There was meant to be a debate on Thursday in the Lords on national security and civil preparedness for war. I put in to speak. It was cancelled as votes delayed the progress of business and the government decided to defer the debate.
As it is topical let me make some of the points here. Our country is not properly defended if we rely too heavily on imports for our food and civilian necessities, and for the raw materials, components and whole systems for weapons. The bitter experiences of the last two big wars reminds us that our more modest reliance on imports then was a dangerous vulnerability leading to atrocious losses of commercial shipping under fire from submarines and aircraft.
Our long years in the Common Agricultural Policy, stopped us producing enough milk and butter by restricted quotas, crippled our beef industry following disease, paid us to grub up our orchards and grabbed market share for imports in vegetables. Our industry now only delivers 62% of our food, compared to 78% in 1984 and higher in 1972.
In 1939 there was plenty of capacity to produce the steel and chemicals we needed for weapons. Factories were turned over to making planes, guns and ships as we had the know how and skills.
Today there are just two steel blast furnaces left. The government will probably close them after paying a fortune for losses in the meantime. The government’s refusal to get more of our own oil and gas out is helping a collapse in our petro chemical industry. 2 of our 6 refineries have closed under this government, an olefins plant, a bioethanol plant, a big fibreglass plant and others. Ineos has announced withdrawal from UK investment. Huntsman has threatened closure of its chemicals business.
Modern weapons systems also require plenty of computing power. The UK does not have the capacity to make more complex semi conductors, and the UK is very reliant on US technology in general.
Farming grants policy needs to be reoriented away from wilding and solar farms to rewarding and fostering more food production. There needs to be a big change of energy policy, and a removal of emissions trading and carbon tax schemes, to rebuild are high energy using and gas feedstock industries. We need to restore our abilities to feed ourselves, to supply our energy, and to have the ability to make a lot of weapons in a hurry if our islands come under threat again.
March 28, 2026
Indeed – the government policies especially Miliband’s energy lunacy, the open door to low skilled and often dangerous and criminal immigration, the doom loop Reeves agenda, DEI… are all a total disaster for the economy, for crime rates, social cohesion, living standards and for national security. Three plus more years of this lunacy and their scorched earth agenda to go.
Who will want to sign up to fight to defend a country with open borders and the above suicidal policies?
March 28, 2026
Rachel Millward the green party on Any Questions “39% of our energy already comes from renewables” no dear it is actually about 8% and even that does not adjust for all the fossil fuels use to collect, install and maintain and back up renewables and it includes the wood (young coal) idiotically burned at Drax. The foolish BBC chairwoman decided it was her roll to reinforce the absurd lie that drilling and fracking in the uk would make no difference to coste as it would all be sold at world prices anyway. Not true as sig. transport costs and even if it were we would still benefit from the jobs and taxes!
March 28, 2026
We had a pandemic plan yet we could not even make simple plastic PPE equipment locally what chance of making sophisticated weapons quickly when at war!
March 28, 2026
LL
I read a couple of comments at the time of the ‘pandemic’, written by business owners who had informed government they could make and supply masks or ventilators, but they were informed that they weren’t on the approved list of suppliers!
One then said, fine he’d sell them abroad!
Our government really holds us back!
March 28, 2026
Government is nearly always the problem rarely the answer!
March 28, 2026
Not true.
During the pandemic I contributed to a voluntary group that manufactured and distributed splash masks locally for carers, the government refused to support us along the lines Sharon describes and banned our activity.
March 28, 2026
My Lord,
You are absolutely correct in your points. We do need to be more self sufficient in power, military capability, food and industry.
We should also note that our population has grown since WW2 from forty five million to around seventy million today.
During the last World War, those of German, Italian and Japanese nationality were put into secure camps for the duration of the war. Could we or would we do that today? We’d need a camp the size of the Isle of Wight and who would we lock away? Would the purple haired, lanyard wearing lefties accept that or would there be marches every week?
I think the key to our future, if we as a nation actually have one, will be down to us being self sufficient in power generation and supply.
