Lord George Robertson – a former Labour defence secretary, and former Secretary General of NATO – has made a claim about the UK’s defence capability that is not merely wrong; it is dangerously wrong.
His argument is that the Iran War now justifies higher defence spending, and that social security is the obstacle standing in the way of a proper defence strategy for Britain. This video explains why that argument is the precise inversion of the truth.
Defence is not about weapons, budgets, or protecting elite interests overseas. Defence is about protecting people. It is about ensuring people enjoy freedom from fear, including from physical threat, from poverty, from want, and from the social instability that erodes the fabric of a nation from within. By that definition, which is the only definition that actually serves the majority of British citizens, social security is not the enemy of defence: it is the foundation of it.Consider what a serious defence requires. You need a fit population. You need people who are healthy, well-nourished, mentally resilient, educated, and able to serve.
You do not build that population by cutting the systems that feed children, heat homes, and provide security in times of illness and unemployment. You destroy it.
Cut social security, and you cut the recruitment pipeline for the armed forces themselves. You weaken national resilience precisely when you claim to be strengthening it.
So when the Mad Mullahs launch atomic bomb tipped rockets at London our defence is “Hey, look at our Gini!”.
Whose views on defence are most calamitously bad?
The “professionals” in the armed forces or the dim old Quaker in Ely? It’s neck and neck.
The Chancellor?
So…. The armed forces should be used to repel and reverse the huge influx of foreign chancers and goatherds then?
Because when it comes to “social instability” we’ve got some pretty good clues to what causes most of it..
I’m all for it…
Honestly, as much as I have no desire to go to war to fight for starmer and king jug eared twat, a war might be good for this country.
All the chancers and goat herders who are so keen to come here, might suddenly find they would rather be at home than here when Russian drones are dropping all around them every night.
Then we can shut the door behind them and happily surrender.
Yes CD, but the goat-pursuers are the real threat not the Russians, who have enough problems of their own.
But tyrants, like Putin, use war to distract their people from political and economic problems…
And the UK faces multiple threats – internal and external!
Tell me, Mr.Murphy. Are “elites” also “people”? If not, why not?
And what the fuck does he think we use to ‘protect people’? Because I have to say – it’s weapons!
30 years of social democracy has led to a population which is fatter, thicker, lazier and more mental than ever. It has also turned Britain into a nation for which fewer people will risk their lives.
He’s so wrong it’s almost funny.
‘Fit’? You can get lard-arsed fatties fit in about three months with a big enough stick.
‘Well-nourished’? They’re over fucking nourished, you cock – that’s why they’re fat. (Army food is not renowned for being nourishing, but whatever.)
The failures in ‘mental resilience’ and ‘education’ are all to be laid at the feet of the left.
‘Able to serve’? Anyone can ‘serve’.
How many will wish to serve this crown, this government, or this nation, is a whole different question, and insofar as it’s in question the question has been raised by the last thirty years of broad leftism.
The ‘system’ that best ‘feeds children’ and ‘provide[s] security in times of illness and unemployment’ is the family, ideally with dad out grafting and mum at home (cooking and cleaning, not on her iPhone or the telly all day).
He wants to make sure we can ‘heat homes’? Drill baby drill.
Nope. That’s actually one way to get blokes wanting to join up.
Robertson was part of the problem he now seeks to criticise. Labour cut the defence budget by nearly 50% during their time in office, and that was after the Tories had cut it from 5.4% after the Falklands down to 4.1%.
Then factor in the incopmetence of those in the MoD who are involved with procurement…..
I have said before that there are no votes to be gained from defence spending but millions of votes to be gained from benefit spending so it’s no wonder where the politicians are keenest to see the money go.
A very sad opinion of your own country that the State should or must be responsible for feeding, clothing, heating homes, etc. All our citizens are wards of the State.
That’s Soviets for you. And, er, kibbutzes.
I thought that kibbutzes were where everyone pitches in to do all the stuff that needs doing, not sitting on their arses waiting for Golda or Menachem or Benjamin to feed and clothe them. Very socialist, but perhaps not very Socialist.
Seems they ended up being subsidised by the taxpayer:
Kibbutzim in the early days tried to be self-sufficient in all agricultural goods, from eggs to dairy to fruits to meats, but realized this was not possible. Land was generally provided by the Jewish National Fund. Later, they became dependent on government subsidies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz#Economics
For Murphy ‘L’etat, c’est tout’
Exactly, VP! For Spuddle, the state is the sine qua non…everywhere and always.
Given that Robertson was the Scottish pillock who predicted that Scottish devolution would kill Scottish nationalism stone dead, it is possible that the Murphatollah could be right merely by virtue of disagreeing with Robertson.
