createngland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

There is nothing “absurd” about thinking that locking the UK into a continent that is getting almost all its big strategic bets for the future wrong would be a catastrophic mistake. Yes the world is changing. But that means we need more robust borders, more flexible labour markets, more dynamic capital markets, cheaper energy, a positive attitude to AI and tech…ie all the key things the EU isn’t doing well or at all, and that Brexit allows us to pursue.

Britain imports oil and gas from Norway - drilled from the same seabed we refuse to drill. Since the election Miliband has insisted there’s no value in North Sea drilling. This is a humiliating u-turn - and one forced by Kemi and Claire Coutinho.

Just to remind people. The UK post-Brexit joined the CPTPP trade bloc with 11 other countries, of a collective size on par with the EU but actually growing economies not stagnant ones. The terms of the CPTPP deal are far superior to the deals the EU has with those countries.

I'm team Samuel. I was a remainer who'd now vote to stay out. The economic damage while not nothing has been less than predicted, we're now a full democracy, and badly need a new course that would be harder in. This doesn't rule out closer military ties thetimes.com/comment/column…

Thanks, Matt. You warned me that they’d come at me. They already had come at me. I will not be cowed. They have picked on the wrong person. I will not be bullied. My dad was a very proud @RMTunion assistant general secretary. He would say “do right, fear nobody”. I will.

My monologue from today’s The Times at One with Andrew Neil @TimesRadio FAILURE TO INCREASE DEFENCE SPENDING A NATIONAL SCANDAL. The failure of the Starmer government to increase defence spending by anything like enough is becoming a national scandal.  The need has never been greater in peacetime. Wars are raging in Ukraine and the Gulf. A revanchist Russia bears down on Eastern Europe. The Strait of Hormuz is in Iranian hands — and closed.  President Trump has gone from rightly demanding NATO’s European members do more for their own defence to wrongly threatening to pull America out of NATO altogether.  Yet the Starmer government sits on its hands doing next to nothing.  It sensibly commissioned a Strategic Defence Review when it came to power in the summer of 2024. That review reported in June 2025.  The government accepted all 62 of its proposals to reconfigure our military and rearm the country. It promised a Defence Investment Plan by the autumn to show how we’d pay for it.  Almost a year later there’s still no sign of it. Neither the PM nor the Defence Secretary can tell us when we will see it.  Meanwhile defence spending stutters, wholly inadequate to the tasks at hand. Trump’s War in the Gulf has exposed just how hollowed out our armed forces have become  — a diminished Navy, most of which cannot be deployed at sea  — an airforce short of fighter jets — a minuscule army incapable of mounting a major armoured fighting force — a country without its own ballistic missile defence.  Yet none of that can be put right on current or planned levels of defence spending.  Of course Labour’s inheritance was a terrible one. Fourteen years of Tory government were marked by a clear deterioration in our military prowess.  In the Cameron/Osborne years between 2010 and 2016, defence spending was cut in real terms by 22%. A fatal fall. Subsequent upticks did little to fill the hole that cut left.  But blaming the Tories only gets you so far. Rather than making up for lost ground the Starmer is largely standing still.  It inherited defence spending in its first year — 2024/25 — of £60 billion. It increased that by a mere £2 billion for 2025/26 — a pathetic amount in a dangerous world. And that’s in cash terms, without taking inflation into account.  It’s added only £3.5 billion — again in cash terms — for the upcoming financial year 2026/27. It barely takes the defence budget to 2.5% of GDP.  Yes, there are bigger rises in the years after that. But it’s still too little, too late — and barely moves defence above 2.5% of GDP.  Starmer has vaguely committed to 3% in the next Parliament — ie the early 2030s — and to 3.5% by 2035, which would be the next parliament after that. But these are only ambitions. There is no roadmap, no blueprint, no budget plan to get there.  Defence spending needs to be ramped up far more quickly than that. Instead, sleight of hand is exaggerating what small increases there are. Ministers try to slip in the intelligence services when counting defence. The cost of helping Ukraine. Unfunded pay rises for the military.  It all means that in real terms even the small uptick in defence spending is not as big as it seems.  There was a time when, as a share of GDP, Britain spent more on defence than any other NATO member bar America. It is a measure of our military decline that we’re now 12th — and still slipping.  The money is there if only there was the willpower to move it to defence — from the massive profligate expense of net zero, from the ballooning welfare budget, from a new time-limited tax, perhaps on luxuries, if that’s what it takes.  Other countries get the need to rearm — Germany, Poland, the Baltic States, Canada, even the peace-loving Scandinavians. But not Keir Starmer’s Britain.  It is his single biggest dereliction of duty. He needs to put it right. Before it’s too late. Or it will be forever the blackest of marks on his tenure in power.

North Sea oil and gas:

@JavierBlas With Yanbu and Fujairah presumably in full flow, it seems to be edging up ever closer to the 20 million barrels per day.

Everything suggests that at least ~4 million barrels of crude exited the Strait of Hormuz today. Largest outflow since the 1st day of the Third Gulf War. (... And yes, that's a fraction of the 20 million barrels a day that typically left the SoH on any given day pre-war...)

Themistocles is a great name for a ship.

@NavyLookout I can’t help but feel that a similar capability en masse would be ideal for the Strait of Hormuz currently.

Latest technical briefing article: In focus: MSI-DS sovereign UK medium calibre gun mount development navylookout.com/in-focus-msi-d…

As a Norfolk resident, this is a great read…

.@Babcockplc have confirmed the former Dingles department Store building on Royal Parade in Plymouth to become their new Capability Centre for up to 2,000 employees - relocating support staff from Devonport dockyard

Saab reports a 24 million order (unspecified numbers) from UK MoD for GIRAFFE 1X radars, used in SHORAD taskings. First UK order was for 11, in 2023, including one reserved for XV Patrick Blackett (not yet seen on the ship that i know of) and the value at the time was similar.

Fabled "new factories of ammunition and energetics" in UK are happening (IF they are happening) not before Q3 unless industry feels like going it alone. MoD is offering "45 million or 50%, whichever is lowest" contribution. Really not sure that is going to be competitive.

On the day the USA goes back to the moon the UK introduces an increased remote gaming levy.

Classic. I post, a woman I’ve never interacted with before responds, whilst simultaneously blocking me. Clearly she loves a good discussion 🤣. Way to go @jenny1991150 You’re also wrong by the way, but you don’t want to hear that.

The education industry in a nutshell. The long march is reaching its conclusion.

Let’s see who agrees with me on drilling in the North Sea: Rachel Reeves ✅ The GMB Union ✅ RenewableUK ✅ Tony Blair ✅ Octopus Energy ✅ Great British Energy ✅ But not the Energy Secretary Ed Miliband ❌ Keir Starmer…? I sense a U-turn (unless Ed Miliband is really running the govt!)

Apparently the naming rules around marmalade were "contrary to German linguistic tradition". That’s fair enough. They’re contrary to our linguistic tradition too, but we don’t make EU rules. That’s what we voted for. The folly of the ‘re-set’ in action.