Defence spending has to rise. But how can it be paid for?
I don't want to be one of those people who calls for more money for defence, but won't say how to fund it, because that's basically a dishonesty on the British public.
So Donald Trump has made it clear that the era of blank checks from the United States is over, but the threat from Russia remains.
This means we must find the cash from an economy that is overtaxed and low growth.
Jacob Rees Mogg called for more defence spending
GB News
There is no room for tax increases, so spending priorities must be changed. Hard choices must be made.
Defence needs more and it must come from other budgets. So first for the top in the firing line is overseas aid at nearly £14 billion a year. At least half of it should be redirected to defence.
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It's time to stop the absurd overseas aid spending, which includes 5 million, on wait for it, transforming feminist funding in Iraq, 25 million for green urban growth in Somalia, and 38 million for green growth in Nepal. If you've got some green scheme in a poorer part of the world, the British government will pay for it.
In addition, if we closed our borders effectively, we could go further rather than wasting cash out of the overseas aid budget on bogus asylum seekers.
Next in the firing line is the bogus civil service. Boris Johnson had a plan to cut it by 20 per cent, which would have saved about £5 billion annually. That too must go to defence.
And at a time when taxpayers have been mercilessly squeezed, with thresholds being frozen now for several years, the welfare recipients they pay for have not been affected.
John Healey is the Defence minister
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This year's 1.7 per cent increase in benefits other than pensions should be frozen, adding another £2.5 billion for defence. Then the crazy scheme should go green. Subsidies and follies must be abandoned. Carbon capture and storage would save £20 billion a year if in total, if it were given up.
We could also save billions if the Chancellor had any gumption, and ordered the governor of the Bank of England to stop selling bonds for quantitative tightening purposes and just let them mature.
This has been a tragic waste of money. If all this were done, there would be at least £20 billion extra for the Ministry of Defence, and perhaps we would begin to be taken seriously again.
Donald Trump is right, but too long the UK and Europe has been too comfortable relying on the US as a security blanket, taking money away from defence and using it to lie back and live the easy life of welfare dependency and flashiness.
It is our in our own interests to hear what he has to say, and remember that the first duty of Government is defence of the realm.
