David Cameron’s Evan Davis interview: defenceless on defence

“I’ve got it too,” said David Cameron, whipping out the ‘contract with Britain’ he published five years ago. His team seems have prepared him for the format of Evan Davis’s BBC interviews: confront the subject with discomfiting material, probe a bit and see what happens. But he was less prepared for being challenged from the right.  Davis asked him on his failure to commit to the basic Nato minimum of spending 2pc of GDP on defence – in spite of his badgering other countries to do so at the Nato summit in Wales. “I don’t think that you’re willing to say Britain will stick to its international obligation on defence,” he said. “We’re keeping it clearly this year. And next year,” replied Cameron. As for future years – well, he didn’t say. Amusingly, he then started to get cross about other countries who…

 “…have never got anywhere near two per cent. Britain has the second biggest defence budget in NATO.