To think we need to prioritise defence/Ukraine spending?

[Wildflowers99]

I’ll admit I had no idea how depleted our military has become until a few weeks ago. I was absolutely staggered to read we now spend more on PIP and DLA than our entire military.

I feel like slowly all of our public spending has been funnelled into health, benefits and social care, leaving everything else in a very poor state. Any time anyone has suggested spending money on anything apart from ‘freezing pensioners, the homeless or disabled’ they get shouted down (I am disabled btw, so I do understand the need).

AIBU to think we need to urgently address our spending priorities and as a nation wake up to the fact we’ve been overspending on the above for too long?

Op your not wrong. We do need to prioritise defence. We also need to prioritise our own infrastructure, including manufacturing, steelworks etc.

If we ended up at war, we'd be goosed. People will kick themselves for allowing steelworks to have been sold off and undercut by steel from overseas.

If you can't make steel, you'll struggle to make a gun.

”are you saying there’s no point in doing anything?”
Where did you get that idea from?

In theory plenty can be done. However, in reality, when you don’t know:

-the departmental spend and budgets

-future committed plans and investments

-the available funding models

you can’t pretend you know how the government could fund Ukraine.

You can not pretend that you know whether cutting Pip or housing benefits or pensions (etc etc) is a reasonable and workable option

you're missing far too much information and knowledge to have an informed discussion.

So chuck things around if you want (sell Buckingham palace! Stop curing cancer! Close the schools! Privatise the Bank of England!) but you won’t be able to reasonably defend them as viable options with so little information

Not according to the HoL

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/175/economic-affairs-committee/news/204794/urgent-action-needed-to-tackle-the-spiralling-costs-of-the-health-benefit-trap/

Whilst I agree that austerity had a big impact, the fact is we’ve been running down our military spending since the mid-90s. The collapse of the Soviet Union meant the West assumed there would no longer be a major threat and we were happy for the Americans to maintain their bases in the UK and Germany offering up a level of security.

DH went to Iraq in 2005 and whilst not frontline, witnessed no end of equipment shortages within the UK deployment. Then in 2008 BIL was deployed to Afghanistan where they neglected to send out the specialist earplugs they’d all been measured for and ended up being medically discharged due to hearing loss after spending 6 months operating a heavy machine gun without adequate protection.

Edited to add my earlier point was not to suggest I agree with the Trump talking points that Europe has taken advantage of the USA. But rather we have been complacent, at the behest of the US who assured us they would take care of things.

We’ve definitely been complacent, but I think as a broader point we’ve come to see the only worthwhile societal spending as health and welfare, to the exclusion of everything else. And I think Ukraine proves that this can come back to bite you in a big way. If we had kept up 3% spending on the military (which I think is reasonable versus the 40% we spend on health/benefits), we would be in a much better place today and who knows, maybe the USA wouldn’t feel so ‘taken advantage of’ (like you I don’t think they have. But they do, and they’ve used that as their platform to back away from the whole thing).

For example there is now talk of closing our local (very well used) library to add yet more to the council social care budget. Where does it end? But primarily my concern is defence as it’s a much more pressing issue than anything else right now.

Perhaps we’ll be forced to buy investments in British defence companies in order to be able to have ISAs and pension tax benefits?
( only half joking) 🙄
We can’t even make our own fucking steel any more, it’s farcical.

I imagine American defence contractors are raging at Trump today, they’ll lose a fortune if he keeps playing stupid games.

Wow. Thanks for pointing that out @x2boys. Media literacy seems to be going down the drain. Perhaps @Wildflowers99, you should focus on other unnecessary spending instead of things like DLA?

What though? This is my point. I can’t go through every individual one off spend, and this is the only area which seems to be inflated beyond proportion.

Here’s hoping. I don’t think there will be a pension in 20 years but that’s a different thread.

@Wildflowers99 Perhaps the US should look at why Russia has a vested interest in Ukraine? And instead of coincidentally having a Russian media representative gain access during the Zelensky meeting, which should not have happened in the first place, Trump only allowing his cronies to ask questions and banning other media outlets who don’t toe the line, wasting millions of dollars on an insurrection, allowing DOGE free access to social security, firing federal workers etc. This is just some of the things Trump has done since he’s become president. And he’s only getting started. So I’d take anything Mango Mussolini says with a large pinch of salt.

