Boris Johnson is facing political pressure on all sides to re-examine the U.K.’s military spending levels as ex-minister Lord Frost led Tory demands for an increase in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. MailOnline has the story.
Lord Frost attacked “many years of Western unseriousness about foreign and defence policy” as Labour’s Keir Starmer also demanded a review of policy.
Frost, until last year the U.K.’s Brexit Secretary, said inaction allowed Vladimir Putin to think he could “try it on”. The former minister joined with other ex-Cabinet members including Michael Fallon to back a 25% increase in defence spending.
Their intervention comes as NATO allies look at their own spending and European nations close to Russia geographically consider joining.
Germany is to plough 100 billion euros into a new defence procurement fund and raise overall spending above 2% of GDP for the first time in decades.
At the same time Finland and Sweden are said to have begun looking at the possibility of joining NATO.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph today, Lord Frost said: “We are going to have to spend more on defence and that will mean tough choices. We need to reform and liberalise so that investment keeps coming.”
Sir Michael Fallon, who was Defence Secretary under David Cameron and Theresa May, added: “In 1999, long before 9/11, before Russian aggression, before Kim Jong-il had nuclear missiles, we were spending 2.7%.”
“[My] only criticism of last year’s integrated review [of security and defence] was that its ambition wasn’t matched by significant further uplift.
“I absolutely welcome both the review and the previous very welcome increase in 2020. But its ambition wasn’t matched by a further increase building beyond 2.5% by the end of the Parliament. That’s the kind of ambition we need.”
Sir Keir said there needs to be a review of defence policy and spending, with Labour having also previously attacked wasted money in military procurement.
Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme, Sir Keir said: “I think there does need to be a step back and review of defence policy because this has, I think, blown away some of the assumptions the Government was working on.”
Sir Keir said the Labour Party has been critical of the Government for cutting back the army by another 10,000 soldiers, noting “as we have said, we wouldn’t have done that”.
Worth reading in full.
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They should save money by defunding the 77th Brigade as they are rather pathetic in their trolling of this site.
I sense a downvote coming your way.
A downvote for me too, you shouldn’t have, thank you, that’s very kind.
77th Brigade
“WHAT WE DO
I bet Putin’s shaking in his boots.
In short, anything but real soldiering.
The “77th” is just a concept made up by paranoid conspiracy theorists.
“They are watching us!” – yeah, right. Does anyone really think there is a paid wing of The Government trying on a site such as this to change the opinions of a few armchair experts?
That’s… uh… that’s literally taken from their public profile.
https://www.army.mod.uk/who-we-are/formations-divisions-brigades/6th-united-kingdom-division/77-brigade/
It’s possible that 77th Brigade is no more than a single web page psy-op to make people think we have an entire psy-op brigade.
But that’s a different argument to whether the whole concept is a tin-foil invention.
“It’s not paranoia when they really are out to get you!”
Where does it all end? What does concern me is when people are willing to snitch to admin when they don’t like another poster’s comments. This ‘going along with the sheep’, reporting someone when they have an alternative view, is no better than the ‘Covidians’ slagging off the ‘Anti-vaxxers’ for ‘spreading misinformation’.
Well, one of us could start by apologising for making a false gaslighting accusation that 77th Brigade is nothing more than a tin-foil-hate invention.
It seems that you’d rather just pivot to a fresh rant though. That’s a great way to demonstrate that it’s futile trying to engage with you in a meaningful conversation.
I have first hand experience of the 77th Brigade on another site.
Instead of copying and pasting their stock reply from their crib sheet they inadvertently copied and pasted the whole page with details of how to respond to dissenting voices.
They’re real.
Tobias Ellwood MP remains a 77th Brigade Lieutenant Colonel : https://archive.ph/DhzTo
Then the “paranoid conspiracy theorists” must be the Ministry of Defence because the 77th Brigade has a page on the MOD website. Why don’t you check your facts before typing, Mr. Fox?
Since we are heading for thermal armageddon in less than ten years (according to our green friends), it is probably not worth bothering.
I guess we could spend it all on the Navy, given that we only have 10 years to stop catastrophic sea level rises. I mean, I’ve heard that for 40 years or so, so it must surely be imminent by now.
Barbarian invaders continue to flood across the Channel.
If our armed forces can’t stop that, there’s absolutely no point to them.
And it’s 40 years since they did anything other than act in globalist interests.
Too harsh?
Too generous. He’s a conspiring crook. His clownish demeanour is a smokescreen.
I’d be surprised to find that he’s even continent.
*sigh*
Now we get on the next corrupt and evil corporatist agenda as the Pharma agenda winds down.
WAR! Let’s be against it while actually ramping up the tensions by wilfully ignoring the truth of how this began and what will make things worse (supplying arms and vilifying Putin) rather than finding a way of minimising death.
