DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Labour runs out of ammo on defence trends now
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After wheeling out the heavy artillery to promise the biggest boost in defence spending for a generation, Rishi Sunak was on manoeuvres in Germany yesterday.
On top of his commendable pledge to bolster our threadbare Armed Forces, the Prime Minister also unveiled plans for deeper military co-operation with Berlin.
In Labour HQ, Mr Sunak's vow to spend 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2030 exploded like a howitzer shell.
It was left to shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry to try (and risibly fail) to explain her party's defence policy.
In a toe-curling Radio 4 interview, she refused to commit to match the PM's funding commitment or even say whether Britain should be on a 'war footing'. With Vladimir Putin and other tyrants on the rise, she lamely promised to hold a review.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer visits the Tapa NATO forward operating base in Estonia close to the Russian border on December 21, 2023
The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is pictured taking a selfie with German and British troops at the Julius Leber Barrackson April 23, 2024
This was a revealing performance. Labour has always been at best ambivalent towards the military, at worst downright hostile.
Sir Keir Starmer himself believed Jeremy Corbyn was fit to hold the highest political office – a man who has spent his entire career opposing everything the British armed forces stands for.
But a fortnight ago, Sir Keir insisted Labour was now 'utterly committed to our nation's defences'. After yesterday's retreat, that tub-thumping rhetoric seems to have misfired as badly as a broken cannon.
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