John Healey

Wednesday

Andrew Lambert

Make the Royal Navy great again

From our UK edition

It’s all very well for Andy Burnham and John Healey to say they want to fund defence, but are they aware of just what a perilous situation the Royal Navy is in? Policy failure by successive governments, more focused on election appeal than security, means the state has lost sight of the basics. Ensuring the free movement of global shipping has been a priority for centuries because Britain cannot produce enough food, fuel or raw materials for itself. Along with the nuclear deterrence, shipping routes form the existential core of our national security. These routes – vital in world wars against Napoleon, the Kaiser and Hitler – depended on a powerful, globally deployed navy. The current force is not up to the task.

Friday

Tim Shipman

Andy Burnham’s centrist act isn’t fooling anyone

When Ed Miliband and Shabana Mahmood arrived in Downing Street on July 20, the image of political rivals arm in arm symbolized a new government of differing views taking shape. It might have been more awkward. As they neared the door of No. 10 and the waiting television cameras, Miliband turned to Mahmood and asked: “Should we turn around for a photo together?” Mahmood gave the idea short shrift: “We’re not getting married, Ed!” But in a sense, Labour is seeking a new relationship with the British public – and everyone around Andy Burnham is alive to the importance of images, symbols and vibes. As Wes Streeting, the new Defense Secretary, put it in cabinet the next day: “We have a second chance to make a first impression with the voters.

burnham

Wednesday

Tim Shipman

Andy Burnham’s centrist act isn’t fooling anyone

When Ed Miliband and Shabana Mahmood arrived in Downing Street on Monday afternoon, the image of political rivals arm in arm symbolised a new government of differing views taking shape. It might have been more awkward. As they neared the door of No. 10 and the waiting television cameras, Miliband turned to Mahmood and asked: ‘Should we turn around for a photo together?’ Mahmood gave the idea short shrift: ‘We’re not getting married, Ed!’ But in a sense Labour is seeking a new relationship with the British public and everyone around Andy Burnham is alive to the importance of images, symbols and vibes. As Wes Streeting, the new Defence Secretary, put it in cabinet on Tuesday: ‘We have a second chance to make a first impression with the voters.

The Spectator

Burnham is already drifting towards defeat

From our UK edition

Nothing so became Keir Starmer’s premiership as his leaving of it. Farewell remarks outside Downing Street, unpunctuated by the odious Steve Bray; a brief goodbye in Buckingham Palace, before the King welcomed his fourth new prime minister in four years; then to the pub to drown his sorrows with Rachel Reeves, leaving Andy Burnham and John Healey to pick up the national tab. There is an irony to Healey’s appointment as Chancellor. Burnham blames Margaret Thatcher for so many of the country’s ills but her time in office was devoted to clearing up the dreadful inheritance left by the last Healey at the Treasury: a top rate of income tax at 98 per cent, untamed inflation, union disarray, socialist sclerosis. Rather than take a wrong turn in the 1980s, Britain flourished.

Martin Vander Weyer

The cinema is back

From our UK edition

The hottest car I ever owned was a 1982 Volkswagen Scirocco GTI in metallic dark green. I once drove it overnight from London to Tuscany with a blind date who never spoke to me again, but that’s another story. My point is that VW built my generation’s chariots of fire and some of us feel more sadness than schadenfreude at what the Telegraph calls ‘the downfall of a German giant’, as the flagship of its nation’s industrial armada contends with multiple impacts of geopolitical and technological change. But I’d say the image of VW ‘speeding towards a precipice as the Chinese move in’ is more than a touch overhyped. It’s a narrative of our era that the West collectively must always challenge.

Sunday

Mark Sedwill

Ministers must get the Defence Investment Plan right

From our UK edition

The speech by Pete Hegseth, the US Defense Secretary, to Singapore's Shangri-La Dialogue was addressed to a Pacific audience. His sharpest messages, however, were for Europe, and especially for a British Government that still hasn't explained in practice how it plans to deliver the political commitments made a year ago in the Strategic Defence Review (SDR). Healey claimed that talking too much and delivering too little has now changed. The Defence Investment Plan is where that claim gets tested ‘Push-up Pete’ - who ostentatiously styles himself the Secretary of War - is a controversial figure. European governments have found it convenient to dismiss him. That is a mistake. Hegseth came to Singapore to unveil the US National Defense Strategy.

Wednesday

Tim Shipman

Is Rachel Reeves blocking defence spending because of ‘gender parity’?

When John Healey was asked, on stage at the London Defence Conference, whether the armed forces were ‘ready’ for war, the Defence Secretary replied: ‘Yes.’ One of those present says: ‘That was greeted with near incredulity in the room.’ Another attendee compared Healey’s plight to someone ‘playing French cricket’, with critics from all sides hurling balls at his ankles while he tried to bat them away. ‘You can’t score any runs in French cricket.’ George Robertson, Healey’s most respected Labour predecessor and a former secretary general of Nato, was not present; he was in Scotland celebrating his 80th birthday. But he returned to give a withering interview to the FT and a speech.