Plus, Robertson has in the recent past been making sabre-rattling noises to explain why, in his view, Darren and George ought to get themselves killed for Volodomyr and Rukhsana. And in fact he’s such a superannuated twat that it does not seem to have crossed his mind that our own blessed Leroys and Mohammeds, if they are aware of him at all, will not be falling in with his plans for their slaughter.
On the other hand, welfare spend ought to be handed back to parishes to do with as they can and, speaking for myself, I like having lots of guns and bombs.
With their tanks and their bombs and their bombs and their guns
Dammit Steve, now that’s “in my head, in my heeeaad”
Norwegian Reggaeton?
Gaining citizenship through service is a long time-honoured tradition. So, all those who have shown their skills of breaking into the country should be marched straight to the nearest army camp and signed up, then sent to the Iranian offensive.
YES – “handed back to parishes”
Repeal the 1910 Valuation Act creating a centralised valuation office to assess property value uplift due to infrastructure improvements and inheritance taxes to the centre.
And Repeal the 1925 Finance and Rating Act which gave the VO further powers and took them away from local authorities for the sake of uniformity.
When cunts fall out…
The UK’s security is “in peril” and Sir Keir Starmer’s government has shown “corrosive complacency” towards defence, a former Nato secretary general has said.
Lord George Robertson, the ex-Labour defence secretary who wrote the government’s Strategic Defence Review, accused “non-military experts in the Treasury” of “vandalism”, in a speech on Tuesday.
This is good stuff, you love to see it. Ferrets in a sack.
The SDR was delivered in June last year but the 10-year investment plan to fund it has been repeatedly delayed and Lord Robertson earlier told the Financial Times the prime minister was “not willing to make the necessary investment”.
Yes, they’re just lying. Promising to put up defence spending in “the next Parliament” means never. It was just a ruse to get Trump off their backs.
But this criticism is spot on. Nobody has ever hit the target this hard since the Enola Gay flash-fried those Japs:
In a directly political intervention, Lord Robertson – who is now a key government adviser – warned in his speech: “We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.”
Speaking in Salisbury, he said: “We are under-prepared. We are under-insured. We are under attack. We are not safe… Britain’s national security and safety is in peril.”
He added: “There is a corrosive complacency today in Britain’s political leadership.
“Lip service is paid to the risks, the threats, the bright red signals of danger – but even a promised national conversation about defence can’t be started.”
Coming from a Tory or Reformer, this could be easily shrugged off by the government. But it’s coming from a lifelong senior Labour man who co-wrote last year’s strategic defence review. Which the government signed off on. Uh oh.
Yer, but the Navy top brass refused to repel cross-Channel boarders on the grounds that to do so would breach international ‘law’.
(in the reports of that exchange with Fat Blair that I’ve read, I could not avoid the view that the Navy top brass enjoyed telling Fat Blair that, sorry, we cannot stop the country being invaded.)
So, really, what diff does it make if we spend more money on frigates?
And anyway, why would the Ayatollahs nuke us when their adherents can and do just walk into this country in large numbers?
Aside from the submarines, it seems to me that we could abolish £45 to £50bn of military spend and notice no difference. I do not particularly blame Tommy Sckwoddy or Billy Matlow for that, they’re just, as it turns out, more pointless pubsec mouths to feed.
So, really, what diff does it make if we spend more money on frigates?
Because we’ll still have the frigates when/if the top brass are purged?
…why would the Ayatollahs nuke us when their adherents can and do just walk into this country in large numbers?
Islamic vengeance is irrational; and, to the mad mullahs, all nuked ‘British’ muslims would be martyrs for the faith, receiving rewards (72 virgins for the chaps) in the hereafter…
Subs! It’s Lord Robertson not Lord George Robertson. He’s not a dashing 1920s private detective.
That usage is so universal that it would be easier to adopt it than keep correcting it. Those other lords, offspring of the nobility, don’t need the special terminology. It’s only for the pendantry now.
Pendantry matters…
Only to pendants, but there’s a lot of them hanging around here.
It’s a shibboleth.
It’s going to be interesting to observe what happens with Europe, Can they handle more defense spending with already heavy taxation to support their welfare states. Add to that low birth rates, aging populations and low growth economies, and somethings going to give. Fortunately, Russia is also a creaky ship no matter how grandiose may be Putin’s dreams.
There have been a lot of dead young Russians over the past few years. It can’t help.
Breaking news in Oz is that a change in accounting has magically raised our defence spending from 2% of GDP to 2.8%. They included military pensions amongst other things. The reason I raise it is that the argument is it aligning with NATO standards.
