of people employed for x decades who move from project to project to complete things.
The speed does cost a lot more because you need far shallower gradients and curves, and therefore much more civil engineering, and slab based track rather than ballast, which is much more expensive. At that speed you also have to consider the pressure waves entering tunnels in front of and around trains due to "air hammer" which is because the trains are so fast you have to consider air as a fluid. It means their diameters are much larger.
We might avoid some of this if just a few more politicians had something even close to an engineering background.
I remember this argument at the start of the interminable arguments over the project. Very few people accepted that the (completely unnecessary) top speed would cost a lot more. A common attitude was the reducing the headline figure was penny pinching.
A better informed debate might have avoided some if the years of delay.
Politicians love things which can be describe as 'world beating' or 'biggest in Europe'.
There was lots more money to be made for lawyers and consultants from a high speed railway than an ordinary railway.
Put them together and the mentality of "if we're building a new railway it might as well be high speed".
Now consider how you would view a business which wanted a new car and said "if we're buying a new car it might as well be a Ferrari".
My first act as PM would be to ban the phrase "world beating".
The NHS is the envy of the world, said no-one who’s ever lived in another OECD country.
Well the NHS sits in the mid/high scores among OECD countries, notably on cost per patient treated- the US spends a fortune for pretty ho-hum results. The point about health, as with so many things in the UK is not that it is so terrible, it is that it is so patchy- when it is good it is very very good, when it is bad, it is horrid.
The problem for the UK is not that things are so disastrous, it is that they are so mediocre.
If the purpose of the NHS is to treat patients cheaply, irrespective of outcomes, then you are right. But in terms of medical outcomes the NHS comes last out of the 11 countries regularly compared. At times we are even worse than the US when it comes to medical outcomes.
Personally I would suggest that medical outcomes is the overwhemingly important measure when comparing medical systems. Others may have different ideas.
With the notable exception of the US, medical outcomes are correlated with spend. If you want better medical outcomes, spend more on the NHS. Put in those terms, voters often seem to decide that the NHS is good enough.
That suggests that medical outcomes per spend is an important metric. The UK does pretty well on that.
money gets poured in and we are still bottom of league table in outcomes, kind of bursts your balloon.
Our spend per capita is lower than many comparable countries.
It doesn't matter how many times you present the facts, people just 'know' about the NHS 'cos they use it. You are right to point out that within the NHS and in related organisations there is a realistic view of where the NHS is in relation to other providers. But I think there is an issue once you enter the wider political environment. Too often the left claim that the Tories will privatise the NHS (whatever that means, because I have no clear idea when we already pay private companies to do work UNDER the NHS). And too often governments of all stripes come in and tear up existing structures seemingly because they think that doing something is better than nothing. See Andrew Lansbury in 2010 and Streeting in 2024.
And most of the time the NHS kind of works. Mostly. We hear about when it goes wrong, and there is often (deserved) bad press. But we don't get the positives enough, unless you consume the endless 'Surgeons at the edge of life' programmes.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
IMO there is a need to spend more on defence but the reason for that isn't Russia, it's America. That's where the big adverse change has occurred recently.
Russia is the main threat to us, no question, but this has been the case for many years. Is the threat greater now than it was? Otoh, yes, because they've shown they are willing to invade our continent on its Eastern border. But otoh, no, because the invasion is failing. Instead of (as was feared and expected at the time) conquering Ukraine within days they have engaged in over 4 years of bloody and expensive warfare to occupy a relatively small part of it, and are struggling to hold that. So on balance I'm not sure it's true to say there is now a greatly enhanced military threat from Russia.
What we indisputably do have is a different America. They can no longer be counted on to help defend Europe. Indeed they can barely be described as an ally now. That is a massive development. It leaves a very big gap to be filled (defencewise) and we have to play our part in that. Ok it might be an aberration due to Trump and things might revert after he's gone. But it wouldn't be prudent to assume that in our planning.
I wonder if even that is out of date. There is a good chance the next world war will be between AI companies and national governments, and that is the one we are least prepared for and unlike a Russian attempted invasion, we would probably lose.
I think* the Russian central bank had just put 5.39 trillion rubles (about $60bn?) into the Russian banking system to stave off a developing liquidity crisis.
Probably not yet time to deploy the iceberg lettuce for Putin, but it feels like a step closer to the end.
* I don't really understand the relationship between commercial banks and a central bank, and even less so when it's translated from Russian.
"We had packed lunches every day for 10 years and retired at 40"
So they scrimped and saved and retired at 40.
Fine.
But ALL the examples are couples or singles WITH NO KIDS. FFS. Nowhere is this point mentioned in the story.
We were £40,000 better off over 10 years from just that one lunch habit.
So £2k per person per year.
Alan had worked as a landscape gardener before launching a training and life-coaching business, while Katie was an actuary, or risk assessor, for a financial firm.
So 2-3hr/week more work probably would have got them same result. Or better job / harder negiotating for a pay rise.
And no kids folks. Thats the secret to retiring early.
I must be doing something wrong, no kids, aint retiring anytime soon....clearly spending too much on my lunch every day.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
IMO there is a need to spend more on defence but the reason for that isn't Russia, it's America. That's where the big adverse change has occurred recently.
Russia is the main threat to us, no question, but this has been the case for many years. Is the threat greater now than it was? Otoh, yes, because they've shown they are willing to invade our continent on its Eastern border. But otoh, no, because the invasion is failing. Instead of (as was feared and expected at the time) conquering Ukraine within days they have engaged in over 4 years of bloody and expensive warfare to occupy a relatively small part of it, and are struggling to hold that. So on balance I'm not sure it's true to say there is now a greatly enhanced military threat from Russia.
What we indisputably do have is a different America. They can no longer be counted on to help defend Europe. Indeed they can barely be described as an ally now. That is a massive development. It leaves a very big gap to be filled (defencewise) and we have to play our part in that. Ok it might be an aberration due to Trump and things might revert after he's gone. But it wouldn't be prudent to assume that in our planning.
I wonder if even that is out of date. There is a good chance the next world war will be between AI companies and national governments, and that is the one we are least prepared for and unlike a Russian attempted invasion, we would probably lose.
Maybe so. But how do you factor that into a defence investment plan? It's a paradigm shift.
The Tories will continue to slowly rise as voters get more and more glimpses of the true Farage. I'm with the commentators who think Farage will not lead Reform into the next election, because the scrutiny of a GE campaign would significantly damage his appeal to the electorate.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
Trump's win in the Supreme Court Slaughter case is a two edged sword.
Next Democratic president can just send out a general letter, to every department and agency, demanding the resignation of every person appointed by the Trump administration.
It overturned nearly a century of precedent, and was on the face of it bad constitutional law... but the consequences of MAGA might be significantly less entrenched as a result.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
IMO there is a need to spend more on defence but the reason for that isn't Russia, it's America. That's where the big adverse change has occurred recently.
Russia is the main threat to us, no question, but this has been the case for many years. Is the threat greater now than it was? Otoh, yes, because they've shown they are willing to invade our continent on its Eastern border. But otoh, no, because the invasion is failing. Instead of (as was feared and expected at the time) conquering Ukraine within days they have engaged in over 4 years of bloody and expensive warfare to occupy a relatively small part of it, and are struggling to hold that. So on balance I'm not sure it's true to say there is now a greatly enhanced military threat from Russia.
What we indisputably do have is a different America. They can no longer be counted on to help defend Europe. Indeed they can barely be described as an ally now. That is a massive development. It leaves a very big gap to be filled (defencewise) and we have to play our part in that. Ok it might be an aberration due to Trump and things might revert after he's gone. But it wouldn't be prudent to assume that in our planning.
