"Prime Minister Keir Starmer recommits to £3 billion a year of military support for Ukraine until 2030/31 and for as long as needed"

It's Putin you need to be addressing all this to. Speaking as someone who participated in a lot of ultimately futile demos against the Iraq war.

Money will always be found to fund wars and people will always justify it. I remember everyone supporting the invasion of Iraq, that cost a good friend of mine his life and was all a lie. History keeps repeating itself, men in power send others to die for wars in their name and will always have a reason for it.

Even the Daily Mail have had an article recently about this. Labour are better for our economy.

This is a problem of our own...

You do realise we are not just supporting Ukraine with this funding? This is also to protect ourselves and the rest of the world

I agree that this is a very good thing. The repercussions of ignoring the threat Russia poses will be far worse. I support Labour in this

You didn't get what I'm saying and that's cool.

There are several things that frighten me about this thread. One is how little people seem to know about what our governments (of any colour) are doing with our money, despite a very recent election where you'd think they'd at least have done a bit of reading. This is not news.the new government is simply confirming it will continue with support we were already giving.

That people seem to have no idea how close we are to all out war. The Ukrainians have literally saved the world, up to now, against all odds. Of course they can't do it without help. So far we've only had to offer financial support, not bodies. That is a very good deal for us. If Russia had been allowed through to a NATO country, which many expected within weeks of the invasion, the world would look very different now.

That people think more, relatively small, amounts of money can change anything significant in the NHS. It needs much more than that and not all of it financial.

That’s foolish. As others have said, Starmer is continuing what the Tories did. He should be well regarded for that, but he’s not spending anything differently so far as Ukraine’s concerned.

@BowlOfNoodles It is our defence though

Budapest memorandum

Actually, anyone thinking that 3bn would make the slightest difference to the NHS needs to look at the bigger picture. Pumping money into a broken system will not solve the issues the NHS has. Better administration would.

But that is close to 4 working days’ taxes to support Ukraine.
You run into problems if using 'working days'. The economy works 24/7. If you think of £bn as a percentage it is 0.27% of all tax revenue. I would also add we should not think of defence of our democracy, our values and our livelihoods, even our lives, as a 'budget'. It should be whatever is needed. Some of it comes around again - BAe, Babcock, Chemring etc.

But the UK is not The West. Compared to the U.S these days, we are insignificant, especially militarily. This attitude strikes me as harking back to WW2 and the era of empire when we were a Great Power and could shape the world.
We need to spend enough to defend ourselves in conjunction with our European neighbours - it needs to be done strategically. We are insignificant due to cuts that with hindsight should not have happened. I don't think anyone in the UK or Europe has ambitions to go back to the 18th and 19th Centuries. For us the world is a different place now.

Why do we need to pay more in percentage terms than the countries that actually border Ukraine? What is so exceptional about the UK?
We need to invest what is necessary. It may be more or less. We need to recognise also the geophysical shape of our continents. If Poland is overrun by a coalition of forces from Russia, China, Iran and NK et al, the beaches of France are within reach.

I might say the same to you regarding coffee. We are now a small country globally who could easily be overtaken by Poland in GDP per capita by 2030. We have broken services and people dying in A&E.
Two wrongs do not make a right. Perhaps we need to do both things, encompassing for example, decent living accommodation and support for serving soldiers and their families to ensuring people get medical treatment when they need it how they need it. We need to think about strategic priorities not just operational ones. Starmer has a mountain to climb.
By the way - you may want to revisit your calculations. Poland would need 28% compound annual economic growth to exceed the UK's by 2030 - and that assumes our economy is flat.

And as for the new ‘Axis of Evil’, there is one significant power there, China. If it weren’t for nukes, Russia would be irrelevant. If we boxed clever, in quarter of a century Russia could be our ally, greatly enhancing Europe as a Power to confront China (plus Iran and N Korea). Putin won’t be here forever and Russia wanted to join NATO in the 90s (we preferred to send Goldmans in and help create the oligarchs).
I could not agree more. Unfortunately, the West got it wrong and Russia spewed out a dangerous brutal bully. We have to defeat the bully then try to make peace (a lesson from school). The West never really gives Russia et al credit for its part in WW2 (not taught in schools).

I actually agree that Europe needs to rearm, but that starts with Germany. We are already more than pulling our weight.
I agree that Germany has much to atone for Russian appeasement. Trump was right on that. I suspect Germany is now doing much behind the scenes we do not know.

Yes, I was referring to PP's complaint re government attitudes to people with disabilities.

Fortunately, the major political parties were all in agreement about aid to Ukraine, so anyone thinking that this would reduce with a change of government had not done their research.

I was talking about the vilified outlook on the disabled but yeah OK lol

If any NATO country is next, the UK are next.

Well it funds 1.2 days of the current service. What difference would it make?

It's irrelevant to this discussion anyway. We're not spending this money to be nice, we're spending it to avoid a Russian attack on a NATO country and all out war. I wonder what that would cost?

The previous government knew that and this one is continuing what they pledged.

Nope. The annual budget for 2022-2023 was £181 billion.

£3bn would be an additional 1.66%.

Perspective is key.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publications/business-plan/our-2022-23-business-plan/our-funding/

I've no reason to believe the uk are next... this wasn't my point tbh my point was simply why isn't it being acknowledged that the public purse isn't just being stretched by the disabled rightly or wrongly much of it goes on aid/flowers on roundabouts/Christmas lights/crap/much other shit but it's being rammed down out throats that it's the disabled draining the tax payer.

3bn would make no difference to the NHS

You're joking right!? 🤦‍♀️

It is our defence. Do you understand the ramifications for the UK if Ukraine loses?

And as for the new ‘Axis of Evil’, there is one significant power there, China. If it weren’t for nukes, Russia would be irrelevant. If we boxed clever, in quarter of a century Russia could be our ally, greatly enhancing Europe as a Power to confront China (plus Iran and N Korea). Putin won’t be here forever and Russia wanted to join NATO in the 90s (we preferred to send Goldmans in and help create the oligarchs).

And if my auntie had bollocks she'd be my uncle.

Russia have got nukes and the 90s have been and gone. We're stuck with both of those things. There's no reason to think Putin is likely to be replaced by someone more amenable to the West, alas.

Why THIS specific money? Which was already budgeted for this use?

Tell me, what is the impact of not giving the NHS an extra £3bn pa?

We currently spend £2.5bn per day on the NHS, an extra £3bn would make no difference at all. The NHS needs much more than money.

War in Europe will hurt the NHS far more than this money would help it.

Ita absolutely for our defence. As I already stated, this is a proxy war for NATO with the deaths of many Ukrainian people instead of Brits, Americans, Germans, Poles...

This £3bn is a drop in the ocean. We'll be at war soon enough - see how much money that costs and how many dead people it results in.