Trump throwing a lot of people under the bus because of stock markets?

[mids2019]

When you start a war you finish it in my opinion. There has been no other war that has been stopped because of a slide on the Dow Jones or an oil price spike. For Trump to now prematurely call an end to the war simply because of economics will simply mean IIrans drone terrorism has worked.

The people of Iran will be left with a job half done without the space needed for an uprising.

A new leader with good reason to ideological hate Israel and the US will realise the only method of future deterrence of Iran is through acquiring a nuclear weapon as their conventional weapons were obliterated. Iran will now do everything possible to acquire such a weapon.

This is a time for resolve Mr. President. There is still a chance to destroy this regime maybe with limited target ground troop assaults. The world actually will be safer if you continue.

Hypothetical questions are a fair way of asking for opinion.

Nice to see a bit of realism in government.😊

The UK can't afford this war.
It's not our war.
And sure the USA don't need us anyway, as Trump has been keen to emphasise.🤷‍♀️

Trump has extended the pause on striking Iran’s energy plants for a further 10 days “as per Iranian government request”.

Tehran has said that it is waiting for Washington to respond to its demands for a ceasefire.
(They seem to have forgotten earlier denials that they are negotiating with the US).

At this moment in time, i don't believe either side, Trump made ridiculous threats, then realised the implications and now his roll back is due to the Iranians.....

He has dug himself a hole and is now desperate for a way out.

But for the UK, he has wrecked any chance of economic improvement, is now and has been insulting our military, the Kings USA visit must now be cancelled, he is an enemy to the UK.

The Cold war "ended" in 1989.....

With almost all of the cuts done in the 80s and 90s (under Thatcher and John Major)

Spend went from 5% (of GDP) in 1985 to 2.5% in 1997 (when Lab came to power) by 2010 the figure had hardly changed, still approx 2.5%

Tories then cut this amount to less than 2% by 2019, with further cuts planned in their 2024 manifesto.

Despite your view this is a Labour/Tory failure, the figures don't support this, the Tories did all of the damage.

Labour have never increased spending on defence.

As was mentioned on LBC, Labour have been in power for 2 years now so they can't keep blaming the Tories for everything. And I say this as someone who voted Labour in the last election and despised the last few Tory leaders.

It has been policy of both Labour and Tories governments to keep spending on defence low, so not true to say Tories did all of the damage.

I don't believe either side on many things either @Alexandra2001

On the issue of whether negotiations were taking place or not, it seems clearer now that Trump exaggerated hugely (as he tends to do) but equally, Iran were lying when they said no negotiations with the US were taking place, directly or indirectly.

Discussions were taking place via intermediaries and they have now shared demands and are responding to each other's demands in order to reach a deal. Which is what they presumably both want, despite posturing on both sides that they don't need to strike a deal.

It's no good blaming one party or another and the damage certainly was not all done under the Tories, take the rose tinted specs off and you'll find Labour are not starring ATM, so the damage continues.

At least some of the promises of increased defence spending under the current administration look like anything but and the delay in announcing/releasing funding for the Defence Improvement Plan is causing serious problems.

Basically for decades now no party has been prepared to turn round and say that if the UK wants to defend itself properly budget priorities are going to have to be readressed....

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/mar/24/uk-defence-firms-bleeding-cash-delayed-spending-plan

https://fullfact.org/politics/keir-starmer-270-billion-defence/

Spending a decade navel gazing over Brexit and knocking 8% off GDP hasnt exactly helped has it. Perhaps some of that wasted Parliamentary time should have been redirected to defence.

Very true.

Many people don't see the point in spending lots of money on defence (for full transparency I have felt she same way sometimes, that there are higher priorities).

But wars do remind us.

We need NATO and it needs to be properly funded by all members.

Yep although it hasn’t been a useful campaigning factor for a while with the electorate either. If we won’t vote for it they won’t use it to get in.

We should put more pressure on to spend more, particularly on defence stuff like anti missiles.