I wonder if even that is out of date. There is a good chance the next world war will be between AI companies and national governments, and that is the one we are least prepared for and unlike a Russian attempted invasion, we would probably lose.
You may have been watching too much Sci Fi.
Well we seem to be doing our best to recreate Terminator.
"China just revealed an autonomous robot war pack built from dog bots, drones, laser weapons, and unmanned boats, Europe is putting military robots through brutal real-world field tests, Bezos is building a massive AI industry machine, Tesla is pushing toward 50,000 Optimus robots and possible Shanghai-scale production, Zuckerberg wants a personal superintelligence built around your life, and Unitree’s humanoids are now learning tennis, chasing boars, and sprinting at near human record speed. "
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
They always want £bns for their toy guns, there's always a big bad threat. The money can be better spent.
Where have you been the last few years ?
Russia waging war in Ukraine and threatening Europe
The middle east in turmoil with regional wars
The change in how wars are fought and your 'toy guns' are no longer the issue but drone warfare is
The defence review addresses these issues and yet Labour only find 15 billion when 28 billion is needed
Shortfall is 13 billion over 4 years so just over 3 billion more needed pa
The welfare bill should be reduced accordingly
Triple Lock is an extra £12bn a year compared to raising it in line with earnings. Buys a lot of kit.
Obscene for benefit junkies to be getting more than earnings.
You will not need to worry about it Bart, clowns like you will have ensured it is scrapped by time you dumbos are due to collect it, that will give you something else to whine about.
If you are staying up for the Mexico vs Ecuador game tonight, be aware that the Ecuador team is doing the same, as Mexico fans are making a racket outside their hotel. Well, it worked in South Africa. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uxkHsad9YL0
Trump's win in the Supreme Court Slaughter case is a two edged sword.
Next Democratic president can just send out a general letter, to every department and agency, demanding the resignation of every person appointed by the Trump administration.
It overturned nearly a century of precedent, and was on the face of it bad constitutional law... but the consequences of MAGA might be significantly less entrenched as a result.
Yep - the only place where MAGA are going to be fully ingrained will be the Supreme Court unless the number of members is significantly increased (which would be problematic).
That doesn't mean that the impact of MAGA will disappear in 2029 - it's going to take a very long time to undo the harm Trump has done.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
IMO there is a need to spend more on defence but the reason for that isn't Russia, it's America. That's where the big adverse change has occurred recently.
Russia is the main threat to us, no question, but this has been the case for many years. Is the threat greater now than it was? Otoh, yes, because they've shown they are willing to invade our continent on its Eastern border. But otoh, no, because the invasion is failing. Instead of (as was feared and expected at the time) conquering Ukraine within days they have engaged in over 4 years of bloody and expensive warfare to occupy a relatively small part of it, and are struggling to hold that. So on balance I'm not sure it's true to say there is now a greatly enhanced military threat from Russia.
What we indisputably do have is a different America. They can no longer be counted on to help defend Europe. Indeed they can barely be described as an ally now. That is a massive development. It leaves a very big gap to be filled (defencewise) and we have to play our part in that. Ok it might be an aberration due to Trump and things might revert after he's gone. But it wouldn't be prudent to assume that in our planning.
I wonder if even that is out of date. There is a good chance the next world war will be between AI companies and national governments, and that is the one we are least prepared for and unlike a Russian attempted invasion, we would probably lose.
Maybe so. But how do you factor that into a defence investment plan? It's a paradigm shift.
Well above my pay grade and understanding. The best I could do is ask Claude......
Maybe look at the Manhattan Project and WWII Bletchley Park. Get the best minds around and give them whatever they need.
If you are staying up for the Mexico vs Ecuador game tonight, be aware that the Ecuador team is doing the same, as Mexico fans are making a racket outside their hotel. Well, it worked in South Africa. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uxkHsad9YL0
Oh if we get through the match tomorrow that's what England has to look forward to on Friday night..
Jeez. Already the media hyena pack are now off on one wondering out loud how many nights Burnham will sleep at No 10 and how many at home in the North and so on.
FFS.
Focus on something important for a change.
quite astute from burnham, get the meeja interested in frivolous stuff and not policy
It's one thing wanting this to happen, but realistically is there long enough left of this term to put it into practice? It's surely quite a big project, duplicating No 10? Suitable property to buy or build, for one thing.
House of Commons is falling apart anyway and needs a big refurb. Other countries manage having power spread out across different locations. Plus it will be a hugely visible change. It really is quite amusing watching all London elite getting vapours at the idea we might try something different
Closing Westminstrr for 5-10 years and moving Parliament to Manchester for the duration is an excellent idea.
Closing Westminster and moving Parliament elsewhere is a brilliant idea fullstop.
But unless you move Westminster to the NEC it's got to be a permanent move..
A permanent move is a truly stupid idea. It will cost vast billions and achieve nothing
Unless you really wanted to break the Westminster stranglehold on all things in this country.
Still a stupid idea. All you do is cause chaos in Government
The only first world country that has their seat of Government elsewhere than their capital is the Netherlands. And the distance from The Hague to Amsterdam? 37 miles. Almost exactly the same distance as from one side of Greater London to the other.
Only because you are defining it based on the capital and not based on their primary city.
Washington DC is a tertiary city compared to New York, Los Angeles etc Canberra is a tertiary city compared to Sydney and Melbourne. Ottowa is a tertiary city compared to Toronto, Vancouver etc
Actually separating the capital/seat of government from the primary cities which can concentrate on finance and other issues without government being there is quite common across the first world. Move government wholesale out of London.
Like I said an idiotic idea that will set back both governance and the economy in this country for decades. Don't get me wrong, I detest London and do everything I can to avoid going anywhere near it. But tghis is a truly stupid and self harming idea.
Tell me what infrastructure we have had approved by London up here in the past couple of decades?
London keeps getting new train lines. Crossrail, HS2 etc
Have we had any new train lines? Any new motorways? Anything?
The Civil Servants who make the decisions don't give a shit beyond London. Kick them out of the city and see how soon they wake up.
You call that setting things back? I can live with that.
Developed countries with successful cities and separate capitals tend to work very well, not badly.
This isn't true. HS2 was for the North, and there's the Transpennine Upgrade Programme and before that the West Coast Mainline Upgrade.
Northern Rail does get the shitty stick, and that needs to change, but let's not pretend that no-one cares.
PMSL!
Tell me how the absolute hell is a train line in the South of England that goes to London and terminates up in the Midlands in Birmingham is "for the North"?
If HS2 were actually for the North then it would have made sense to start construction with the Northern legs of it and deal with the Chilterns and South of England later on, and scrap that if anything were to be scrapped. But no, it was never for us.
Only a Southerner could think that what the North is desperately crying out for is another line in London.
It was originally for the North, that's why it was planned to go to Manchester and Leeds. The fact it's been cut back is a travesty, but you can't just represent it as a London thing. It was intended to provide a fast spine right up the whole country to deliver better economic integration for the Midlands and the North.
How much would HS2 have to cost before you conceded that cutting it back was not a "travesty"? From the tone of your comment it would be a lot more than the £100bn just for Euston (possibly) to East Birmingham alone, that is about £1 billion per mile.
I'm not here to defend how the Government cliented and sponsored it, I think the line speed spec and all the tunnels in the Chilterns were ridiculous and drove up cost - unnecessarily. Not to mention the flip-flopping.
The whole thing could have been built for £100bn had the scope been stabilised and calibrated properly and Phase 2A to Crewe, in particular, is an affordable one.
The tunnels aren't neccessary, I'm not so sure about the speed - I don't think it cost that much extra.