The other thing that I can’t understand is this…. If we are going to war with a country because the great and good have decided to do so, why would that country wait for us to rearm? The world has gone mad.
March 28, 2026
If we were to mine our own coal and make our own steel, certainly under current environmental legislation, it would be, deliberately, more expensive than say, Chinese coal or steel. They would claim unfair competition and put tariffs on our goods and services. This would have a knock-on effect when it comes to trade.
March 28, 2026
Good Morning,
The question to be answere is why does this government, even when armed conflict and existential threat is staring them in the face, not want to make the nation as strong and prepared as it could be. Starmer and his ‘international law’ pals seem to think everyone accepts laws and obeys them, this is cloud cukoo land but it is accepted in Parliament. Poland, I understand, is moving to war preparations, why not go visit them for some inspiration.
March 28, 2026
Since Thatcher the uniparty has been enamoured by the EU, slavishly following every dictat to the letter.
The Large Combustion Directive was responsible for shutting down our coal fired power stations which politicians of all stripes were filmed attending their destruction.
Treacherous May put Net Stupid into law and signed up to the UN migration pact. Milibrain is just continuing the destruction.
A stonking majority given to Boris was wasted on a botched removal from the EU, ceding Northern Ireland to Brussels in the process.
As we have the same idiots in Parliament are you seriously saying they will change policy.
Remember Badenough wouldn’t get rid of EU laws as she said she’s not an arsonist.
We really do need to clear out the stables.
March 28, 2026
+1
Finally someone else who understands that pointing the finger at others is not the solution. Our problems are here at home.
March 28, 2026
I think most Reform supporters recognise that the problem is caused here “at home” by an Establishment which is not working in the interests of the British people.
March 28, 2026
Funny how the Large Combustion Directive doesn’t apply to Germany or Poland.
March 28, 2026
Since we were dragged into the EEC, which was then morphed into the EU with no mandate, the Establishment appears to have deliberately been making it impossible for us to defend these islands.
There was a brief respite during Mrs Thatcher’s premiership but when she made it clear she did not intend to permit EU Socialism to be imposed on the UK, the Tory Wets got rid of her and it was back to the Establishment policy of deliberately deconstructing the nation under John Major, Blair/Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson, Sunak and now Two-Tier.
We are highly vulnerable and that’s exactly how they want it. It’s the means by which they intend to force us to rejoin the EU…..by making us entirely dependent on them for energy, food and defence.
March 28, 2026
Good morning.
2026 is a world away from 1939 when Britain had a closed market in the form of the British Empire. Back then we access to all the raw materials we needed and the markets we can sell those goods into. Today we are what we have always been – a small cold, damp, lonely island on the fringes of Europe. It is well overdue that people like our kind host got over the past. It is what is holding us back.
And as for threats ? We all know who the main threat to the people of these islands is. We are just not allowed to say or do anything about it.
March 28, 2026
Actually we had an open market in 1939 and the change has been the disastrous foray into the closed market of the EU.
It’s not the past we hanker after, it’s the success, the business, the prosperity.
I agree about the threat. It’s from Downing Street – there I’ve said it. The PM will ‘defend our communities with my last breath’ or similar. Not the British nation….
March 29, 2026
The USA after the war insisted that the British Empire, along with the French, the Dutch, Portuguese and Belgium ones be dismantled. This is so that US companies could ‘invest’ into them. The fact that many, especially those in Africa, turned to Communism was an unforeseen side effect.
The PM is a Globalist. Or to put it another way, a Komintern.
March 28, 2026
This is looking in the wrong direction. The biggest threat to the UK is a civil war between the Christian based society and those who see the country as the next caliphate. We won’t need planes, ships or missiles for that war, just guns in the right hands.
March 28, 2026
+ 1 Yes, the biggest threat is already here; the Establishment created it deliberately and Two-Tier is adding to it daily.
March 28, 2026
All too true – but this government is not going to change it’s path.
As we descend into chaos the world laughs at us while we offend and fail to support the only ally that might have helped us.
