There’s something about Kemi Badenoch making a keynote speech – everything she does comes billed as keynote these days – about defence that makes most normal people a little nervous. Because when Kemi talks about defence, what’s really on her mind is war. Starting one, if possible.
Kemi is never happier than when picking a fight. With herself, if no one else is around. You get the feeling that, left on a desert island she would be dreaming of Apocalypse Now.
Flying low over the Mekong delta in a helicopter gunship, the Ride of the Valkyries playing through her earphones while she yelled: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” Still, you can’t blame an opposition leader for opportunism. It’s the crumbs they live off. And the Tories reckon they have identified a Labour weakness.
John Healey resigned as defence secretary a few months back over Keir Starmer’s reluctance to come up with a plan of spending 3% of GDP on defence by 2030. Now that Andy Burnham has appointed him chancellor, Healey seems suddenly rather reluctant to make the commitment he was asking of Rachel Reeves. Much happier to be pushed back to the longer-term goal of 3.5% by 2035, with the heavy lifting being done sometime, maybe never, after the next election.
There are some decisions politicians choose to defer indefinitely. It’s possible Healey will surprise us all and announce he is resigning again in protest at his own refusal to meet the 2030 target. But as of today he’s still very much in No 11 and, after some confusion at Wednesday’s prime minister’s questions, the government position is the 2035 deadline.
So Kemi and a few members of her shadow cabinet decamped to the slightly surreal setting of Scotland House London – the inside looks like a greenhouse and is about as sweaty – to tell the country it was 2030 or bust. If we delayed any longer, we would all be dead. If the Russians didn’t kill us, she would.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