I think the issue came down to continual tinkering - we really should be deciding on a route and then issuing primary legislation that allows it to be built without court interference.
Equally it's one of a number of projects (electrification is another) where we just need a team of people employed for x decades who move from project to project to complete things.
The speed does cost a lot more because you need far shallower gradients and curves, and therefore much more civil engineering, and slab based track rather than ballast, which is much more expensive. At that speed you also have to consider the pressure waves entering tunnels in front of and around trains due to "air hammer" which is because the trains are so fast you have to consider air as a fluid. It means their diameters are much larger.
We might avoid some of this if just a few more politicians had something even close to an engineering background.
I remember this argument at the start of the interminable arguments over the project. Very few people accepted that the (completely unnecessary) top speed would cost a lot more. A common attitude was the reducing the headline figure was penny pinching.
A better informed debate might have avoided some if the years of delay.
Politicians love things which can be describe as 'world beating' or 'biggest in Europe'.
There was lots more money to be made for lawyers and consultants from a high speed railway than an ordinary railway.
Put them together and the mentality of "if we're building a new railway it might as well be high speed".
Now consider how you would view a business which wanted a new car and said "if we're buying a new car it might as well be a Ferrari".
My first act as PM would be to ban the phrase "world beating".
The NHS is the envy of the world, said no-one who’s ever lived in another OECD country.
Well the NHS sits in the mid/high scores among OECD countries, notably on cost per patient treated- the US spends a fortune for pretty ho-hum results. The point about health, as with so many things in the UK is not that it is so terrible, it is that it is so patchy- when it is good it is very very good, when it is bad, it is horrid.
The problem for the UK is not that things are so disastrous, it is that they are so mediocre.
If the purpose of the NHS is to treat patients cheaply, irrespective of outcomes, then you are right. But in terms of medical outcomes the NHS comes last out of the 11 countries regularly compared. At times we are even worse than the US when it comes to medical outcomes.
Personally I would suggest that medical outcomes is the overwhemingly important measure when comparing medical systems. Others may have different ideas.
With the notable exception of the US, medical outcomes are correlated with spend. If you want better medical outcomes, spend more on the NHS. Put in those terms, voters often seem to decide that the NHS is good enough.
That suggests that medical outcomes per spend is an important metric. The UK does pretty well on that.
money gets poured in and we are still bottom of league table in outcomes, kind of bursts your balloon.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
IMO there is a need to spend more on defence but the reason for that isn't Russia, it's America. That's where the big adverse change has occurred recently.
Russia is the main threat to us, no question, but this has been the case for many years. Is the threat greater now than it was? Otoh, yes, because they've shown they are willing to invade our continent on its Eastern border. But otoh, no, because the invasion is failing. Instead of (as was feared and expected at the time) conquering Ukraine within days they have engaged in over 4 years of bloody and expensive warfare to occupy a relatively small part of it, and are struggling to hold that. So on balance I'm not sure it's true to say there is now a greatly enhanced military threat from Russia.
What we indisputably do have is a different America. They can no longer be counted on to help defend Europe. Indeed they can barely be described as an ally now. That is a massive development. It leaves a very big gap to be filled (defencewise) and we have to play our part in that. Ok it might be an aberration due to Trump and things might revert after he's gone. But it wouldn't be prudent to assume that in our planning.
You make a good point with regard to the USA, and I admit that my posts have perhaps been overly provocative. Of course I agree that we need good defence against aggressors and that money must be found for that. However, I do feel that there is a little bit of hysteria in the air with regard to the threat from Russia and there is a risk that we end up wasting enormous amounts of money as a result. We need to carefully consider how we can best position the country to respond to potential aggression, which could come in any number of forms, rather than spending for the sake of it. Our targets should be capabilities, not percentages of GDP spent.
My other point is that there are close parallels between defence and climate mitigation. Military aggression and climate change are both existential threats to the country which can only be countered by targeted measures and close cooperation with other nations. Both threats need to be taken seriously, and both are expensive and difficult to defend against. We need to guard against wasting money on both, but we also need to acknowledge that in neither case can can we wait until we can "afford it".
Trump's win in the Supreme Court Slaughter case is a two edged sword.
Next Democratic president can just send out a general letter, to every department and agency, demanding the resignation of every person appointed by the Trump administration.
It overturned nearly a century of precedent, and was on the face of it bad constitutional law... but the consequences of MAGA might be significantly less entrenched as a result.
Yep - the only place where MAGA are going to be fully ingrained will be the Supreme Court unless the number of members is significantly increased (which would be problematic).
That doesn't mean that the impact of MAGA will disappear in 2029 - it's going to take a very long time to undo the harm Trump has done.
If Trump doesn't get another SC nomination before the midterms (ie if Thomas and/or Alito don't retire), and the GOP Senate majority disappears, then the SC right wing majority won't be so deeply entrenched either.
NYT/Siena poll | 6/19-6/27 LV
US Senate Texas 2026 🟥Ken Paxton 47% 🟦James Talarico 47%
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
They always want £bns for their toy guns, there's always a big bad threat. The money can be better spent.
Where have you been the last few years ?
Russia waging war in Ukraine and threatening Europe
The middle east in turmoil with regional wars
The change in how wars are fought and your 'toy guns' are no longer the issue but drone warfare is
The defence review addresses these issues and yet Labour only find 15 billion when 28 billion is needed
Shortfall is 13 billion over 4 years so just over 3 billion more needed pa
The welfare bill should be reduced accordingly
Triple Lock is an extra £12bn a year compared to raising it in line with earnings. Buys a lot of kit.
Obscene for benefit junkies to be getting more than earnings.
You will not need to worry about it Bart, clowns like you will have ensured it is scrapped by time you dumbos are due to collect it, that will give you something else to whine about.
Jeez. Already the media hyena pack are now off on one wondering out loud how many nights Burnham will sleep at No 10 and how many at home in the North and so on.
FFS.
Focus on something important for a change.
quite astute from burnham, get the meeja interested in frivolous stuff and not policy
It's one thing wanting this to happen, but realistically is there long enough left of this term to put it into practice? It's surely quite a big project, duplicating No 10? Suitable property to buy or build, for one thing.
House of Commons is falling apart anyway and needs a big refurb. Other countries manage having power spread out across different locations. Plus it will be a hugely visible change. It really is quite amusing watching all London elite getting vapours at the idea we might try something different
Closing Westminstrr for 5-10 years and moving Parliament to Manchester for the duration is an excellent idea.
Closing Westminster and moving Parliament elsewhere is a brilliant idea fullstop.
But unless you move Westminster to the NEC it's got to be a permanent move..
A permanent move is a truly stupid idea. It will cost vast billions and achieve nothing
Unless you really wanted to break the Westminster stranglehold on all things in this country.
Still a stupid idea. All you do is cause chaos in Government
The only first world country that has their seat of Government elsewhere than their capital is the Netherlands. And the distance from The Hague to Amsterdam? 37 miles. Almost exactly the same distance as from one side of Greater London to the other.
Only because you are defining it based on the capital and not based on their primary city.
Washington DC is a tertiary city compared to New York, Los Angeles etc Canberra is a tertiary city compared to Sydney and Melbourne. Ottowa is a tertiary city compared to Toronto, Vancouver etc
Actually separating the capital/seat of government from the primary cities which can concentrate on finance and other issues without government being there is quite common across the first world. Move government wholesale out of London.
Like I said an idiotic idea that will set back both governance and the economy in this country for decades. Don't get me wrong, I detest London and do everything I can to avoid going anywhere near it. But tghis is a truly stupid and self harming idea.
Tell me what infrastructure we have had approved by London up here in the past couple of decades?
London keeps getting new train lines. Crossrail, HS2 etc
Have we had any new train lines? Any new motorways? Anything?