What on earth are you talking about and how is it an answer to my question?

@CaveMum Perhaps Europe wanted to focus on peace instead of waging wars unnecessarily. Maybe Trump should focus on Putin and why he’s not keen to step down any time soon instead of just focusing on Zelensky. So Trump wants Europe to spend more money on defense, for what exactly? Maybe he needs to focus on his criminal cases? Oh wait, he’s fired the special counsel prosecutors. Maybe he should focus on his own country? Oh wait, he has fElon running the show. Why should the world capitulate to a bully who clearly wants to grasp onto power for as long as he can?

@Wildflowers99 You agree with Trump that Europe has taken advantage of America. You believe that “public spending has been funnelled into health, benefits and social care, leaving everything else in a very poor state.” Your exact words. I’m merely pointing out what Trump should actually be focusing on. Is that clearer now for you?

No, sorry but your posts are rambling and borderline incomprehensible if I’m being honest.

Whilst I agree that Trump is only out for his own interests (obviously ditto Putin) it is too simplistic to say we were just focused on peace. Of course peace is the ideal and what we should strive for and back in the 90s things were by and large looking pretty good, but Putin has been sabre rattling for a good 20 years and downright blatant about his aims for the last 12 years. We have not been paying attention/have been ignoring the signs. We should have started to incrementally increase defence spending back then, and not stuck our heads in the sand.

It’s a fact of human nature that the best way to keep the peace is an effective deterrent.

@CaveMum Agreed. I’m only hoping that this is an effective deterrent and will not escalate things further. Putin clearly doesn’t want Ukraine to join NATO, Zelensky is willing to step down in exchange for NATO membership, the issue is, will Putin stop if he takes back Ukraine? The Baltic states along with Europe should be prepared and hopefully it would be an effective deterrent.

He didn’t stop with Crimea. He didn’t stop with Donbas. He’s broken over 20 ceasefires. Will any negotiation stop him?

I think you're conflating two figures there: 3% of GDP on defence, with 40% of the government budget going on health and social security. So not comparing apples with oranges.

At the end of the Cold War we spent 4.7% of our GDP on defence. Health and Social Security formed about 36% of the government budget. However, the basic rate of income tax was 25%, having only been cut from 30% a few years before. The top rate had only been cut from 60% shortly before. Indirect taxes like VAT were lower than they are now.

It is hard to cut health or pensions as we have an ageing population and working age benefits have already been cut back significantly. There may be some savings to be made by tightening eligibility in some areas. I'd imagine that the shortfall might come from a combination of increased taxation and pushing people into compulsory private provision, like with pension auto-enrollment.

I think the only thing we can do to raise money bar borrowing or further taxation is to slash the number of claimants of DLA and PIP. Either that or make the payments significantly smaller. You’re right with regards to the NHS - very hard to dial that back with an ageing population but we need to address obesity ASAP. Universal credit don’t seem overly generous to me when capped so I would leave that as is. But PIP and DLA are massively out of hand, the latter is claimed for 1 in 16 children which is insane - almost 2 per primary school classroom. And PIP being claimed for mental health conditions has absolutely spiralled. We simply can’t afford these luxuries any more.

OP I agree, we don't spend enough on defence, haven't for years. But rather than cut disabilities we should start with foreign aid., look after ourselves first (where have we heard that recently).
From 2019 to 2023 uk foreigb aid indluded Pakistan (£305m to £69m), Ethiopia (£299m to £164m), Syria (£223m to £109m), Sudan (£93m to £51m) and Yemen (£260m to £101m).
Imagine how that would help.

I did want to see boots on the ground in Ukraine. Enough.

we can’t even keep our old people warm and our kids educated

But we HAVE ‘looked after ourselves first’ for years, or rather a minority of the population, and now look.

This is exactly what I mean, these kinds of posts.

Disability costs aren't a "luxury". Unless I can somehow get everything I need for free? Living is expensive as a disabled person

Most odd you've mentioned slashing the amount paid but not how people are assessed

Why do we need to cut anything? It’s very common to raise taxes when a country is on a war footing. Start with reversing Hunt’s employee NI cuts, start taxing wealth, raise inheritance tax, get tough with the likes of Amazon.