The PM has no intention of resigning despite numerous reasons why he should, and will use the war in Ukraine against us and to his advantage.
Germany and France have used dirty tricks to emasculate their parties of the right. So far Starmer hasn’t come up with anything similar but it’s not for want of trying. His morals, when you measure them against how he has turned the government into a shambles and his habit of refusing to answer questions or justify himself, are far below par.
With that in mind I find it impossible to imagine that he will not use Ukraine as a way of hanging onto power and our further destruction — HE has to go NOW.
March 28, 2026
I was stuck by a statement in a report I was reading this morning…
“Manufacturers are hardest hit. Their input cost inflation reached its steepest rate since October 2022, with the month-on-month acceleration the worst since sterling was ejected from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992”
We do need the ability to make things here in the UK not only to pay our way in the world and for when we might have no other choice. However, successive Governments have not only given up on the idea of manufacturing in the UK but seem determined to stamp it out with higher energy costs, skewed employment law, increased employment taxes and layer upon layer of bureaucracy. Frankly, all our industrial priorities seem very wrong headed but increasingly hard to reverse. A slippery slope to nowhere…
March 28, 2026
A government statement if only half true would go a long way in stopping the rot
‘This Government is backing British businesses and the working people who power them. These reforms are about using the full weight of Government spending to support British jobs, protect our national security and grow our economy’
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/british-shipbuilding-steel-ai-and-energy-infrastructure-to-be-prioritised-for-government-contracts-for-national-security
I am sceptical as they have already spent all available funds, on things and entities that don’t earn, don’t progress and don’t achieve a tomorrow. They are focused on elections not creating the funding wealth for a tomorrow
March 28, 2026
Steel is integrated with security, whether it be infrastructure or defence the speciality steel needed only comes from the cancelled ‘blast furnaces’
Having to buy steel in from France to create our Navy or the EU in general for infrastructure is not a Parliament interested in the UK being around, it is a Parliament seeking vengeance and destruction of the country and its people.
While I don’t think nationalisation is a good idea, its proven never to work. Neither is the concept of bringing in Foreign companies to run and own these critical industries a good idea. Not only does it force the removal of UK money, wealth out of the country never to return. It ends up in demands (blackmail) for subsidies from the taxpayer or ‘we leave’ situations! The promise of inward investment to grow never materialises, the most probable and so far proven consequences of these deals is asset stripping, so the purchase price can be sent back ‘home’. It a nil gain always negative result. A far better more secure way would be to make funds available to the staff and management to own the business.
March 28, 2026
The only logic behind the Foreign owners of UK Steel production is that they as world produces got to remove a major competitor, better price for them on the world stage and got the UK taxpayer to fund the privileged. Another way, as all ‘countries and industry’ is about competition, that’s how they evolve and improve, is to encourage foreign companies to set up in the UK and compete in the UK – buying an existing set-up is always first and foremost about removal of competition.
March 28, 2026
Reading about the years leading up to the Second World War, one is always struck by the fact that even though appeasement was a popular policy and there was a huge reluctance to face the truth that war was coming, even the short time between Munich and September 1939, was enough for a real difference to be made in the production of war materials, particularly aircraft, which was enough, just, to get us through. What made it possible was our having a major industrial base which could be switched, quite quickly, to producing products for war. That is what we lack now and successive Governments do not appear to have given any thought to what could be put in its place, and the present one is clearly determined to make things even worse.
March 28, 2026
When I look at government policy in the round, one needs to ask, is this really error or something more sinister? When academia and the corporate press start denying the very existence of the English, why would they want to defend Britain?
March 28, 2026
Indeed Labour Minister’s really cannot be that thick can they? Must be some other things driving them certainly not the good of the British people!
March 28, 2026
Last night I asked a farmer how feasible it would be to restore land to agricultural use after it had had solar panels installed upon it. He said it would be slow and difficult, mainly because of the need to remove the steel infrastructure built in to support the panels.