The Civil Servants who make the decisions don't give a shit beyond London. Kick them out of the city and see how soon they wake up.
You call that setting things back? I can live with that.
Developed countries with successful cities and separate capitals tend to work very well, not badly.
This isn't true. HS2 was for the North, and there's the Transpennine Upgrade Programme and before that the West Coast Mainline Upgrade.
Northern Rail does get the shitty stick, and that needs to change, but let's not pretend that no-one cares.
PMSL!
Tell me how the absolute hell is a train line in the South of England that goes to London and terminates up in the Midlands in Birmingham is "for the North"?
If HS2 were actually for the North then it would have made sense to start construction with the Northern legs of it and deal with the Chilterns and South of England later on, and scrap that if anything were to be scrapped. But no, it was never for us.
Only a Southerner could think that what the North is desperately crying out for is another line in London.
It was originally for the North, that's why it was planned to go to Manchester and Leeds. The fact it's been cut back is a travesty, but you can't just represent it as a London thing. It was intended to provide a fast spine right up the whole country to deliver better economic integration for the Midlands and the North.
How much would HS2 have to cost before you conceded that cutting it back was not a "travesty"? From the tone of your comment it would be a lot more than the £100bn just for Euston (possibly) to East Birmingham alone, that is about £1 billion per mile.
I'm not here to defend how the Government cliented and sponsored it, I think the line speed spec and all the tunnels in the Chilterns were ridiculous and drove up cost - unnecessarily. Not to mention the flip-flopping.
The whole thing could have been built for £100bn had the scope been stabilised and calibrated properly and Phase 2A to Crewe, in particular, is an affordable one.
The tunnels aren't neccessary, I'm not so sure about the speed - I don't think it cost that much extra.
I think the issue came down to continual tinkering - we really should be deciding on a route and then issuing primary legislation that allows it to be built without court interference.
Equally it's one of a number of projects (electrification is another) where we just need a team of people employed for x decades who move from project to project to complete things.
The speed does cost a lot more because you need far shallower gradients and curves, and therefore much more civil engineering, and slab based track rather than ballast, which is much more expensive. At that speed you also have to consider the pressure waves entering tunnels in front of and around trains due to "air hammer" which is because the trains are so fast you have to consider air as a fluid. It means their diameters are much larger.
We might avoid some of this if just a few more politicians had something even close to an engineering background.
I remember this argument at the start of the interminable arguments over the project. Very few people accepted that the (completely unnecessary) top speed would cost a lot more. A common attitude was the reducing the headline figure was penny pinching.
A better informed debate might have avoided some if the years of delay.
Politicians love things which can be describe as 'world beating' or 'biggest in Europe'.
There was lots more money to be made for lawyers and consultants from a high speed railway than an ordinary railway.
Put them together and the mentality of "if we're building a new railway it might as well be high speed".
Now consider how you would view a business which wanted a new car and said "if we're buying a new car it might as well be a Ferrari".
My first act as PM would be to ban the phrase "world beating".
The NHS is the envy of the world, said no-one who’s ever lived in another OECD country.
Well the NHS sits in the mid/high scores among OECD countries, notably on cost per patient treated- the US spends a fortune for pretty ho-hum results. The point about health, as with so many things in the UK is not that it is so terrible, it is that it is so patchy- when it is good it is very very good, when it is bad, it is horrid.
The problem for the UK is not that things are so disastrous, it is that they are so mediocre.
If the purpose of the NHS is to treat patients cheaply, irrespective of outcomes, then you are right. But in terms of medical outcomes the NHS comes last out of the 11 countries regularly compared. At times we are even worse than the US when it comes to medical outcomes.
Personally I would suggest that medical outcomes is the overwhemingly important measure when comparing medical systems. Others may have different ideas.
With the notable exception of the US, medical outcomes are correlated with spend. If you want better medical outcomes, spend more on the NHS. Put in those terms, voters often seem to decide that the NHS is good enough.
That suggests that medical outcomes per spend is an important metric. The UK does pretty well on that.
money gets poured in and we are still bottom of league table in outcomes, kind of bursts your balloon.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
IMO there is a need to spend more on defence but the reason for that isn't Russia, it's America. That's where the big adverse change has occurred recently.
Russia is the main threat to us, no question, but this has been the case for many years. Is the threat greater now than it was? Otoh, yes, because they've shown they are willing to invade our continent on its Eastern border. But otoh, no, because the invasion is failing. Instead of (as was feared and expected at the time) conquering Ukraine within days they have engaged in over 4 years of bloody and expensive warfare to occupy a relatively small part of it, and are struggling to hold that. So on balance I'm not sure it's true to say there is now a greatly enhanced military threat from Russia.
What we indisputably do have is a different America. They can no longer be counted on to help defend Europe. Indeed they can barely be described as an ally now. That is a massive development. It leaves a very big gap to be filled (defencewise) and we have to play our part in that. Ok it might be an aberration due to Trump and things might revert after he's gone. But it wouldn't be prudent to assume that in our planning.
You make a good point with regard to the USA, and I admit that my posts have perhaps been overly provocative. Of course I agree that we need good defence against aggressors and that money must be found for that. However, I do feel that there is a little bit of hysteria in the air with regard to the threat from Russia and there is a risk that we end up wasting enormous amounts of money as a result. We need to carefully consider how we can best position the country to respond to potential aggression, which could come in any number of forms, rather than spending for the sake of it. Our targets should be capabilities, not percentages of GDP spent.
My other point is that there are close parallels between defence and climate mitigation. Military aggression and climate change are both existential threats to the country which can only be countered by targeted measures and close cooperation with other nations. Both threats need to be taken seriously, and both are expensive and difficult to defend against. We need to guard against wasting money on both, but we also need to acknowledge that in neither case can can we wait until we can "afford it".
I agree. The 'Russia' thing is being overplayed in places. Perhaps because it's an easier and more diplomatically possible message than, "Look, whatever threats we face it's going to be more expensive to counter them now we seem be losing the US as a friend and protector."
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
They always want £bns for their toy guns, there's always a big bad threat. The money can be better spent.
Where have you been the last few years ?
Russia waging war in Ukraine and threatening Europe
The middle east in turmoil with regional wars
The change in how wars are fought and your 'toy guns' are no longer the issue but drone warfare is
The defence review addresses these issues and yet Labour only find 15 billion when 28 billion is needed
Shortfall is 13 billion over 4 years so just over 3 billion more needed pa
The welfare bill should be reduced accordingly
Triple Lock is an extra £12bn a year compared to raising it in line with earnings. Buys a lot of kit.
Obscene for benefit junkies to be getting more than earnings.
You will not need to worry about it Bart, clowns like you will have ensured it is scrapped by time you dumbos are due to collect it, that will give you something else to whine about.
You know the PB mantra.
Triple lock bad
UC and PIP rising inexorably good.
All bad?
You and Malcolmg have an interest tbh, as recipients. I do about the 60% tax trap, because it affects me. Bondegezou does because he's in the largesse university sector and does about 2 hours work a day, and worries they'd come for him next.
We need to reform tax and spend across the board, and both need to be lowered.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
They always want £bns for their toy guns, there's always a big bad threat. The money can be better spent.
Where have you been the last few years ?
Russia waging war in Ukraine and threatening Europe
The middle east in turmoil with regional wars
The change in how wars are fought and your 'toy guns' are no longer the issue but drone warfare is
The defence review addresses these issues and yet Labour only find 15 billion when 28 billion is needed
Shortfall is 13 billion over 4 years so just over 3 billion more needed pa
The welfare bill should be reduced accordingly
Triple Lock is an extra £12bn a year compared to raising it in line with earnings. Buys a lot of kit.
