The Uk does need to spend more on defence to modernise and make its forces more effective.It also needs to spend the budget better.
Under the current government we have hit a new low. 6 naval vessels decommissioned before there are any replacements . Most the rest of the fleet undergoing deep maintenance at the same time, or unavailable for duty owing to a shortage of money and bad planning.
The high costs of the Ajax military vehicle programme continue with too few working vehicles delivered. The government reviews the next generation fighter plane programme, delaying this multinational collaboration with lack of enthusiasm and cash.It has the money to hire in a new flotilla of boats to pick up illegal migrants at sea, but not the money for coastal patrol vessels to protect our undersea cables and pipes.
It has the money to pay the salaries of 55,000 civil servants to direct the phantom navy and the tiny army, and to pay 1500 senior officers who command desks in the absence of battalions and squadrons.
Meanwhile the Ukraine and Gulf wars show us how quickly warfare is changing. Where are our drones, ballistic missiles and robots to defend our islands and to intervene when our commerce and interests abroad are harmed? When will we replace all the munitions and weapons we have given Ukraine?
June 15, 2026
“Where are our drones..?”
They are in Ukraine. We have factories here churning them out, just to give £800m worth of them away to be fired at Russia or Russians.
There’s no point in increasing the defence budget until we have a sensible foreign policy for a country of our size, means and (hopefully) realistic ambitions for our people.
June 15, 2026
This government has no need for armed forces, as it believes international law will protect us.
June 15, 2026
They really do seem to be that stupid. Where are the international police forces and armies and who will order them to act and fund them?
RICU: Britain’s Government Thought Police Nick Dixon on the Daily Mail RICU the Government’s dire propaganda organisation revealed today.
June 15, 2026
The forces it thinks it needs are riot police to attack the resident population and arrest them for posting what they see and commenting on it.
June 16, 2026
Not quite. They need the Armed Forces to protect them against civil disorder.
June 15, 2026
The rot started with Cameron and Clegg in 2010 after their defence review which decimated the military. Remember chopping up the ASW planes and burning all the drawings. Reducing procurement of shops for the RN
Giving the contract for Close Support Vessels to South Korea
I could go on.
We have somebody the best brains in the world but successive governments have allowed foreign takeovers thus weakening us. The latest we are being excluded from the latest AI by Trump on security grounds. He doesn’t want an Islamic government using this technology as with the rest of Europe.
June 15, 2026
@Ian Wragg – ‘defence review’ has become a lazy incompetent Parliament and its Government phrase for kicking something into the ‘long grass’
June 15, 2026
The Nimrod MRA4 programme was cancelled under David Cameron’s government due to escalating costs and delays, leaving a huge gap in the UK’s anti-submarine warfare capability. Might have been rather useful now with the Russian Subs mapping our cables.
This about the time Clegg stopped Nuclear Power investment (as it would take too long). Cameron preferred to spent the money on insanities like staying in the EU, benefits for migrants, net zero and hugging hoodies. Plus not undoing the of the countless insanities and vandalism of Blair and Brown era – like Harriet Harman’s destructive and appalling “Equalities” Act, the Climate Change Act …
June 15, 2026
Yes, its been memorable for so many Government success stories.
June 15, 2026
Wanderer:
Whereas many of our drones are being used by Ukraine, they are reducing Russian ability which might otherwise be used against us and our allies. From one perspective, that is an efficient way of performing as we are engaging in combat without risking the lives or work of our own soldiers nor being in direct attacks against Russia. However, there is a question mark over whether that is a moral stance or not.
June 15, 2026
So far we have taken a moral stand and avoided escalation. The next step will surely bring our ‘defence’ to its knees and mark a beginning of hostilities here and there. No winners when that happens.
June 15, 2026
The Swindon drone factory has received a multi million grant to manufacture long distance drones which are supplied to Ukraine to attack Russian defences. They have already attacked the Russian nuclear defence aircraft base and oil refineries. The Russians know this and the tensions have not been higher.
The Prince of Wales aircraft carrier is in Stavanger after breaking down again after its Arctic mission to threaten Russian naval movements. The F35 fighters have been left behind and safe on land in case of missile attack- the ship has no defence. Neither had our drone factory. But, following reduced sanctions on buying Russian oil and gas our PM has ordered the seizing of a tanker carrying Russian oil in international waters in the Channel. Let’s hope that nobody decides to exploit our lack of defence and thinks leaving Labour untouched will wreck the UK at zero cost.