Are we infer that the present government, when turning its back on brownfield sites for what is in any event fatuous folly, is merely grossly negligent, or engaged in wilful sabotage of the UK’s ability to support itself?
March 28, 2026
UN Agenda call for a reduction of meat consumption as the zealots think that methane is causing warming. In Holland Mr Rutte tried to shut down their brilliant farms and use the land to build eco cities. Fortunately they rebelled and sent him off to run Nato. In the UK the zealots are doing the UN’s work by taxation and subsidies. Beef and Sheep farmers are mo longer subsidised for food but for environmental changes. Their costs have increased because loft Net Zero and they are having to pay for life insurance in order to keep the farms clear of IHT. Dairy farms are not profitable and fewer calves are available. Beef cattle and shhep numbers are down. As a result the cost of meat has doubled over 10 years and the joints stay unsold until they are put in the just as nice if eaten quickly cabinet.
March 28, 2026
An excellent analysis in line with what you have been saying consistently for years. But where is the man or woman to start governing in the interests of the UK?
As the pressure of office makes Ministers crumble, from the PM down, we have a totally incompetent government.
With two wars raging, and others, Sudan for example, ignored by the media, we have never lived in more dangerous times. You would think even the thickest, most stupid Government would react, but what do Labour do? Sail serenely in a make-believe world that has just had a clash with reality, the incompetence of our navy, and our complete lack of air defence, but all is well as welfare expands, immigrants pour in, and the government spends in all the areas it should not, and spends as little as possible where it should!
March 28, 2026
Correct. If the politicians won’t sort out the invasion then the people will.
I forsee a second Crusade.
March 28, 2026
“The UK does not have the capacity to make more complex semi conductors, and the UK is very reliant on US technology in general.”
I far less worried about becoming reliant upon US technology than I am about becoming totally reliant, particularly for our energy, on China, a state described by our security services as “hostile”. The decarbonisation policy, which is really devised to be a de-industrialisation policy designed to commit economic suicide means we are becoming totally dependent upon China. China, using cheap coal power, is supplying all the renewables infrastructure (even now down to the concrete for fixed offshore wind turbines) together with all the metals and minerals required for the transition to electrification. Plus all the batteries, electric vehicles and heat pumps. So low is the ERoEI (Energy Return on Energy Invested) for renewables that they cannot be made without fossil fuels and the current extraordinary low prices are because China is using coal power, slave labour and ignoring environmental damage caused in their production. At some point in the future we are going to be left with very, very expensive intermittent electricity as our only source of power. When the Chinese shut off their exports to us we will not have the means to even repair the wind turbines or replace the solar panels. I would rather have our energy supplied by our existing fossil fuel suppliers – the petrostates of the North Sea Continental Shelf, Norway and the USA.
April 1, 2026
It is all down to the strategy of Sun Tzu and the Art of War. And the Chinese know never to interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
March 28, 2026
It is quite possible that the folk inhabiting,and acting out the diktats issuing from,the corridors of power in
Whitehall and BuckHouse are hellbent on delivering the world’s first major economy based on de-industrialisation.It’s just they are too scared to include it in their manifestos or speeches from the
thrones.
March 28, 2026
None of that will happen John while Labour are in office. When they are turfed out in 2029 if not sooner the damage they have knowingly and intentionally done to our national security and economic wellbeing may be so great, it will take decades to put right.
Let us hope none of our enemies don’t notice we do not have the wherewithal to defend ourselves against a prolonged conflict…..shhhhh.
March 28, 2026
“Our country is not properly defended if we rely too heavily on imports for our food and civilian necessities, and for the raw materials, components and whole systems for weapons.”
Who has caused this? Who has caused this de-industrialisation and national insecurity? Who is going to defend us against those forces in Parliament, the Civil Service, the police and the judiciary who have led us to this position? When are these forces going stop our being invaded in the hundreds of thousands by false asylum claims by those who have come on (student?) visas? When are they going to put the channel invaders, fighting age men with no documentation, into secure camps rather than encouraged with free hotel (or now house) accommodation, full board and the total freedom to roam our streets unhindered? Who is going to defend us against this continued invasion when we are globally a very small and vulnerable minority? Who is going to put our energy, industry and food production back on a firm footing so we can defend ourselves?