You can easily check my figures on the drop from 5% of GDP to 2.5%.... the real terms cuts to defence were ALL under the Tories, all them, every single one.

Its indisputable, i'm not quite sure why you would argue that point...

Even after 2014 (Russia showing its true colours in Crimea) the Tories carried on cutting our defences, inc ships.

I didn't know the 2024 general election was in March?

It takes many years to re arm and its even more ridiculous to expect Labour to conjure up frigates/destroyers and anti missile capability inside 20months... esp as the present conflict started 1 month ago.

The pp talked about CUTS to defence, not increases.

I’m not disputing your figures I’m saying Labour haven’t increased spending on defence. They have been in power for nearly 2 years now and I haven’t heard them emphasise that they want to spend more money on UK defence.

I’m not blaming Labour any more than Tories, I agree with @notimagain on this issue that there is no point blaming one party or another.

Edited to add - yes cuts to Defence were made under the Tory government. However, Labour could have pledged to reverse this if they got elected, but they didn’t. The reason is it wouldn’t be a vote winner. The UK electorate prioritises other things and our governments reflect that.

Not knowing how many frigates the UK has and how many are actually available is kind of a basic level of knowledge for a Defence Secretary. I like John Healey but that interview was cringe worthy.

But absolutely the UK can't afford this war or much else in an economy undergoing a managed slow decline.

Iran has been hostile to the UK with over 20 attempted terrorist plots in recent years, but I agree it's probably a lot cheaper and politically easier to either ignore them and accept that potentially there will be a few that slip through the net and happen. And like Hannah Spencer suggests we can then all then blame Reform for it.

Lastly regardless of Trump's views it is factually accurate that the US doesn't need us in the same way as it doesn't need Luxembourg's participation.

@Alexandra2001

Please watch the interview with the Defence Minister John Healey (either the short clip or the longer version) and tell what you think.

I actually like John Healey but this is truly embarrassing.

It was so embarrassing I felt sorry for him.

You ve not been following politics much then... Labour have committed to 2.5%, by next year, up from the current 2.1% and several years earlier than the previous Govt promised.

With the longer term aim of 3%...

Yes its embarrassing (i listened to it) ... for the previous govt that left our defences in such a sorry state.

Its not his fault, you ought to know how long it takes to plan build commission a war ship..... let alone crew it.

We can all blame Labour for not getting on with things but on defence, its purely down to the previous Govt, who may have been justified in not increasing spend in their first term but by 2014 and esp by 2022, should have been ramping up our capabilities.

Will you retract your incorrect statement that it was both Lab and Tories that cut defence spend?

4 - 10 years to build a navy ship (depending on size of vessel). Not sure how Labour is supposed to build them in 20 months.

Given how Russia has been boosted by the war we should be looking at greater collaboration with our European allies.

No one is suggesting they could build a ship in 20 months, the issue is successive governments (Tory and Labour) not putting enough into defence so now we are where we are.

https://www.forcesnews.com/services/navy/what-ships-and-submarines-are-pipeline-royal-navy

Previous government only just announced it in 2024

Are you happy for paying more in taxes to fund the increase?

...If only wars could fought and missiles could be defeated with stats and bar charts depicting budgets..

Problem they are usually fought with personnel and equiment, to be effective you need to fund lots if both and neither of the main parties has been willing to do that to the degree needed to keep pace with inflation and advances in tech.

That announcement came a matter of days (a week at most) before Sunak announced the General Election - forgive me if I find that cynical.

There was no urgency to increase defence spend from 1989 to 2014, indeed the first cuts were justified but by 2014 we all knew the danger Russia presented but instead of even continuing the current spend of 2.5% they cut defence spend to 1.99% by 2019.

Frigate numbers slashed from 13 to 9, aircraft not put on the new aircraft carriers, type45 spec's cut, meaning they now spend more time being fixed than at sea.

Well done though on a spirited defence of the Tories, remarkable for a Labour voter who despises previous Tory Govt's..... who CUT defence spend & reduced our GDP too (Brexit)