Reply Our aircraft carriers have plenty of defensive capability and are usually accompanied by other warships to strengthen detection and defence.
June 15, 2026
The missile defence on uk carriers is for sea launched missiles and the longer range systems are on the other warships. Even these are not able to intercept Russian or Chinese hypersonic or ballistic missiles.
June 16, 2026
I am slighly out of touch. It used to be the case that seaborne air defence missile systems suffered degraded performance over land. So if this is still the case, the carrier does indeed have degraded air defence when in harbour.
June 15, 2026
First we should unload and use the oil from the tanker, marking Putin’s card. Second the POW has high quality defence capability and anyone attacking is likely to have started something they live to regret. Quid pro quo?
June 16, 2026
During the Cold War, the UK spent billions and billions in defence against Soviet Union. Not one bullet fired. We now face a threat in Putin far worse than any leader in Russia since Stalin. And we’ve spent less than a billion to put a leash on the geopolitical menace of Putin. Compared to 23 billion on a daft war in Afghan were quite a few of our military died. Compared to zero in Ukraine.
June 15, 2026
When will we replace all the munitions and weapons we have given Ukraine
Well I suppose never , but look on the bright side I’m sure we could muster up a dads army headed by Captain Mainwaring and a few stupid boys to defend our island surrounded by water, like every thing else Britishness as very nearly disappeared with the help from Liebour/Tories/Libdems over the decades we are a laughing stock around the globe it’s just hasn’t sunk in to our politicians skulls yet
June 15, 2026
Well at least Dad’s army were on the right side, unlike so much of Starmer’s Government, Reeves, Lammy, Miliband, Hermer…
Jacob Rees-Mogg has a recent videos worth watching A failure of Duty.
June 15, 2026
Sir Keir Starmer has announced a social media ban for all under 16s as he vowed to protect British children online. Laura Trot (Shadow Education) just now confirms the Conservatives fully Support this. Then a few hours later they will be perhaps be asked to vote.
Sounds totally unenforsible to me, a bit like Sunak’s bonkers cigarette by birth date ban. They cannot even stop children getting hold of hard drugs or indeed acctually selling hard drugs! The real reason for it for the Government to get more information on everyone and to control the flow of (particularly true information on things like the Net Zero lunacy, the net harm Covid Vaccines the two tier policing and their anti-white men agenda) that they do not want people to access.
June 15, 2026
Another dishonest back-door attempt to force digital ID’s on the Nation. Without everyone from birth having a digital ID ( even then it doesn’t quite work ) how do they know that the person viewing the screen isn’t 61 instead of 16.
I have been amazed that what tries to portray themselves as freedom loving, personal freedoms with personal responsibility Conservative Party dives straight into wanting to control all and everyone in a pure communist way. What is the difference between Labour knowing best and the Conservatives knowing best, when the both want to dictate terms that fit their own personal ego. They like other members of this Parliament ‘cant read the room’ their ego is forcing them to fight the people and insist on being ‘rulers’ and the controlling ‘Politburo’ .
The Internet as it stands today permits ‘Parental Control’ roughly meaning those that buy the devices gets to dictate what it is used for. It would be less intrusive to offer advice and make sure people are aware how they control what the internet does and does-not do. After-all its not for lazy parents to dump ‘their’ responsibility on others it is not for the taxpayer to be paying their bills
June 15, 2026
@Lifelogic
Should immature Prime Ministers and Members of Parliament be banned from Social Media
Should there be a Ban on members of the House of Commons using AI for speech and letter writing
June 15, 2026
Being a laughing stock is unimportant and can be shrugged off. Being ineffective is far more serious.
A Dad’s Army could be effective in preventing illegal entrants, or tracking, monitoring and helping detain those who need deporting. Many pensioners may be willing volunteers in doing something for the good of our country, or accepting a token pension bonus as a reward for effort.
June 15, 2026
Many happy returns to John Redwood – The Rt Hon the Lord Redwood – on his 75th birthday today
Pip Pip!!
June 15, 2026
An elected councillor at Oxfordshire County Council in 1973 so 53 years of excellent public service so far. One of the circa 10% of Tory MPs with a working compass. Alas just 10%, Annunziata Rees-Mogg says the party has now changed under Kemi but I see little sign of this. Kemi says the right things but the Dire May still hold the whip many Tory MPs are still Net Zero, climate alarmist, ECHR supporting, open borders, tax to death, LibDems in essence like Hunt, Cleverly, Sunak…
Reply The Shadow cabinet and Parliamentary party are united behind Kemi’s conservative agenda, including big budget cuts, tax cuts, repeal of ECHR, effective policies against illegal migrants etc Baroness May has lost the battle over net zero.
