Eliot Wilson was a clerk in the House of Commons 2005-16, including on the Defence Committee. He is a member of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
Whitehall is being swept by moral outrage. Ministers, in full This Is Spinal Tap mode, have turned their pious horror up to 11 and Keir Starmer has accused the opposition of a ‘shocking tactic’, preferring ‘the elevation of the desire for retweets over any real interest in the safeguarding of children’. What dark perfidy has been done? What
Kemi Badenoch has only been Conservative leader for two months. The next general election is likely to be held in 2028 or 2029. Yet there have been persistent rumblings that she must set out clear policies if she is to win back support from voters who left the Tory fold. In The Financial Times, Robert
When Sir Keir Starmer announced in October that he had reached an agreement with Mauritius to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago, he was met with fierce and sustained criticism. The deal essentially surrendered the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), one of the 14 remaining overseas territories, to the government of Mauritius, while salvaging a
Defence Secretary John Healey has raised the possibility that British military personnel could be deployed to Ukraine to carry out training missions. On a visit to Kyiv this week, he spoke about a five-point plan for increasing the United Kingdom’s support for its beleaguered ally, one aspect of which would be to ‘make the training
We should be wary about the danger of hyper-rich donors obtaining undue influence over political parties. There is none more hyper-rich than Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man by a country mile with a net worth of around $500 billion (£400 billion). There are persistent rumours that he could donate as much as $100 million to
Has Keir Starmer dropped the ball on Ukraine? Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian former foreign minister, certainly thinks so. Kuleba, who stepped down from his post in September, had few kind words to say this week about how Starmer’s Labour government had dealt with Ukraine in the five months or so since coming to power: The
Donald Trump is right that some of Nato’s European members are essentially freeloaders. That these countries are holding talks about increasing the alliance’s target for defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP at its annual summit next June comes too little, too late. Countries like Germany and France have consistently underspent on defence, leaving
The dawn of a third nuclear age demands a ‘national and collective sense of purpose… leadership and a willingness to act’. That was the message of the head of Britain’s armed forces when he delivered his annual lecture to the Royal United Services Institute this week. Admiral Sir Tony Radakin has been chief of the
We do not have to make a choice between our alliance with the United States and closer relations with the European Union: that was the message of the Prime Minister’s traditional annual speech to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet at the Guildhall. Sir Keir Starmer called the supposed binary ‘plain wrong’, and prayed in aid some
Downing Street has announced that the 14th secretary to the cabinet and head of the civil service will be Sir Chris Wormald. He will succeed Simon Case when the latter stands down after four years on 16 December. Wormald, 56, has been permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care for eight and
Keir Starmer has announced that he will introduce new legislation to make the spiking of drinks a specific criminal offence. The legal changes sound harmless, but it is entirely unnecessary. Drink spiking is clearly illegal under section 61 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003: someone commits an offence ‘if he intentionally administers a substance to, or causes
A Russian attack on the city of Dnipro earlier today included the use of an intercontinental ballistic missile, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. The RS-26 Rubezh was reportedly launched from Astrakhan Oblast on the Caspian Sea, although some analysts remain sceptical. Russia has made no official comment, but it would be the first use of an ICBM
Defence Secretary John Healey has announced more changes to the armed forces, detailing several capabilities to be cut to achieve savings of £500 million over the next five years. The Royal Navy’s two amphibious assault ships, HMS Bulwark and HMS Albion, will be retired at the end of the year, while HMS Northumberland, a Type 23 frigate, will be decommissioned because
As President-elect Donald Trump’s nominations to executive positions gradually emerge, it is difficult to know what to expect next. Elon Musk is set to run the ‘Department of Government Efficiency’. Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota, who organised a drugs awareness campaign under the slogan, ‘Meth. We’re on it’ and wrote in her autobiography of
I don’t know what the Ukrainian for ‘Well, duh’ is, but it might well have been heard in Kyiv yesterday. Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute, the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, observed that Ukrainian forces resisting the Russian invaders needed to be able to strike at their
When it comes to Donald Trump’s relationship with Nato, there are two principal schools of thought. The first, articulated by Trump’s own former national security advisor, John Bolton, is that the president-elect is hostile to the alliance at an elemental and instinctive level. The second, proposed by those who are favourable to him, argues that
Anyone who is serious about the condition of the armed forces and Britain’s defence policy will not look a gift horse in the mouth. Rachel Reeves’s announcement in yesterday’s Budget that the government will spend an additional £2.9 billion on defence next year is welcome and desperately needed. But while it’s headline-grabbing, in reality it
Veterans who were dismissed from the armed forces because of their sexuality have criticised the government for the inadequacy of its compensation scheme. With a fund capped at £50 million and potentially as many as 4,000 eligible to seek redress, the average payment would be only £12,500. Military charities have dismissed this as ‘inadequate and
It is a standard feature of modern politics that government announcements are preceded by announcements of announcements. The ground must always be prepared. Accordingly, the media has been briefed that this week the United Kingdom and Germany will sign a defence cooperation agreement, part of the government’s stated desire to strengthen its relationship on security
Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to ‘reset’ the United Kingdom’s relations with the European Union. But at what cost? The EU has reportedly set out part of the price the UK might have to pay to be allowed back into its good books: Brussels wants Britain to contribute to the EU’s defence missions. Foreign Secretary