March 28, 2026
“There needs to be a big change of energy policy, and a removal of emissions trading and carbon tax schemes, to rebuild are high energy using and gas feedstock industries.”
The latest DESNZ LCOE (2025) calculations for electricity generation commissioned in 2030 show £103/MWhr for fixed offshore wind and £109/MWhr for gas which includes a carbon tax of £41/MWhr or 60% on the actual cost of £68/MWhr. Now this use of the carbon tax is really pernicious because it is a tax on us wanting our electricity to be reliable. It plays no part in the concept of imposing a carbon tax on fossil fuels to persuade the transition to renewable energy. This is because renewable energy is always given grid priority, even though BTW the weighted (by installed capacity) average operational fixed offshore wind CfD price is £149/MWhr, and gas is only used as backup when the renewables and interconnectors fail to match demand.
March 28, 2026
In 1939 everybody had a place and everybody knew his place but today there is no such cohesion so in a time of crisis like we have Government is going to find it difficult to mobilise opinion and people for change as in the case of war or other economic necessity.
Then listening to Foreign Secretary Cooper sounding off a few days ago about how bad the Russians are for helping the Iranians is not going to help much either as if the Americans were not helping the Israelis. It would be much better if she stayed quiet – the public is well informed enough about these matters and there is already too much suspicion and cynicism about.
April 1, 2026
Hard to see what point Sir John is making. in the absence of war comparative advantage, free trade and open domestic markets mean countries only do what they are best in terms of both quality and cost. They tend to become specialised and dependent on each other. To become better at producing for itself everything a country needs, a country must protect itself from competition in areas in which it is uncompetitive. There needs to be a balance, hence alliances, and international regulation, quality standards, mutual recognition of standards (or not) etc. All is well until war disrupts this complex, finely balanced delicate system.
So then we have assessments of threats, likelihood and impact, and assessments of critical needs in the event of those threats materialising. This requires careful selection of allies and then results in greater interdependence amongst these carefully chosen allies. Allies are not friends. There is no lifelong alliance, only shared interests. So the memberships of alliances and their shared interests are always in flux. And what is optimum for the economy and material well-being in times of peace is unlikely to be sustainable or even adequate for survival in time of war. So optimisation needs to be sacrificed or at least compromised by the necessity to survive in times of war when once shared interests are no longer shared to the same extent.
Clearly the core strength that will always be required is not a particular technology or natural resource, important as these things are, but the ability to adapt, to innovate. This is what saved us in both WW1 and WW2.
One of my favourite exaples is conkers. At the start of WWI cordite was produced using grain from overseas. Supply was cut by the German Navy and home grown crops reserved for food. Britain switched to conkers, took over breweries and made acetone from the conkers and thence cordite.
That is how Ukraine is surviving. That is what Britain needs, innovation, enterprise, individual freedom above all. Nevertheless Britain must make best use of its comparative advantages: North Sea oil and gas. It is foolish and dangerous not to do so given the threats that have now materialised. Britain is at war, even though Starmer’s Gang does not realise it.
Then there is culture and ideology. Starmer’s Gang is not on Britain’s side. It hates Britain’s history and foundations in Judeo-Christianity. It shares this hatred with Britain’s enemies: principally the Islamists. It protects their religion, not other religions. It privileges them in social, justice, education, health, immigration policies.
The cultural theat is above all others, the one most likely to destroy Britain. It is not Putin who only has the military and that is unlikely to materialise. But it is the easiest one to define and deal with so it is promoted above all, not only to justify defence spending but as a distraction from the far greater threat that is almost too hard to deal with. Indeed this Government, Starmer’s Gang, and the Woke Left are the doormats by which the Islamists have free entry into Britain and are achieving domination of Britain. Unless something changes, Britain will become a caliphate by the same Left-Islamist alliance that succeeded in Iran in 1979.