June 15, 2026
Cleverly nearly become leader!
June 15, 2026
@Reply – I admire your loyalty to the cause of conservatism, but us mere mortals know from the bitter pain of experience that what is said by ‘all politicians’ to get elected bears no comparison to what happens once in power. As such our only recourse is to reflect on what was done by those with a ‘collective responsibility’ at a previous time did, and there I would suggest that the once great party of a nation deserted you and us. They chose not to renew, they sort to keep the status quo of failure, remain tied to their own personal failures.
June 15, 2026
It will be interesting to see to what extent there is opposition to approving the 7th Carbon Budget. There is to be a half day debate, providing ample opportunity to express concern over the CCC/Miliband fantasy. Substantive criticism rather than point scoring should be the order of the day. Preferably with a degree of cross party coordination, and forcing a formal division.
It seems a number of Labour MPs are no longer in favour of Miliband’s excesses.
June 15, 2026
Rather late but never mind. Happy Birthday Lord Redwood, keep up the good work and fight. We are relying on you!
June 15, 2026
If we didn’t know better, we would conclude the ineptitude on display at the highest level of government and institutions of state was by design and orchestrated planning…..
Perhaps we should remember the core principle behind the establishment of the EEC/EU was to remove the capacity of ‘nations’ to wage war. It is unfortunate the founders forgot defence was an important fundamental responsibility of nations. Then again, the EU considered ‘nations’ to be the foundation of conflict and war. Hence their stated objective of removing nation status from EU members, could explain why the most basic defence requirements were abandoned. Military forces were consciously de-constructed across Europe. That could explain why priority for defence has been so low. It is also worth remembering, our obedience to comply with international/EU law under this government knows no limit…..well maybe it is £13billion for pseudo defence?
June 15, 2026
Much guff in the media overnight as Trump has declared Peace in the Middle East. Now that the war is – apparently – over it would seem a good time to review how many of the American objectives have been achieved :-
1) The agreement has failed to address the IRGC ambition to obtain nuclear weapons
2) No agreement on limiting Iranian long range MIRV ICBM development
3) Nothing said about stopping IRGC support for Shia proxies in the region
4) Nothing said about the Ayatollah’s dreadful human rights abuses
5) No regime change
The reasons for starting Trump and Netanyahu’s war have not been achieved. The IRGC have won, simply by surviving the bombardment and closing the Strait of Hormuz. The resulting increase in the price of petrol at the pumps in Texas and the forthcoming mid-term elections have forced Trump to capitulate.
June 15, 2026
Well give it time Skakara we shall see, I suspect the outcome will be better than the alternative of do nothing and an IRGC with Nuclear Weapons and delivery systems.
Your solution, I assume, would have been to do nothing other than waste even more money on intermittent & v. expensive so called “Renewables”?
June 15, 2026
brazil has done very well buying ex British royal navy ships, often just after an expensive refit, at bargain basement prices.
I have read a lot of MOD invitations to tender, the quality is dire. I have also done a lot of troubleshooting of defence projects, its amazing how they keep on screwing up repeatedly.
June 15, 2026
Yes, Peter’s principle runs rife in Government appointments, the incompetents are often more than rewarded, rather than simply being sacked
June 15, 2026
Good morning
There was a time when our Navy consumed not just most of the defence budget, but the economy as well. With our decline in status and wealth we are a declining nation militarily.
We have exchanged militarism for welfareism. We have more people on benefits than we have military personnel.
But this did not happen overnight. This has been going on for decades as successive governments have been more keen on buying votes through freebies than fulfilling their primary role of defending the nation.
June 15, 2026
A decent defence force requires a decent economy but Starmer, Labour (and 30+ years of the uni-party) have destroyed that possibility it also needs decent defence procurement but little sign of that either.
Starmer claimed Growth was his number one priority now he claims defence is. Destroying both seems to be his agenda in reality.
June 15, 2026
+1
June 15, 2026
At least in recent times under Joint Services I believe there is consensus on how to waste the Budget, ops I mean spend on Defence. Formerly the 3 wings of services would divide and conquer to get their own way.
June 15, 2026
Now would be a good time to set up a sovereign wealth fund with all the profits from green energy as we missed the boat on oil, spending the money on giving away houses to social tenant and welfare.
