Many have been saying this for months but it's surprising to now see it coming from inside the Labour tent.
Lord Robertson – the former head of NATO, Tony Blair’s defence secretary and the man Keir Starmer personally asked to write the government’s Strategic Defence Review – has said Britain’s national security is “in peril” because of “corrosive complacency” on defence.
His big line: “We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.” He basically says the welfare bill is now five times what we spend on defence and that’s the wrong priority when the world is this dangerous.
This is a senior Labour grandee who is still advising Starmer! What’s even more interesting is that other senior Labour figures like former defence secretary Geoff Hoon are echoing the same concerns about getting our defence spending sorted.
Apparently, if the government abandoned its Net Zero targets, reversed the lifting of the two child benefit cap and stopped giving Scotland tens of billions more than it raises in tax every year, then there would be more than enough to increase defence spending by 50% and still reduce other taxes.
Surely that should be our priority right now?