Obscene for benefit junkies to be getting more than earnings.
You will not need to worry about it Bart, clowns like you will have ensured it is scrapped by time you dumbos are due to collect it, that will give you something else to whine about.
You know the PB mantra.
Triple lock bad
UC and PIP rising inexorably good.
All bad?
You and Malcolmg have an interest tbh, as recipients. I do about the 60% tax trap, because it affects me. Bondegezou does because he's in the largesse university sector and does about 2 hours work a day, and worries they'd come for him next.
We need to reform tax and spend across the board, and both need to be lowered.
We need to spend more on education and defence.
I don’t receive a penny from the state, you cheeky fucker, I’m funding my own retirement until I get to state pension age. Seven years to go.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
IMO there is a need to spend more on defence but the reason for that isn't Russia, it's America. That's where the big adverse change has occurred recently.
Russia is the main threat to us, no question, but this has been the case for many years. Is the threat greater now than it was? Otoh, yes, because they've shown they are willing to invade our continent on its Eastern border. But otoh, no, because the invasion is failing. Instead of (as was feared and expected at the time) conquering Ukraine within days they have engaged in over 4 years of bloody and expensive warfare to occupy a relatively small part of it, and are struggling to hold that. So on balance I'm not sure it's true to say there is now a greatly enhanced military threat from Russia.
What we indisputably do have is a different America. They can no longer be counted on to help defend Europe. Indeed they can barely be described as an ally now. That is a massive development. It leaves a very big gap to be filled (defencewise) and we have to play our part in that. Ok it might be an aberration due to Trump and things might revert after he's gone. But it wouldn't be prudent to assume that in our planning.
I wonder if even that is out of date. There is a good chance the next world war will be between AI companies and national governments, and that is the one we are least prepared for and unlike a Russian attempted invasion, we would probably lose.
You may have been watching too much Sci Fi.
Um, cyberwarfare is already a thing. A lot of infrastructure depends on things with chips and large sheds by the ring road with racks of things with stuttering LEDs. Civilian passenger aircraft upload software details telling them where the ground is: spoof that, and the engines don't generate enough lift on the runway and you crash.
Bot farms in the former Yugoslavia or Iran run hundreds of thousands of fictional identities agitating for political causes When Iran was forced online a lot of ScotNat Facebook and Twitters went dark. When it came back, so did they.
Now spin it out to AI. Millions of online personas, reacting in real time, manipulating you in ways you won't recognise and won't disobey. People live online these days and are soooo easy to manipulate. Play your cards right and the UK will fold without a fight. Sun Tzu would have wet himself.
For those with more sharply attuned political antennae, you will already feel British politics steering steadily back toward the traditional Labour versus Tory contest, in which the other parties have merely walk-on parts - if perhaps more significant parts than in prior elections. Depressing, in that Labour and Tory are two cheeks of the arse that have sat on any progression of our political system for several generations past. Yet we cling to the hope that Burnham and his allies will sustain their critique of the dysfunctional nature of our politics once they are themselves sitting in the big chairs. Meanwhile, if the next GE does come down to a Tory/Labour showdown, the smart money would surely be backing Labour for most seats, if not for a majority.
Some positives! To the one flagged up by James below I would add the £8+BN commitment to the GCAP fighter programme and the £11bn on munitions + their factories https://x.com/MarkUrban01/status/2071943816060309578
Preserving manufacturing capacity and increasing stocks of munitions are about the most positive things that can be done, outside of radical reform (which is anyway not going to happen quickly).
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
IMO there is a need to spend more on defence but the reason for that isn't Russia, it's America. That's where the big adverse change has occurred recently.
Russia is the main threat to us, no question, but this has been the case for many years. Is the threat greater now than it was? Otoh, yes, because they've shown they are willing to invade our continent on its Eastern border. But otoh, no, because the invasion is failing. Instead of (as was feared and expected at the time) conquering Ukraine within days they have engaged in over 4 years of bloody and expensive warfare to occupy a relatively small part of it, and are struggling to hold that. So on balance I'm not sure it's true to say there is now a greatly enhanced military threat from Russia.
What we indisputably do have is a different America. They can no longer be counted on to help defend Europe. Indeed they can barely be described as an ally now. That is a massive development. It leaves a very big gap to be filled (defencewise) and we have to play our part in that. Ok it might be an aberration due to Trump and things might revert after he's gone. But it wouldn't be prudent to assume that in our planning.
I wonder if even that is out of date. There is a good chance the next world war will be between AI companies and national governments, and that is the one we are least prepared for and unlike a Russian attempted invasion, we would probably lose.
You may have been watching too much Sci Fi.
Um, cyberwarfare is already a thing. A lot of infrastructure depends on things with chips and large sheds by the ring road with racks of things with stuttering LEDs. Civilian passenger aircraft upload software details telling them where the ground is: spoof that, and the engines don't generate enough lift on the runway and you crash.
Bot farms in the former Yugoslavia or Iran run hundreds of thousands of fictional identities agitating for political causes When Iran was forced online a lot of ScotNat Facebook and Twitters went dark. When it came back, so did they.
Now spin it out to AI. Millions of online personas, reacting in real time, manipulating you in ways you won't recognise and won't disobey. People live online these days and are soooo easy to manipulate. Play your cards right and the UK will fold without a fight. Sun Tzu would have wet himself.
I have thought (and said here) that Reform can't win the next election. This is becoming more true all the time. Moving on to what happens next is interesting.
Farage is on the downhill, but the reasons for the far right surge have not gone away. Farage not being centre stage leaves a horrible gap for some equally horrible people to fill, even though winning is out of the question.
As things stand only Labour can lead the next government, not because Labour are great but because the Tories are not close to being good enough. The moderate Tory middle class backbone of the country has dissolved, both in party terms and demographically.
Returning politics to sanity requires a Tory leader who, first of all, can set out an affirmative Burkean liberal and democratic vision as well as Burnham can set out his.
Central to this is, because of the far right, affirming the difference between controlling our borders (fine) and demonising millions of people who are already lawfully here (the roots of fascism). The centre right and the far right are not the same but the Tories have no really clarified the difference. I don't think Kemi is the person to do it. It needs a visionary communicator.
In other words,
I think "Margot Leadbetter is dead" is a fairly good statement of where the Conservative Party now sits, tbh.
Audrey Fforbes Hamilton would certainly still be a Tory, she might vote LD only on a forced choice tactical vote to beat Reform or Burnham Labour
She would not face that tactical choice as she would live in a Conservative/LD marginal. I think you are right on Audrey but may well have lost Margot. Both would be conflicted in a way that would have felt inconceivable to them a few decades ago.
Peter de Vere is probably still voting Conservative, but Audrey is too maternalistic, if such a word exists. The sort of lady who believes in fixing the church roof, and that strand of the Tory tradition has very largely wandered off.
The Audrey Fforbes-Hamilton character was simply a Tory and a right wing one. The TV programme came from an era when your politics was not necessarily considered be most to be correlated directly with your morality. A right winger could still be portrayed on television without it having to be a hit job to remind people that being right wing isn't OK.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
Europe, including the UK, would be better off having a strategic defence review that involved all nations, and designing how to have effective joint capabilities, rather than every nation trying to do everything.
That would have a bigger impact on collective capabilities than X% more spent in this country or that.
And it should be focussed on our own backyard, not power projection into the Middle East or Asia.
Trump's win in the Supreme Court Slaughter case is a two edged sword.
Next Democratic president can just send out a general letter, to every department and agency, demanding the resignation of every person appointed by the Trump administration.