Sound familiar?
Thats because the same crony politicians are doing the bidding of the next big corporate group. And they believe they will distract the people and benefit from the war propaganda. Judging by the media BS, they might succeed.
Meanwhile the same lemmings that wore their masks walking around outside are now painting their faces or houses yellow and blue in the naive belief that their virtue will prevent the beautiful people if Ukrain from getting slaughtered.
The reality is that they are sending these people to slaughter in the vain hope that they can win against the Russian army. And they eat up this crap that Putin just invaded out of the blue with no provocation and no basic geopolitical calculus.
We are surrounded by morons, manipulated by liars, and herded into virtual prison cells by psychopaths.
Who invaded Ukraine?
Russia dip shit.
It’s actually quite rare to see someone acknowledge this fact.
Mostly people say it is NATO or the BBC, or Zelensky who did it.
You asked who invaded, not why. That’s your problem.
The CIA to fund the Nazis you are an apologist for, go away childish troll, adults are talking.
Now that you have learned the word troll, try another.
Nazi propagandist
Who invaded Ukraine?
In 2022 or 2014?
The West will fight to the last Ukrainian.
Negotiation is the only humanitarian answer as you suggest.
Not crying, painting silly slogans and demonizing Putin.
That will just prolong the suffering and not achieve victory either.
Um… We are not at war in the Ukraine… Or did I miss something?
I suspect Liz Truss believes Kent shares a border with Kiev, which explains all the refugees bobbing ashore.
Someone needs to tell Liz Truss that, or alternatively to explain the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870 Section 4 to her in language that she’s capable of understanding. Pictures, or finger puppets may be required.
A recent bout of defence spending by the British army was their advertising campaign to recruit “Snowflakes” and “Me, Me, Me Millennials” and “Class Clowns”.
Snowflake [ snoh-fleyk ]
noun
Just the type of voracious soldiers that would have Russian troops shit*ing their pants if they showed up in Ukraine.
As if to prove the British army’s drive to recruit the most cowardly and unstable types to be found in any society wasn’t just a one-off error of judgement, the head of MI6 was busy tweeting about his concern for transvestites’ feelings just a few hours after Europe’s biggest country invaded its neighbour.
How would you describe this? Women, children and men are being burned alive in a needless war in Europe and the head of MI6’s most immediate concern is to worry about transvestites having hurt feelings.
(I wonder if the Ukrainian people knew how absolutely and distressingly rotten the West actually is, if they’d be welcoming Russian troops with flowers, coffees and hot food?)
Maybe the British army is worried about the feelings of Ukrainian leader, Zelensky, as he undoubtedly has more than a few paraphilic disorders…
https://youtu.be/DJaxknSPvvk
And all this drivel relates to defence spending? How?
Ah, the resident single mentally retarded down-ticker that used to call it-self “rational” has reappeared with its new handle, “leek”.
How long will this bout of ineffectual trolling last until you get frustrated enough to change your handle yet again and retry under a new pseudonym?
For anyone that’s interested, leek isn’t your regular type troll, this poor fool actually wants to be taken seriously. He’s highly narcissistic to the point of having a personality disorder, I’d reckon he’s of the type that suffers from a paraphilia and attempts hide it under the guise of being transgender.
He really does, though, want to convert people on here to what he assumes are the correct beliefs. His narcissism can’t handle it when he inevitably fails and he then slinks off and creates a new pseudonym for himself. You can tell by the simplistic way he rationalises and responds that he is mentally undeveloped.
Anyway, for you to have been on here as “rational” making an utter idiot of yourself and now to be back as “leek” engaging in the same idiocy? It seems you don’t have one shred of dignity or shame.
Adios moron.
The fact his tag team of psudonyms is allowed to disrupt all the threads and completely disrupt the forum beyond practical use, with almost weekly changes of name, by the moderation team, just makes this website look like a limited hangout operation. It’s losing more credibility by the day.
I’ve just flagged him and sent this message to the site about him: “This commenter is a troll who very obviously harasses and attempts to provoke other commenters.”
I’ve never before flagged anyone, either in this forum or anywhere else, so I’ll find it interesting to see what happens.
The big problem with this freak is that people keep making serious responses to his obviously trolling comments. This just fuels his tank. Either insult and ridicule him, or make no response at all.
When someone makes a serious response to one of his comments he gets a double hit out of it. He gets the thrill of having trolled them, and he also gets the secondary thrill of having been so good at trolling them that they didn’t notice they were being trolled.
There should be a way on this site that people can block freaks like this. And as long as there is no way to block trolls, more and more of them are going to show up.
No, Pfeffel should get out of Ukraine and get back to the UK to face justice for what he and his collaborators did to the British public.