I don’t think any actual increase in military capability is included.
I guess the accountants stand ready to defend Australia with sharpened pencils and exploding calculators. It’s amazing what a little number juggling can accomplish.
We choose what we spend on, limited financial resources so priorities.
Someone or some group decided to spend tens of billion importing non workers from dangerously different cultures.
Maybe some sort of human shield?
Is that what they mean by strenghtened by diversity?
How many social security recipients, unless previously in the forces would be considering joining up??
The statistics make the scale of the real threat plain. 14.2 million people in the UK live in poverty. 4.5 million of those are children, which means 31% of children in this country live in poverty, and 3.6 million of those children go without heating, food, a secure home, or adequate clothing on a regular basis.
Of course I am guessing Disraeli was a ‘neoliberal’ before the term had even been invented…
Britain is not primarily threatened by Iran. It is threatened by poverty, by inequality and by the political failure that allows 3.6 million children to suffer preventable deprivation in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Robertson’s neoliberal framework cannot see this because it fragments defence into a single military budget line, disconnected from the social infrastructure on which any genuine national resilience depends.
I think it’s possible to be threatened by two different factors. Indeed much as I think the support for the Ukrainian misadventure is misguided, that doesn’t mean Russia isn’t a potential threat – it’s just we need to look at the longer term planning to tackle it.
At the same time, George Robertson does not understand the economic reality of warfare. Defence requires that real resources that could be used for other purposes be sacrificed to ensure that we have the army, navy, and air force that we desire. The insights on this issue all come from John Maynard Keynes. I keep on talking about his approach to the management of war, but he was a man who managed that for us in both the First and Second World Wars, and he did so successfully. His argument in 1940 was that the sacrifice that the Second World War was going to demand should fall on those most able to bear it. Robertson has reversed this logic in what he has had to say. His argument is that the burden of suffering at this moment to pay for our defence strategy must fall on those who are poorest in the UK. That makes no sense at all.
That’s just a lie – no messing about. You can have your opinions about David Lloyd George, Andrew Bonar Law, Reginald Mckenna, Sir Hugh Dalton, Sir Kingsley Wood and Sir John Anderson any of whom has been the subject of informed historical debate but to blithely dismiss them to make a political point is either exceptionally ignorant or crassly disingenuous – or as is so often the case with this most cretinous of commentators a combination of the two.
The poor cannot afford this additional sacrifice that he is demanding that they make. They will not be able to deliver as a consequence. Any change you make to them will weaken demand in our economy. It will reduce social stability. It will reduce our capacity to sustain defence, and it will leave the consumption of the wealthy untouched in a way that can only cause resentment and anger, and that will undermine our defence strategy, yet again. The fact is, the people who must make the sacrifice are those who can, and they are the wealthy. It’s economically irrational and unjust to assume anything else.
And when there are no wealthy to soak for another of your hair brained schemes, what will you do?
We need to change our approach to defence as a result.
Our defence policy needs to be designed around people.
It needs to be designed around the need to protect people.
It needs to start with social security as a consequence, because a sound social security system is the basis for the recruitment of the personnel that our armed forces require.
We have to think about that issue, and we have to shift the burden of paying for defence to those who can bear it.
We must focus on domestic resilience first, and we must reject incoherent, elite-driven narratives.
By providing housing for ISIS fifth columnists and other pro Iranian and pro Palestinian forces we are in fact increasing our defence capability? Perhaps Keynes would have advocated importing regiments of the SA in advance of World War 2???
Even by his standards this is verging on the demented – if we had a government worthy of the title I’d even consider a private prosecution under the ‘Defence of the Realm’ Act as he is basically advocating UK citizens be fleeced to pay for fifth columnists inside the country.
My first job after I left school was as a (initially “trainee”) computer programmer on £6 per week – the current school-leaver would get more than three times as much (adjusted for inflation) from UC for doing nothing. I cannot remember what the dole was when I was 17 but it was a lot less than I got paid, probably less than half that (my wife and I met last year a guy about my age and got chatting – he started work on £3 13s 4d per week).
Cutting Social Security payments to double, three or even four times the level that they were in my youth is NOT demanding impossible sacrifices.
They’re both wrong; the biggest threats facing this country are third-world immigration and Net-Zero; both of which a happening because of decisions taken by the British Establishment over the last 40-50 years..
A certain Orange Bloke has recently pointed this out in plain language, as I recall. Repeatedly.
And exactly how much hate has he received in return?
How well do you suppose a bunch of fit dudes with fists would fare against an army of machine gun armed, IFV riding, bomb dropping, fatties?
In a Tom Cruise film or in real life?