It overturned nearly a century of precedent, and was on the face of it bad constitutional law... but the consequences of MAGA might be significantly less entrenched as a result.
Yep - the only place where MAGA are going to be fully ingrained will be the Supreme Court unless the number of members is significantly increased (which would be problematic).
That doesn't mean that the impact of MAGA will disappear in 2029 - it's going to take a very long time to undo the harm Trump has done.
If Trump doesn't get another SC nomination before the midterms (ie if Thomas and/or Alito don't retire), and the GOP Senate majority disappears, then the SC right wing majority won't be so deeply entrenched either.
NYT/Siena poll | 6/19-6/27 LV
US Senate Texas 2026 🟥Ken Paxton 47% 🟦James Talarico 47%
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
It is not a case of new stuff in 10 to 15 years. We need stuff now. We need more personnel (many of the ships we have can't go to sea for lack of manpower). We need massive investment in the new technologies we are seeing dominate the wars around the world - drones and IT being two. We need to end our reliance on the US for much of what we do by providing it ourselves or with our other allies.
This is no longer about shiney new toys - although we do need a lot more ships for example. It is about buying stuff off the shelf which we can integrate and use straight away, not in decades.
I'm a low tax Conservative and I'd whack up income tax by 2p now to pay for it all. In full. Even though it'd personally hurt me and others.
That's how seriously I think we need to take Defence.
It is just 3 billion a year more for 4 years
Take it from welfare - triple lock anyone ?
Removing the triple lock doesn’t save you £4bn next year - it saves money down the line
The real issue with the triple lock - cancelling it saves barely anything in the next few years but not cancelling ensures inexorable growth in the long term - the losers will be future retirees who will pay for it in increased state pension age
We should keep the triple lock but use the average of the three measures (earnings growth, inflation, 2.5%) instead of the maximum. This would be fair, hard to argue against, and politically would not involve abandoning the triple lock!
For those with more sharply attuned political antennae, you will already feel British politics steering steadily back toward the traditional Labour versus Tory contest, in which the other parties have merely walk-on parts - if perhaps more significant parts than in prior elections. Depressing, in that Labour and Tory are two cheeks of the arse that have sat on any progression of our political system for several generations past. Yet we cling to the hope that Burnham and his allies will sustain their critique of the dysfunctional nature of our politics once they are themselves sitting in the big chairs. Meanwhile, if the next GE does come down to a Tory/Labour showdown, the smart money would surely be backing Labour for most seats, if not for a majority.
Inasmuch as we have a vague sense of the Labour and Conservative "themes" - common sense vs Manchesterism - true. Neither will work and both are full of flaws and other parties have three years to point out the flaws.
Other parties will also be happy to regale the electorate with the grotesque catalogue of Conservative and Labour failures from 2010-29.
There's still going to be a significant NOTA vote and how that shakes out between Reform, the LDs, Greens, Restore and others will be significant.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
Listen to the defence experts and Starmer's own defence review that required 28 billion investment
Read Healey and Carns resignation letters and understand Starmer is not making our country safe
Billions more needed to rearm for potential Russia war - and defence spending plan 'still well short'
They always want £bns for their toy guns, there's always a big bad threat. The money can be better spent.
Where have you been the last few years ?
Russia waging war in Ukraine and threatening Europe
The middle east in turmoil with regional wars
The change in how wars are fought and your 'toy guns' are no longer the issue but drone warfare is
The defence review addresses these issues and yet Labour only find 15 billion when 28 billion is needed
Shortfall is 13 billion over 4 years so just over 3 billion more needed pa
The welfare bill should be reduced accordingly
Triple Lock is an extra £12bn a year compared to raising it in line with earnings. Buys a lot of kit.
Obscene for benefit junkies to be getting more than earnings.
You will not need to worry about it Bart, clowns like you will have ensured it is scrapped by time you dumbos are due to collect it, that will give you something else to whine about.
You know the PB mantra.
Triple lock bad
UC and PIP rising inexorably good.
UC compensates a lot of people in work for the poor rates of pay they are offered. Pay people more
PIP is to allow people of working age continue to work rather than sit at home on UC
Triple Lock is rewarding those who didn't provide for their retirement and expect to be compensated for it.
snip.. Bot farms in the former Yugoslavia or Iran run hundreds of thousands of fictional identities agitating for political causes When Iran was forced online a lot of ScotNat Facebook and Twitters went dark. When it came back, so did they.
Rumour is we might see the same again after the Russian Parliamentary elections this September. After the vote another 500,000 Russians to be mobilised, and the internet shut down to put a lid on them complaining about it. Putin has another deadline for the Russian army to fully occupy Donetsk and Luhansk - 31st December.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
IMO there is a need to spend more on defence but the reason for that isn't Russia, it's America. That's where the big adverse change has occurred recently.
Russia is the main threat to us, no question, but this has been the case for many years. Is the threat greater now than it was? Otoh, yes, because they've shown they are willing to invade our continent on its Eastern border. But otoh, no, because the invasion is failing. Instead of (as was feared and expected at the time) conquering Ukraine within days they have engaged in over 4 years of bloody and expensive warfare to occupy a relatively small part of it, and are struggling to hold that. So on balance I'm not sure it's true to say there is now a greatly enhanced military threat from Russia.
What we indisputably do have is a different America. They can no longer be counted on to help defend Europe. Indeed they can barely be described as an ally now. That is a massive development. It leaves a very big gap to be filled (defencewise) and we have to play our part in that. Ok it might be an aberration due to Trump and things might revert after he's gone. But it wouldn't be prudent to assume that in our planning.
I wonder if even that is out of date. There is a good chance the next world war will be between AI companies and national governments, and that is the one we are least prepared for and unlike a Russian attempted invasion, we would probably lose.
You may have been watching too much Sci Fi.
Um, cyberwarfare is already a thing. A lot of infrastructure depends on things with chips and large sheds by the ring road with racks of things with stuttering LEDs. Civilian passenger aircraft upload software details telling them where the ground is: spoof that, and the engines don't generate enough lift on the runway and you crash.
Bot farms in the former Yugoslavia or Iran run hundreds of thousands of fictional identities agitating for political causes When Iran was forced online a lot of ScotNat Facebook and Twitters went dark. When it came back, so did they.
Now spin it out to AI. Millions of online personas, reacting in real time, manipulating you in ways you won't recognise and won't disobey. People live online these days and are soooo easy to manipulate. Play your cards right and the UK will fold without a fight. Sun Tzu would have wet himself.
As I say - too much Sci Fi.
That Iran example was a real example that really happened in real life, really. The Serbian bot farms are a thing. The UK is frequently subject to cyber attacks, as the British Library can sadly attest. This is not sci-fi, it's been current politics for over a decade now. The British Army has a cyberwarfare division brigade/division/whatevs, as I pointed out in my Blob article.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
It is not a case of new stuff in 10 to 15 years. We need stuff now. We need more personnel (many of the ships we have can't go to sea for lack of manpower). We need massive investment in the new technologies we are seeing dominate the wars around the world - drones and IT being two. We need to end our reliance on the US for much of what we do by providing it ourselves or with our other allies.
This is no longer about shiney new toys - although we do need a lot more ships for example. It is about buying stuff off the shelf which we can integrate and use straight away, not in decades.
I'm a low tax Conservative and I'd whack up income tax by 2p now to pay for it all. In full. Even though it'd personally hurt me and others.
That's how seriously I think we need to take Defence.
It is just 3 billion a year more for 4 years
Take it from welfare - triple lock anyone ?
