Matt 🏳️‍🌈🇺🇦🇮🇱

The former Labour minister who wrote Keir Starmer’s Strategic Defence Review has accused the PM of “corrosive complacency” and said “we cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget”. I completely agree. It was exactly what I told Starmer in Parliament yesterday and said in my speech to Defence experts at the weekend. We need to get serious. The Conservatives would restore the two child benefit cap and repurpose funds from net zero projects to invest in our military. Meanwhile the government have NO plan and, as Lord Robertson points out, Rachel Reeves had only 40 words on defence in her Budget and none in the Spring Statement. You can’t trust Labour on defence.

“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.” An extraordinary intervention from Lord George Robertson, former Labour Defence Secretary, former Secretary General of NATO and co-author of the current Strategic Defence Review. His criticism here of Keir Starmer’s failure to expedite the increase in defence spending to match the current threats we face says much about our inability to address the gaps in our capability. Lord Robertson points towards the inability of Rachel Reeves and the Treasury to make funding available as they prevent the Defence Investment Plan from being signed off in favour of an ever-increasing welfare budget. Keir Starmer has no answers on defence.

NEW: Keir Starmer confirms our stories in recent weeks that government wants power to sign up to EU single market rules *without* normal parliamentary vote.  PM argues the power to opt for closer alignment will only happen if parliament passes the legislation - and defends UK pursuing closer ties with EU on security, energy & economy. “We’re in a world where there is massive conflict, great uncertainty and I strongly believe the UK’s best interests are in a stronger, closer relationship with Europe… “We’re trying to make trade easier so there’s less burdens for businesses and that of course translates into lower prices… “There’s also a sense 10 years on from the Brexit referendum that we’ve got to look forward now, not backwards, let’s not just have all the old arguments of the last decade.”

AG8 track 1 will sound like this I hope

Canada has updated the LGBTQ acronym to MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+. That stands for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, and Asexual. Yes, really. I'm not joking. I wish I was.