Are there any socialised profits from green energy or are there only private subsidised profits.
Welfare needs to be taxed and contributory.
June 15, 2026
and with that sovereign wealth fund we might be able to keep the military capability at its present dire state rather than reduce even more.
June 15, 2026
Any idea what all the Civil Servants do?
June 15, 2026
Well J Cee I believe the answer to that is, they woke (sic) from home.
June 15, 2026
“work” from home as they like to call it staff at the BoE can also do eight weeks of this overseas as they devalue the currency, wreck the economy, drive up bond rates and lose £billions.
June 15, 2026
Apparently Politicians (if that is any Recommendation) suggest they all do a great job, no matter if working from home or in the office, how many have we got now, is it 600,000 ? and does that include Quango’s and all of the other advisors they seem to need ?
June 15, 2026
To a large degree they do net harm it seems (net zero, duff Covid Vaccines, Lockdowns, lies & propaganda, HS2, rigging markets, devaluing the £, damaging education, blocking roads …) – so sitting on a Greek or Spanish beach or doing nothing might v. often be rather preferable.
June 15, 2026
‘Work’ from home?
June 15, 2026
Devise more policy to cover themselves in case of claims under the Equality Act.
June 15, 2026
As I showed yesterday there are plenty of options available to HMG to fund a better army, navy and air force.
The elephant in the room is the MoD who cannot get their act together.
With the iran / USA peace treaty ready to be signed, the Chancellor can no longer use that war as an excuse for her bad performance and inability to switch funds around to where they are needed most. It’s just her ideology that prevents a logical approach to all of this.
June 15, 2026
We might start with a SWOT analysis. A rather depressing prospect but we are still a major economy with many good things to offer. Considering defence we might consider ‘what could Vlad actually do and is that probable’. We might also bring America and China into the mix. The French, Germans etc don’t look too likely. Not really much we can do about the US or China so don’t waste much money worrying.
Mr Putin could drop a missile on us and if it was just one or two I doubt the world would go Full Tonto for us and we would just have to take it on the chin. More likely is a bit of cable and pipeline cutting. We can only hope our Admirals have invested in a bit of cutting gear and know where to place the charges and Vlad knows we know.
A long way for cheap drones to fly unless Putin takes over a Baltic state and he has his hands full ATM.
We could build some sort of ‘iron dome’. A lot harder than the Israeli’s job, you need serious space shots to bring down ballistic missiles. Very very expensive and even the American system does not give full coverage and not guaranteed to work under real conditions. Not a runner, just keep paying the diplomats.
As we have seen re Iran nuclear bombs are pretty useless toys except as a last resort. No doubt Donald considered nuclear but the costs and future risks outweigh any benefit. Think of ‘free kick’. If Donald had any brains he might consider the usefulness of a certain strategic ambiguity re Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
So, somewhere in Whitehall, pull up a chair, get out some paper and do some thinking without the BS.
June 15, 2026
There was an item posted on this subject on the 11th June on The National Interest website headed –
“The UK’s Astute-Class Submarines Are Totally Undetectable at Sea”
It alluded to the ‘fact’ that the UK’s modern nuclear boats are undetectable by our enemies –
“As the Royal Navy is now demonstrating, there is no way an enemy can hear your submarines if they are all in port!.”
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/uks-astute-class-submarines-totally-undetectable-at-sea-for-one-reason-ps-061126
June 15, 2026
If the UK ever came under direct threat. A large proportion of it’s inhabitants would simply return to their former home country or fight for the attackers…………….
June 15, 2026
there is always a silver lining in the dark cloud?
June 15, 2026
“If we didn’t know better, we would conclude the ineptitude on display at the highest level of government and institutions of state was by design and orchestrated planning…..”
To portray stupidity at this level would require a genius very few possess. Imagine trying to cast a ‘front bench’ that included Milliband, Lammy and Reeves (let alone Starmer) from our top Shakesperian actors and asking them to base their portrayal on a character from their favorite play. Maybe Bottom, Malvolio, Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Dogberry would do a better job?
June 15, 2026
“55,000 civil servants” – that is more than the amount of front-line troops the UK field in any given situation of conflict. Yet those 55,000 get paid more, get to get home at night and are not on duty 24/7/365. Parliaments priorities are corrupt, disingenuous and lazy.
I am reminded every-time there is an emergence, ‘flooding’ the lazy shower in Parliament start shout from the roofs tops call in the ‘troops’. They are hypocrites of the worst kind.
