Good morning. Britain is rearming. More below.
Then, the academic Kojo Koram gives Kemi Badenoch some reading recommendations. We have your daily shot of polling analysis: Ben goes into the data on how Rishi Sunak is more disliked than Nigel Farage. And finally, Nadine Dorries and David Cameron get into a spat. Join us to find out who wins:
“It’s time for us to rearm,” Rishi Sunak said yesterday at a press conference with the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk. His call to arms – which, strangely, lacked gravitas despite its implication – came as he announced plans to boost defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2030.
This is part of the slow realisation that Britain cannot always hide beneath America’s protective umbrella, that Europe has to invest in its defence for its own security. The US Congress did pass the huge aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan last night but only after six uncertain months of opposition and delay. On top of that, both Labour and the Conservatives view defence as a key way in which post-Brexit Britain can influence events on the continent.
Where’s the money coming from then? As a percentage of GDP, defence spending has been on a steady downwards trajectory since the mid-1980s. Peruse this chart:
This “peace dividend” has been spent on the NHS, welfare spending and attempts to consolidate the public finances. No longer. The time for making hard decisions has arrived. It’s not as if Sunak announced a tranche of tax rises to pay for this. The reality is neither party will have much leeway to boost funding for Britain’s armed forces within the constraints imposed by their fiscal rules – without cutting elsewhere. And that’s precisely what the government has chosen to do. Sunak is eyeing up the civil service, still much larger than before the pandemic, for cuts. But that won’t be enough. The Institute for Fiscal Studies thinks the post-election spending cuts to unprotected departments such as prisons will have to grow to around 4 per cent.
The former defence secretary Ben Wallace has intervened, which is becoming a habit. He thinks that the defence spending boost could make National Insurance cuts in the Budget impossible. Country before party? It’s a better line than the NI one, which has twice failed to shift the polls.
At this point we should note, as is so often the case, that this announcement is not new. Boris Johnson made a similar commitment in 2022. Last week, Keir Starmer said Labour would try to get spending to 2.5 per cent “as soon as resources allow”. Which given those fiscal rules and the brutal cuts involved is essentially the same as the Tories’ plans. Sunak is meeting the German chancellor Olaf Scholz today to announce a joint plan to build artillery systems. Labour, of course, has promised a security pact with Germany for years. Yet again, a consensus has been found and the gap between the two parties has shrunk.
Freddie’s picks
This week’s cover story is on the Age of Danger. Bruno writes on the growing hotspots of conflict around the world, from Ukraine to Israel.
Book of the day: Pippa investigates the history of hypochondria.
Megan Nolan writes on the viral TV hit Baby Reindeer.
This is a perceptive analysis of David Lammy’s recent Foreign Affairs essay from Aris Roussinos. Roussinos concludes that Lammy’s progressivism prevents him from confronting the world as it is (UnHerd).
It’s been three years since Uber and GMB signed their recognition agreement. Together they have delivered the first pension in the gig economy. But what is the future of work in 21st-century Britain? And how do we combine autonomy and flexibility with security and representation? Join our panel of experts for a New Statesman podcast produced in collaboration with Uber, to discuss all of this and more.
Kemi Badenoch should read some Edmund Burke by Kojo Koram
On 18 April, Kemi Badenoch highlighted the biggest problem facing the British economy in 2024: historical accuracy. Speaking in the City of London, the Business Secretary made headlines by stating that “the UK’s wealth isn’t from white privilege and colonialism” but instead heralds from the constitutional and economic reforms of the 1688 Glorious Revolution. Correcting the historical record, she finally struck a blow against the ivory tower ideologues who consistently lie about Britain’s past in order to do it down.
One such zealot has even described Britain’s colonisation of the Caribbean as “the great source of our wealth, our strength and our power”. Harping on about colonialism instead of concentrating on the true story of how Britain’s prosperity was built on a mix of property rights, perseverance and prayer, this member of the wokerati wants Britons to feel guilty for having “drawn such great advantages from our possessions in the West-Indies” and drones on endlessly about how “vast fortunes were made, and the returns of treasure to England were prodigiously great”. One of the fashionable academic snowflakes who almost certainly wants us to decolonise the curriculum or something, hopefully Badenoch has him in her sights. But in case she isn’t aware of this man, let me point her in the right direction. His name is Edmund Burke, often described as the “father” of English conservatism.
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