Removing the triple lock doesn’t save you £4bn next year - it saves money down the line
The real issue with the triple lock - cancelling it saves barely anything in the next few years but not cancelling ensures inexorable growth in the long term - the losers will be future retirees who will pay for it in increased state pension age
We should keep the triple lock but use the average of the three measures (earnings growth, inflation, 2.5%) instead of the maximum. This would be fair, hard to argue against, and politically would not involve abandoning the triple lock!
I’d say that was fair.
A better approach is to use a long term time frame.
What currently happens is inflation is high in year 1. Wages go up in year 2 to reflect the inflation in year 1 and the pension goes up thanks to the wage increase in year 2.
If instead you went over the past 4 years those impacts would be quickly evened out and what is left would be more sustainable
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
Europe, including the UK, would be better off having a strategic defence review that involved all nations, and designing how to have effective joint capabilities, rather than every nation trying to do everything.
That would have a bigger impact on collective capabilities than X% more spent in this country or that.
And it should be focussed on our own backyard, not power projection into the Middle East or Asia.
snip.. Bot farms in the former Yugoslavia or Iran run hundreds of thousands of fictional identities agitating for political causes When Iran was forced online a lot of ScotNat Facebook and Twitters went dark. When it came back, so did they.
Rumour is we might see the same again after the Russian Parliamentary elections this September. After the vote another 500,000 Russians to be mobilised, and the internet shut down to put a lid on them complaining about it. Putin has another deadline for the Russian army to fully occupy Donetsk and Luhansk - 31st December.
Also people seem very ready to let other European countries - like Poland, the Baltics, Germany and Denmark - spend money to ensure British defence, but not willing to match their spending. It's the sort of thing Britons have normally criticised Ireland for doing.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
It doesn't seem unreasonable for Germany and Poland to be doing a bit more on defence given their relative shirking when it comes to climate mitigation.
IMO there is a need to spend more on defence but the reason for that isn't Russia, it's America. That's where the big adverse change has occurred recently.
Russia is the main threat to us, no question, but this has been the case for many years. Is the threat greater now than it was? Otoh, yes, because they've shown they are willing to invade our continent on its Eastern border. But otoh, no, because the invasion is failing. Instead of (as was feared and expected at the time) conquering Ukraine within days they have engaged in over 4 years of bloody and expensive warfare to occupy a relatively small part of it, and are struggling to hold that. So on balance I'm not sure it's true to say there is now a greatly enhanced military threat from Russia.
What we indisputably do have is a different America. They can no longer be counted on to help defend Europe. Indeed they can barely be described as an ally now. That is a massive development. It leaves a very big gap to be filled (defencewise) and we have to play our part in that. Ok it might be an aberration due to Trump and things might revert after he's gone. But it wouldn't be prudent to assume that in our planning.
I wonder if even that is out of date. There is a good chance the next world war will be between AI companies and national governments, and that is the one we are least prepared for and unlike a Russian attempted invasion, we would probably lose.
You may have been watching too much Sci Fi.
Um, cyberwarfare is already a thing. A lot of infrastructure depends on things with chips and large sheds by the ring road with racks of things with stuttering LEDs. Civilian passenger aircraft upload software details telling them where the ground is: spoof that, and the engines don't generate enough lift on the runway and you crash.
Bot farms in the former Yugoslavia or Iran run hundreds of thousands of fictional identities agitating for political causes When Iran was forced online a lot of ScotNat Facebook and Twitters went dark. When it came back, so did they.
Now spin it out to AI. Millions of online personas, reacting in real time, manipulating you in ways you won't recognise and won't disobey. People live online these days and are soooo easy to manipulate. Play your cards right and the UK will fold without a fight. Sun Tzu would have wet himself.
As I say - too much Sci Fi.
That Iran example was a real example that really happened in real life, really. The Serbian bot farms are a thing. The UK is frequently subject to cyber attacks, as the British Library can sadly attest. This is not sci-fi, it's been current politics for over a decade now. The British Army has a cyberwarfare division brigade/division/whatevs, as I pointed out in my Blob article.
I am deeply sceptical of any claims about AI, which was the original thrust. As in sentient AI attacking nation states. If you are merely suggesting bots, then thats different, and the point you make is valid. We have an enormous issue around social media. In one sense it has liberated information - the old ways of getting news are moribund. But the new issue is trust.
Listening to Starmer praising how well the country is doing begs the question why has he had to resign
He is providing half the investment needed into defence and Deborah Hayes, Sky's defence spokesperson, is very hard hitting on the lack of funding
And he wants to lead NATO - He simply has no self awareness
So what are you sacrificing for the MOD to hose another £15bn up the wall? What new weapon, ship, vehicle do we need 10-15years from now? Over budget, late and superseded on delivery?
Alternatively we could spend the money on the national grid upgrades.
It is not a case of new stuff in 10 to 15 years. We need stuff now. We need more personnel (many of the ships we have can't go to sea for lack of manpower). We need massive investment in the new technologies we are seeing dominate the wars around the world - drones and IT being two. We need to end our reliance on the US for much of what we do by providing it ourselves or with our other allies.
This is no longer about shiney new toys - although we do need a lot more ships for example. It is about buying stuff off the shelf which we can integrate and use straight away, not in decades.
I'm a low tax Conservative and I'd whack up income tax by 2p now to pay for it all. In full. Even though it'd personally hurt me and others.
That's how seriously I think we need to take Defence.
It is just 3 billion a year more for 4 years
Take it from welfare - triple lock anyone ?
Removing the triple lock doesn’t save you £4bn next year - it saves money down the line
The real issue with the triple lock - cancelling it saves barely anything in the next few years but not cancelling ensures inexorable growth in the long term - the losers will be future retirees who will pay for it in increased state pension age
We should keep the triple lock but use the average of the three measures (earnings growth, inflation, 2.5%) instead of the maximum. This would be fair, hard to argue against, and politically would not involve abandoning the triple lock!
I’d say that was fair.
I think there is scope for Kemi to work with Burnham on this and make it "sensible government for today's problems." Reform would likely knee-jerk react against it.There might be other areas where a long-term - ie longer than one term - could be agreed. Then ask the voters if they really want to rip it up.
It would give Kemi the opportunity to put a restraining hand on the worst leftist obsessions.
Comments
And then I had coffee with an old colleague who now works for an Australian engineering consultancy. He mentioned that the government had done this with a big infra project in Melbourne.
But then, faced with a £2bn overrun the contractors downed tools. So the government had a choice between delaying work (suing the contractor or retweeting) and having a very big hole in the middle of Melbourne for years or chipping in £1bn to cover half the gap.
So if, in reality, we aren’t laying off the risk shouldn’t we accept that and just price accordingly? Even some form of fixed margin contract.
Looking at the NATO statistics (pdf) for 2025 we can see that Denmark is spending 3.22% of GDP, Norway is spending 3.35% of GDP, Poland 4.48%. Lots of countries that were spending ~1% have now doubled their spending and aren't stopping there. Germany is planning to spend €22bn more on defence in 2026 than in 2025. Britain's Defence Investment Plan is for an extra £15bn over four years.
Why do people think that Britain is the one country that doesn't need to increase its defence spending?
6.4% this year is barmy.
Revealed preference is not that people will think "That's awful that must be costing the country a fortune", rather "I'll have some of that for myself thankyou very much".
Even Justin Wokedeau kept the oil flowing in Canada.
So I'm getting there.
That would have a bigger impact on collective capabilities than X% more spent in this country or that.
And it should be focussed on our own backyard, not power projection into the Middle East or Asia.
This would be fair, hard to argue against, and politically would not involve abandoning the triple lock!
I’ve got an arthritic thumb. Simple stuff is becoming a little more difficult.
I wonder if I can get some cash 🤔
It goes far beyond Russia.
I've only played pickleball once but I thought it was brilliant fun.
