Rod Liddle: UK Correspondent on the UK upping its defence spend

The UK is set to spend more on defence. 

Prime Minister Keir Starmer's unveiled plans to lift the defence spend, signalling it could reach 3% of GDP at the next Parliament. 

He vowed to make Britain "a battle-ready, armour-clad nation”, and Defence Secretary John Healey says they’re in a “new era of threat”, which demands a higher spend.  

UK Correspondent Rod Liddle told Mike Hosking that although many understand the need for increased defence, it’s not understood where the money is going to come from. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Do Britain. We go Rod murfree and good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Come more in to you mate.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
The world as a changing, isn't it? This ha just
been spending. When Starmer does what he does, do people
cheer him on and go hear here about time? Or
do they ask questions like I wonder where the money
for that's coming from?

Speaker 2 (00:15):
The latter there is no indication as to where the
money is going to come from for what is a
massive increase in defense spending, an increase which you have
to say is needed, but which cuts across everything else
which the government is doing. So you know, we're we're
building loads of more nucleused submarines, rigging up the amount

(00:38):
of money we're spending on defense to three percent, and
that's before the end of this parliament. There are aspirations
to go even higher. We understand a stent why that
is needed. Well, it's not understood is where the money
is going to come from. I don't think anyone knows that.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Interesting, isn't it? I was. There's a guy called Miles,
Richard Miles. He's he's high up in the Australian government
and he met last week with hig Seth. He came
back to Australia and higg Seth that asked him for
five percent, And there's sort of a stout brewing over that.
This seems to be. It was once three, now it's five.
I mean, what's five worth to Britain And there's anyone
spending five? For goodness sake, Well, no one.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
In Europe is spending five. And I don't think that
the USA is spending five. It may well be that
Estonia or someone like that is spending five, but no,
it would be income just unconsidering, unconsidering, we couldn't do it.

(01:37):
We couldn't do it. That being said, you know, he
is talking of this story in a very very big way.
He says, we have to be ready for war. We
could have to be ready for the news threat from Russia.
Three percent isn't the end of what we're going to

(01:58):
be doing. I don't think this is going to play
terribly well with the left wing of labor supporters think
a lot of this is rubbish. I don't think it
plays terribly well with the Treasury either. So it is
a problem for him.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Okay, now you've been chatting with miss Benknock over the weekend.
How would she how she got a bit of expector
or about her or not really.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
There is a general feeling within the Conservative Party that
she hasn't done enough quickly enough to address both the
threat of reform and indeed to stick it to the
Labor government. Is that true. Possibly, She says it was
a conscious decision not to come out with all guns blazing.
That being said, you know, you've got a Conservative party

(02:46):
which was at this time last year the government with
a huge majority, which is now on sixteen percent in
the polls. This is a problem both for Labor and
for Tories, but particularly at the moment for Kenney Badenock.
She cannot see that many of the things which she
is doing to gain more votes for the party will

(03:09):
result in the end in many of those people who
voted for a leftish Conservative party, you know, a gentle
Conservative party will desert her for the Greens and for
the lip Dens. And it's the same problem which is
faced by Labor, which can also not see that the
more and more it chases the right and farage, the

(03:32):
more it alienates those voters in the south of the
country who might be inclined to vote for the lib deads.
It's a huge problem.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Speaking of farage reform Hamilton, the Hamilton by election. They're
looking at what they're mostly calling a Tartan bounce. You know,
it's the first opportunity to see whether what we saw
the other day is real? Is it real? Do you
think what do you reckon is going to happen?

Speaker 2 (03:54):
I think it's probably a stage te fa for reform
to in Hamilton, and they don't have a huge presence
in Scotland, and my guess is it will be between
Labor and the SMP. But there's no doubt that reform
is on the marginals of the border. It's just a
moment near the scale that it is down here.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
And that is Roderick Little, who will be back with
us on Thursday on the My Consking Breakfast. Just quickly,
by the way, they've got drinking water problems in that
particular part of the world. They're going to have drinking
water shortages within a decade, so they've announced the government
they're speeding up planning process for a couple of reservoirs.
They've got one thousand people. In fact, I had an
updated number this morning that suggested over twelve hundred. Anyway,

(04:38):
there were more than somewhere between onenty and twelve hundred
illegal migrants that crossed the English Channel on Saturday. Just
on Saturday, biggest day so far for twenty twenty five,
eleven eleven hundred and ninety four arrived in nineteen small boats.
Annual total so far as up to fourteen thousand, eight

(05:00):
hundred and eleven, which is up forty two percent on
this time last year ninety five percent on the same
point in twenty twenty three. Thirty seven thousand people across
the Channel in small boats in twenty twenty four, the
highest figure since twenty twenty two, when it was forty
seven hundred fifty five. So now they get more people
across the Channel on Saturday than the Blues got at
their match precisely many times over. And then we've got
a fourth man. Rod alluded to this last week. He

(05:23):
thinks it's Russian. A lot of people think it's Russian,
technically the Ukrainian. But there's a fourth man now who's
been arrested over these series of fires at Starmer's house.
So as Starmer's house he was arrested. The bloke was
arrested at Stansteed clearly on his way out. Three incidents.
He had a vehicle fire, he had a fire at
the Prime Minister's private home in the same street as
the vehicle fire, and then in a fire at fire

(05:45):
at an address that he'd previously lived in. So the
thinking is there might be a bit of Russian doings there.
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