No more propaganda and mind games – whether that be Ukrainian, covid or global warming. We must demand this BS stops immediately.
“We must demand” – no-body has the guts to even go and ring Chris Whitty’s doorbell and have it out with him.
Ivan: “What’s that racket down there?”
Boris looks out of window: “Oh, just some people waving placards, I can’t hear what they’re saying. Now, Ivan, for this knighthood, how much did you say you’d be willing to pay?”
To jaw jaw is better than to war war. They should be ramping down the rhetoric not doing a climate and covid rinse and repeat.
Perhaps you have heard there is a viscous invasion of Ukraine in progress.
Putin didn’t want talk..
Putin has tried talking for several decades, while NATO has send nobodies to the table, while pushing military assets closer and closer to his border.
If you thrust your face right into someone else’s and yell “What are you going to do about it? What? What? What?” for long enough, you’ll eventually find out.
Increase defence spending?
A euphemism for shovelling more tax payer cash in to a mate’s bank account.
Is Billy involved in the “defence” industry by any chance?
Zelensky fueled this conflict, he should have accepted the historical buffer state geo political reality and agreed not to seek NATO or EU membership.
So it wasn’t Russia that invaded then?
Perhaps you could actually condemn the appalling invasion by Russia.
Interesting to see where the thumbs point on this one.
Perhaps you should condemn the Nazis you’re so willing to fund and encourage.
This is what you actively promote, you and your tag team of trolls should be ashamed of yourselves.
https://uprootedpalestinians.wordpress.com/2014/05/11/neo-nazi-executions-of-unarmed-civilians-in-odessa-graphic-warning/
Don’t deflect..
Just say the invasion is wrong.
Well 29 out of 33 refuse to condemn the invasion.
Quite a war-mongering lot you are.
Perhaps you should make some banners with your views and march through the streets. Let people see who you are….
Zelensky was installed for the very reason to provoke Russia and cause conflict in Ukraine. He is a puppet for the WEF globalists, and was catapulted into power on the back of Ihor Kolomoyskyi’s and global central bankers’ funding. No doubt the US gov chipped in too.
I seem to remember an election. Go look up the results.
Zelensky is a TV comedian. He probably struggles to fuel a car. His handlers fuelled this conflict.
Whenever a politician says ‘we must spend more on X’ he should be required to also say ‘and to pay for it we must spend less on Y’
Should be the top rated comment.
I’m looking at you, Holy Church of Our NHS.
Well, no wasting money on over-priced US tat if that is the case. Create jobs in the UK and buy British.
Then pay Heckler and Koch to re-engineer it until it works?
I’ve given the last 42 years of my life to the UKs defence industry and it saddened me to see factory after factory closed down.
Successive governments cut the Armed Forces to the bone, typified by Cameron’s destruction (using JCBs !) to smash our Nimrods. Late and over budget but technically superb.
Watch Boris squirm now as he tries to appease his WEF Reset Boss whilst spinning the line that climate is real danger.
Johnson – and every member of this traitorous, freedom grabbing cabinet – must go.
Ok, we spent 2.5% of GDP p.a. and still ended up with crap, or as the Germans who spent 1.5% (40bln) p.a. just stated, ‘we are naked’.
What makes anyone think that throwing more money at this moloch solves or improves anything?
This is similar to the NHS in that regard, just more useless in general.
What do these people think they’ll get for their money, if they throw ever more borrowed money at the defense contractors in competition with others, the 100bln one-off of the Germans?
At best, a third goes into bribes, a third into the price increases and a third gets botched equipment.
I despair.
This, like delivering arms to Ukraine, is the complete opposite of what is needed, now, before and in the future.
But it is also the sole motivation and reason for all the Ukraine meddling that now imploded, the latter also as planned and desired by the Western MIC and its blob.
Why can’t/won’t so few people see that?
Another ‘vaccine’ side effect?!
If we had had 100.000 soldiers more, we would have still not sent one of them into Ukraine and Biden would still have given Putin the green light to go in, not least because that was exactly what he and the MIC always planned for and wanted.
If we had spent 8% of GDP on ‘defense’, Kim would have still built his rockets.
What do they smoke to think otherwise?!
Us white males are useful again now when there’s some dying to be done eh? No thanks.
It’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide.
The outcome might depend on whether Rishi listens. There might be a proper “budget” this year!
And Mila Kunis might be oiled up and handcuffed to my bedposts right now. If we’re countenancing a conservative budget from a WEF/Davos chancellor, anything is possible.
Cancel “Net Zero” and divert the money to restoring our military.
Quelle surprise!
As always – follow the money.
We should arm our soldiers with syringes full of all the left over vaccine, that stuff is lethal.