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Keep us safe
WITH the polls as they are, Labour’s stance on our defence becomes of huge significance.
The omens are not good.
Rishi Sunak’s historic commitment to increase military spending to 2.5 per cent of our GDP by 2030 is vital, but of little relevance unless the probable NEXT Government follows suit.
Why hasn’t it?
That 2.5 per cent remains a mere aspiration for Labour “when circumstances allow”.
That’s no longer good enough.
Nothing matters more — nothing — than keeping Britain safe from the rising menace of Russia and China, not to mention Iran and North Korea.
Finances MUST allow for it.
If other budgets have to be cut, or pledges abandoned, Labour must prepare to do it.
On defence its recent record is dismal.
Only four years ago it tried to install as Prime Minister a peacenik hippie who liked, shall we say, to give Putin the benefit of his doubt.
But rebuilding our depleted military is now THE priority.
It must not be short-changed because Labour’s union pals want another pay rise and Angela Rayner has promised them whatever they desire.
Or because Labour needs every penny for ideological crusades like rail nationalisation.
Can it be trusted on defence? We see no proof yet.
A model MP
HOW vastly better our politics would be with more MPs like Frank Field.
A man guided by his principles and instincts, even in defiance of his own party’s line.
As a Labour minister he knew over-generous benefits were a trap luring the poorest into lifelong misery on the dole.
He was pushed out of Government for it.
Later, despite Labour opposing Brexit en masse, he would not.
He rightly thought free movement was a disaster for working-class pay and that excessive immigration was a crippling burden on public services.
His local party voted no-confidence in him.
And when Frank could bear Corbyn’s anti-Semitic regime no more he left Labour, when lesser politicians stayed put.
What courage, to rebel against colleagues he knew were wrong and against the prevailing wisdom of the liberal-left metropolitan chattering classes.
Frank, who has died at 81, is a huge loss.
You can read more about his long and admirable career on Page 16.
Westminster needs hundreds like him.
War on Terry
WE’RE not certain a nation which needs a trigger warning on Terry and June is quite ready for war.
What could offend anyone in the notoriously cosy and safe 1980s BBC sitcom about a couple in suburban Surrey?
Generation Snowflake aren’t watching.
Do older fans really need cotton-wooling against Terry’s exasperations?
The obsessive wokery is funnier than the show ever was.
