4 days ago
Sir Keir launches a new fleet of subs, but we can't even fend off a single dinghy
Happy Strategic Defence Review Day, when Santa pops down the chimney and hands out guns to childish MPs. Once more: 'everything has changed'. Yet again: 'the world is more dangerous than ever'. This time the Government is going to make us safer by attaching nuclear bombs to planes. Clearly someone has never seen Thunderball.
The PM launched Operation Sound Butcher Than Reform at a shipyard in Govan, underscoring the preposterous but influential belief that Russia intends to invade Britain. If it does, it better not start with hard-as-nails Govan. They don't just throw Molotov cocktails, they drink 'em.
As always with the PM's speeches, the crowd looked as if they were gathered around a grave, the life gradually sucked out of them as Starmer droned on about drones.
Sailors, he said, told him 'nothing works unless we all work together. In this moment of danger for our country, that's the spirit we need!' The good news is we're halfway there – 'nothing works' – though why he proposes to launch a billion submarines into the Atlantic when we can't fend off one dinghy in the Channel, je ne sais pas.
The Tories hit upon the real problem with the review: they hadn't read it. Later in the Commons, shadow boom-boom secretary James Cartlidge vented that while he'd not been given a copy, the media and industry enjoyed advanced sight that morning, defying parliamentary custom and raising serious questions about security.
Cartlidge needs to put his own house in order. By leaning over the press gallery, any spy disguised as a correspondent for the Racing Post could easily read the notes he had balanced on his knee. The word SECURITY! was scribbled in pen.
The Telegraph knows more than we do, lamented MPs. Simon Hoare suggested the House be suspended. We were one glass of sherry from a buffer demanding a general election.
If you want to see the review so much, said Defence Secretary John Healey, I'll leave some copies outside. 'Attenshun!' Mark Francois marched out like Windsor Davies, returned with a review and it wound up in the lap of Jesse Norman: what do you expect me to do with it, ducky? Jesse got as far as the foreword before obviously finding it as dull as ditchwater, flipped open his phone and read his WhatsApps instead.
The Telegraph provides you with in-depth analysis; all Jesse could say is that the review is competently stapled.
Healey talked nonsense - '...best of defence technology with the heavy metal of our platforms...' and the Tories pointed out that without a budget, his pledges remain 'fantasy'. Tan Dhesi, the dim chairman of the defence committee, asked if this strategic defence review will be 'fully matched with a completely, corresponding, ambitious strategic defence review', apparently unaware that we were discussing said review right now.
The most interesting contributions came from what remains of the Commons Left, who wished to know why the Government is switching from strategic to tactical nuclear weapons, ie defensive to offensive, and how this will increase independence if the tech is reliant upon America.
Labour's voting fodder laughed; one could smell the uranium on their breath. It's good for jobs, they said. But if there is a nuclear war, I doubt unemployment will be our chief problem.
