AIBU to think Burnham’s words may haunt his premiership?

[Greyrock79]

To think that Burnham’s words are going to haunt his premiership?

‘…national security can’t come at the expense of social security…’

That’s not quite how it works for the Labour Party leadership. When there’s more than one candidate nominated by MPs & trade unions then the registered party members & trade union members make the final decision, not MPs. That’s broadly how we got Jeremy Corbyn.

Burnham bypassed that as he managed to convince enough potential rivals to withdraw or not put themselves forward.

Lets hope they do considering state and public sector pension funds hold their stock

Or ……what are we protecting if we don’t have a decent society?

Military spending above nursing support for seriously disabled child who stops breathing at night? Continence care for the elderly? Pensions? They of course were seriously cut by Greece in recent years under IMF instructions so be careful what you wish for…it doesn't just attack the “undeserving”

Thatcher sold off all our assets, made millions of people unemployed, flogged council houses so people today have to pay rich landlords… and spent shit loads on nuclear weapons (“to help keep the peace”). Now that’s thick!

I was there on 7/7/05 and it wasn’t caused by what we did or didn’t spend on “defence” aka supporting America invading countries that DIDN’T cause 9/11.

I have spent my life being scared because of stupid white men and one loonie woman war mongering.

It’s a shit state of affairs.

The only thing that puts this little island at risk is us supporting the U S of bloody A in their stupidity.

It’s not “defence” spending its aggression spending. We don’t need to keep supporting the USA.

By all means defend against a real proximate enemy, ie Hitler, but this obsession with stock piling weaponry is pointless - unless you’re an arms dealer. It literally sits around and becomes obsolete.

The war between Russia and Ukraine is lost - on both sides. I am truly sorry for people having to live like that but it’s not going to end until they talk and compromise. Us increasing our defence budget will have no benefit at all.

God how depressing.

For goodness sake.

With defence the aim is to address the day-to-day threats - to make it unpalatable for an adversary.

A full scale ‘invasion’ by China would provoke an Article 5 NATO response.

You need to distinguish between strategic and tactical risks.

I am hoping it is a hint to the fact Labour are trying to rebuild our social care systems. As we are all living longer it is in everyone's interests to have a functioning care system that doesn't rely on NHS to home the elderly.

By all means, join the countries playing with drones in their dick swinging competition, but it isn't the priority of the masses who are carers for ageing parents and relatives meaning they cannot work and add to the economy.

But some of Greece's pension rules were beyond ridiculous and needed updating.

Ours are not.

So should we just scrap all defence? And defend with paper aeroplanes. Seems a defeatist take straight up.

It’s genuinely shocking to see how willing the right wing press seem to be amplify a foreign adversary’s propaganda just to score political points against the Prime Minister. Javier Milei’s aggressive posturing is everything to do with his own fading popularity, and nothing to do with Andy Burnham, and the way some of the right wing are elevating Javier Milei’s talking points on the global stage, and using the security of the Falkland Islanders as a partisan political weapon is completely irresponsible, and desperate.

Incidentally, many on here have conveniently forgotten.

Burnham said the exact opposite in June when running for the Makerfield seat….

The press are just reporting what is happening. We cant all be sticking our heads in the stand and chanting "national security can't come at the expense of social security".

Its the oil fields....

Even more recently, last week, he said defence was paramount.

His actual parliamentary voter base was Makerfield not Muslims. They are the only people who had the opportunity to vote for him. He received 24,927 votes and then stood unopposed to become the next leader of the Labour Party. That's equivalent to around 0.05% of the UK electorate having actually voted for our current leader.

And sure, we don't directly elect the Prime Minister or party leaders in the UK. We vote for our local MP. But who leads a party clearly influences whether people vote for that party at a general election, so you can't completely separate the two.

So let's not pretend it's Muslims when his actual electoral mandate comes from one tiny northern town.

China will use economic force rather than military force. Their politics means they play a very very long game. Run a positive balance of payments with the rest of the world over decades and use that surplus to buy up the worlds resources and key infrastructure. Every item we buy from China is enabling them to control and more resources. At some point they will be able to turn the screw and get whatever they want out of other countries.

Maybe these masked protesters would all like to join the army then?
Let's conscript them and at least train them properly. They can go first.

Are people misunderstanding what he is saying?? Without both defence (which he will increase) we need to have health, social care, housing too. Civil unrest is also a huge risk at home. Otjerwise what are we protecting!?

Did I say I was referring to his election? I don't believe I did.

Thats right, hence Trump’s tariffs.

They are already using hybrid/grey warfare - without doubt.

Logically, we need an increase in the defence budget to address the latter.

It may come to pass that ordinary citizens will have to take it upon themselves to defend our borders if the government won't. You can see it starting to happen.

Feel free to offer yourself first.

Civil unrest, why? By whom?

Laughing at the posters thinking Russia hasn't already won them over with the defeatist "we are in peril" logic.
We need to make our country function after decades of under-funding of services and the resultant losing of our young skilled workers to countries like Australia.

Isn't it.
I think the answer lies in making sure that we are as self sufficient as possible in terms of food and energy. Then diplomacy, forging strong links with other nations. We need to stop pretending that we are a leading military force because we "won" wars in the past.
We are tiny, both in terms of geography and in terms of military capacity.

I have seen nothing to dislike about him yet. So far he appears to be competent and moral. Something sorely missing from some of our recent PMs.