June 15, 2026
Labour is far too sloppy to be in charge of the defence of the realm. Appointing former service personnel to Secretary of State for defence might improve matters, but that is no guarantee.
Creative Management and those involved in planning and assessing what means and resources are most effective in meeting the UK’s precise needs efficiently would be better. Former heroes and combatants with military honours and wide experience in battle may be highly qualified, but not necessarily in the role of creating a powerful force from scarce resources.
June 15, 2026
Defence, defence of government from its people. Today Starmer looks for recognition, he is banning use of Social Media to one sector of society. He also wants them to have the vote in time for the GE. Its a clumsy re-introduction of the Digital ID, read the code to control the people and the nation to protect the State and himself.
OAP’s under his proposals wont be able to access their bank accounts, the NHS etc on-line without first having a Digital ID. Labour, the Conservatives an LimpDems all support these proposals. The State not the Parents are now in charge of Child Welfare. There is nothing in any of these proposals that a parent could not themselves have done if they were responsible themselves, and at considerably less cost to the taxpayer.
So there is money for State Control of the People to keep up the War against the people, but there is no money to defend the Nation.
June 15, 2026
a return to a cash based society?
June 15, 2026
The UK Parliament no longer responsible for the well being of the nation its sea lanes, its trade routes, exposed themselves when this little incident in the Hormuz Straight kicked off. UK shipping, UK supplies, UK citizens and the UK as a Nation was dumped as of no interest the UK Parliament as it was to intent on fighting the people at home to be bothered about ensuring safe passage to UK Interests, UK trade & commerce.
We have a self-centred Parliament that is unable to comprehend responsibility of the job, unable to take in anything other than the personal desire to win the next election
June 15, 2026
I fully agree with your views on defence Sir John; we also need to develop our Civil Infrastructure and Civil Defence forces to withstand better the consequences of modern warfare.
June 15, 2026
Many Happy returns!
And we hear today that Starmer has told the new Defence Secretary that there is ‘No more money’, so how can he stay in office having said that he will fight to get whatever is needed?
June 15, 2026
This Labour Government will spend money on anything that weakens the UK, and nothing that strengthens it.
Their attitude to taxpayers’ money is appalling, as is the waste they accept and tolerate. But let’s not forget that they are following the previous government’s pattern, but just making everything even worse.
Even Neville Chamberlain, from 1936 onwards, increased defence spending because he had the sense to see what was coming.
It seems the prime quality for office in this government is incompetence, from the PM down.
June 15, 2026
As Elon says the UK is now a police state.
This is not normal politics.
This is worse than Orwell imagined possible.
June 15, 2026
As Kathryn Porter has tweeted
“It’s my personal red line. If the government tries to surveil my devices in an effort to enforce this ban then I won’t stay in the UK
And any time I visit I’ll treat it like China… Burner phone not linked to any of my regular accounts
It’s bad enough having the highest tax burden since the 1940s and terrible public services (eg my recent near death experience at the hands of the NHS and the @WelshAmbulance) but enough is enough”
June 15, 2026
I want to go to Andorra it’s the land that I adore.They spent 2 dollars and 40 cents on armaments and merriment etc…..
They certainly all want to come to GB.
June 15, 2026
Any person who has ever enjoyed an all expense paid junket to another overseas country should be barred from taking part in British elections.
June 16, 2026
One of the effects of having such a top heavy organisation is that the people at the higher levels involve themselves more and more in decisions that should be decided at a low level. They complicate every decision by introducing many secondary or irrelevant factors, politics and Politics, personal angles and opinions. Thus more and more requirements, conditions and specifications are added to what started as a simple requirement with a simple solution. So decisions are delayed and costs grow. Meanwhile the threat and operating environment for the future equipment change so round we go again. Attempts have been made to “short circuit” this process by, for example, buying commercial equipment off the shelf or incremental aquisition. But bloat at the higher levels and other factors (the concept of a piece of kit having only a short useful life is alien) have swamped such efforts.
So overall there is now sluggish decision making bogged in complexity contrasting with the fast risk taking innovative flexibility required of organisation that will adapt quickly and therefore survive. This is the invaluable lesson from life on earth. The MoD’s ossifying processes make it a dinosaur destined to fail. Even by analogy with the human body shows it is bound to fail. Animals have an autonomic part of the nervous system so that the brain at the top does not and should not make all the decisions needed to keep the body going. In the Mod, the Brain at the top attempts to control breathing, heart rate, blood composition, digestion, viral defences, everything. No! Just stop and let the body get on with it.