I had thought about looking for some part time work, but at the moment I am living within my means so lacking the motivation.
(not that that's relevant, but he is)
Europe doesn't need to take on the US role of policeman of the world. We need to defend against threats on our border, primarily Russia but extending to North Africa if any were to arise there. Keeping Turkey on our side creates a buffer against the Middle East.
In any case, I wish people would define what they want our armed forces to achieve and debate that, rather than people throwing our huge increases in spending without purpose. Once we decide what we want to be able to do, spend as a continent to ensure we can deliver that.
https://x.com/i/status/2071888034706931852
See:
European Defence Investment Programme
https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-defence-industry/edip-forging-europes-defence_en
European Defence Fund
https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-defence-industry/european-defence-fund-edf-official-webpage-european-commission_en
Security Action for Europe
https://commission.europa.eu/topics/defence/future-european-defence_en
Unfortunately, we decided a decade ago to divorce ourselves from most of that, and are only now making tentative moves back towards it.
We should have had over recent decades major investment into new motorways and it is ridiculous that we have stopped building them. Connect places that are not currently connected.
Take Blackpool for example. Very run down but it is completely out of touch with even places it is reasonably close to geographically.
We should build a line like the cancelled M59 project linking Liverpool, Southport and Blackpool, with a bridge over the Ribble. That would enable a lot of smoother connections that don't exist today without driving everyone into the M6, even if people have no desire to be on the M6 or anywhere near anywhere it services.
The problem is that people in London have got in their heads the idea that North to South is serviced by the M6 so nothing else is necessary.
Parallel lines like that would also mean that in the event one motorway had an issue, then the other could be used as an emergency detour, rather than every town nearby that can be used as a rat run getting completely congested when motorway traffic is forced into it as the only bypass.
Russia is the main threat to us, no question, but this has been the case for many years. Is the threat greater now than it was? Otoh, yes, because they've shown they are willing to invade our continent on its Eastern border. But otoh, no, because the invasion is failing. Instead of (as was feared and expected at the time) conquering Ukraine within days they have engaged in over 4 years of bloody and expensive warfare to occupy a relatively small part of it, and are struggling to hold that. So on balance I'm not sure it's true to say there is now a greatly enhanced military threat from Russia.
What we indisputably do have is a different America. They can no longer be counted on to help defend Europe. Indeed they can barely be described as an ally now. That is a massive development. It leaves a very big gap to be filled (defencewise) and we have to play our part in that. Ok it might be an aberration due to Trump and things might revert after he's gone. But it wouldn't be prudent to assume that in our planning.
It was the rapid availability of S Korean aircraft and armoured vehicles which allowed Poland to gift so much kit to Ukraine early on after the Russian invasion, for example.
At some point we simply have to pony up the cash.
Choice nowadays for many many is work your butt off , get taxed ferociously or you become "disabled" / unemployed and live a much better lifestyle with no accommodation costs , no tax and more money than if you were working, it is madness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms-length_management_organisation
We used to consistently spend more on education than healthcare.
Today we have completely reversed that. It is 8.2% on healthcare and 4.2% on education.
We are spending on healthcare. More than double what we were as a percentage of GDP, at the expense of everthing else.
This is an absolutely terrible idea for intelligence security. Compartmentalisation of knowledge has been a basic premise of operational intelligence since forever.
"The Trump administration is demanding that ... officials turn over the names of all foreign espionage targets, including suspected spies and potential recruits, to create a master list".
https://x.com/Sandbagger_01/status/2071850885836087560
And most of the time the NHS kind of works. Mostly. We hear about when it goes wrong, and there is often (deserved) bad press. But we don't get the positives enough, unless you consume the endless 'Surgeons at the edge of life' programmes.
Probably not yet time to deploy the iceberg lettuce for Putin, but it feels like a step closer to the end.
* I don't really understand the relationship between commercial banks and a central bank, and even less so when it's translated from Russian.
Next Democratic president can just send out a general letter, to every department and agency, demanding the resignation of every person appointed by the Trump administration.
Congratulations on your big win today and even bigger loss tomorrow.
https://x.com/cturnbull1968/status/2071620102391214203
It overturned nearly a century of precedent, and was on the face of it bad constitutional law... but the consequences of MAGA might be significantly less entrenched as a result.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Vw_6QrqS8c
"China just revealed an autonomous robot war pack built from dog bots, drones, laser weapons, and unmanned boats, Europe is putting military robots through brutal real-world field tests, Bezos is building a massive AI industry machine, Tesla is pushing toward 50,000 Optimus robots and possible Shanghai-scale production, Zuckerberg wants a personal superintelligence built around your life, and Unitree’s humanoids are now learning tennis, chasing boars, and sprinting at near human record speed. "
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4eq1l184po
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uxkHsad9YL0
That doesn't mean that the impact of MAGA will disappear in 2029 - it's going to take a very long time to undo the harm Trump has done.
Maybe look at the Manhattan Project and WWII Bletchley Park. Get the best minds around and give them whatever they need.
TLDR (there are complications):
If you clean it up the Environmental Agency threaten to sue you.
If you put sewerage into it they leave you alone.
A nice video from Art of Law: "Why is a dirty river worth more than a clean one?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK7yCDjFHzA
My other point is that there are close parallels between defence and climate mitigation. Military aggression and climate change are both existential threats to the country which can only be countered by targeted measures and close cooperation with other nations. Both threats need to be taken seriously, and both are expensive and difficult to defend against. We need to guard against wasting money on both, but we also need to acknowledge that in neither case can can we wait until we can "afford it".
Where’s Stand up to Racism ?
NYT/Siena poll | 6/19-6/27 LV
US Senate Texas 2026
🟥Ken Paxton 47%
🟦James Talarico 47%
Triple lock bad
UC and PIP rising inexorably good.
Yet the solution is always more money
You and Malcolmg have an interest tbh, as recipients. I do about the 60% tax trap, because it affects me. Bondegezou does because he's in the largesse university sector and does about 2 hours work a day, and worries they'd come for him next.
We need to reform tax and spend across the board, and both need to be lowered.
We need to spend more on education and defence.
Bot farms in the former Yugoslavia or Iran run hundreds of thousands of fictional identities agitating for political causes When Iran was forced online a lot of ScotNat Facebook and Twitters went dark. When it came back, so did they.
Now spin it out to AI. Millions of online personas, reacting in real time, manipulating you in ways you won't recognise and won't disobey. People live online these days and are soooo easy to manipulate. Play your cards right and the UK will fold without a fight. Sun Tzu would have wet himself.
Some positives! To the one flagged up by James below I would add the £8+BN commitment to the GCAP fighter programme and the £11bn on munitions + their factories
https://x.com/MarkUrban01/status/2071943816060309578
Preserving manufacturing capacity and increasing stocks of munitions are about the most positive things that can be done, outside of radical reform (which is anyway not going to happen quickly).
Other parties will also be happy to regale the electorate with the grotesque catalogue of Conservative and Labour failures from 2010-29.
There's still going to be a significant NOTA vote and how that shakes out between Reform, the LDs, Greens, Restore and others will be significant.
PIP is to allow people of working age continue to work rather than sit at home on UC
Triple Lock is rewarding those who didn't provide for their retirement and expect to be compensated for it.
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/09/28/the-blob/
What currently happens is inflation is high in year 1. Wages go up in year 2 to reflect the inflation in year 1 and the pension goes up thanks to the wage increase in year 2.
If instead you went over the past 4 years those impacts would be quickly evened out and what is left would be more sustainable
Six Months Putin.
Two twats.
It would give Kemi the opportunity to put a restraining hand on the worst leftist obsessions.
Best chance of a reset for the big two parties.