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‘UK's biggest post-war scandal' and the China-Russia threat: shadow defence sec James Cartlidge
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- [00:04]
James Cartlidge
The telegraph.
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Matt
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- [00:53]
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James Cartlidge
The whole thing is just such a shocking scandal. As someone I think said right yesterday, perhaps the biggest post war scandal in many ways. We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars we end. Right now all eyes are on Washington, but who's actually watching Europe at the moment?
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Roland Oliphant
The deepening ties between China, Russia and North Korea would certainly have some in.
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Venetia Rainey
Washington concerned sometimes use strong language too.
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James Cartlidge
We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.
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Ad Announcer
The IDF will continue to uphold the ceasefire agreement and will respond firmly to any violation of it.
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Roland Oliphant
I'm Venetia Rainey. And I'm Roland Oliphant and this is battle lines. It's Friday 6th of February 2026. On today's episode we're interviewing James Cartledge, the Shadow Defence Secretary.
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Venetia Rainey
The MP for South Suffolk was the Minister for Defence Procurement in the last government from 2023 and he now serves as the Shadow Defence Minister, which means he has seen defence from both the inside and the outside.
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Roland Oliphant
Before we get on with the interview, we just want to ask you for your feedback. Do you enjoy Battle Lines? If you do, send us an email. Battlelinestelegraph.co.uk Tell us what you like and why you like it. Now, on with the interview. James Cartledge. Welcome to Battle Lines. Let's just start with the big news story of this week. Peter Mandelson. I see your eyes widening there. Do you think his appointment as a US Ambassador was a National security risk, given what we now know about his links with Epstein and his treacherous and potentially criminal behavior while working for former Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
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James Cartlidge
Obviously the national security question. There will be a lot more information coming out. In fact, a huge amount, I suspect, to keep you journalists busy.
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Roland Oliphant
Of course, yeah, we're still waiting for all these Mandelson files that are now being called to be released by the government.
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James Cartlidge
Exactly. But I think that from a pure political point of view, it is a phenomenal misjudgment. And the key, there was a word that we just didn't get answered yesterday, really simple one, which is why there's all this thing about these security papers or whatever this information is going to say. But it's a much more simple question. Why would you appoint someone if you knew he had stayed friends with someone who'd been convicted of child prostitution and was a known paedophile? I mean, it's extraordinary, truly extraordinary. So aside from all the national security questions, just a fundamental political question for the Prime Minister which I think is deeply damaging for him.
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Roland Oliphant
I take your point on the national security stuff and you're right, waiting to hear about the vetting process in particular and how that was conducted. But Keir Starmer said in PMQ's yesterday that Mandelson betrayed his country. Do you agree with that?
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James Cartlidge
Yes, absolutely. Well, he self evidently gave all these documents to Epstein which detailed sensitive financial information which I suspect will be a feature of the criminal investigation. But who knows beyond that there's such a quantity of material and I think, you know, I can't speculate, but if you look at Donald Tusk, who is the Prime Minister of Poland, in an extraordinary statement about his growing confidence of links with Russia, now that's not proven, at least not in the direct sense of national security and so on, but all of this underlines the enormous risk that was taken and you know, the sheer volume of contact. You know, Mandelson seemed to have been constantly feeding Epstein information. That's just extraordinary. Not isolated, you know, and how much money exchange hands ultimately. I mean, there's some profound questions.
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Roland Oliphant
If this correspondence had been had emerged and he had been saying these sorts of things to someone Russian, someone Chinese, you would instantly say this, this guy's a spy at the heart of government.
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James Cartlidge
It is extremely worrying at the moment. Everything around Russia is, let's say, grounded speculation. There are reasons why you could ascertain a link, but they're not definitively proven. But when you put it all together, it just underlines how from the point of view of someone who should be representing the British National Interest. How slapdash and how brazen it all is. If it wasn't deliberate and wasn't coordinated, which, you know, somewhere in that conspiracy there will have been someone coordinating all this and seeking to obtain leverage over people. That is very clear. To the extent that that will be proven, is hard to say. The absolute known knowns that we have, Epstein was convicted of a terrible crime. He was a known paedophile who had this circle of people who were being given access to very young girls. And the whole thing is just such a shocking scandal. As someone, I think said rightly yesterday, perhaps the biggest post war scandal in many ways.
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Roland Oliphant
Some of that Brown stuff is obviously historical, but there's more recent allegations of potential misconduct and I should stress there's no criminal charges around any of this yet. But I wonder if you think there needs to be further scrutiny of the MoD's decision last year to directly award, with no competition, a 241 million three year contract with the controversial tech surveillance company Palantir. I asked because it was raised in PMQs and it came off the back of a meeting that Mandelson arranged between Starmer and the CEO of Palantir, for which no official records were kept.
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James Cartlidge
I think it was raised in the opening of the debate that followed by Alex Burghardt, who is our Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Cabinet Office, effectively, and he asked exactly the questions you did. No answers. So this is something my team have asked written questions about, Shadow Defence team. It's something we will be looking at further because the really important question from a defence point of view is that that was an uncompeted procurement. British defence companies, if you get any of them on your show, unless they're probably the biggest, if you get any defense SMA at the moment, they'll tell you one thing, they're clinging on by their fingertips waiting for orders because of this constant prevarication by John Healey and whatever's happening with the Treasury. And so in that context, to have a procurement for that, for quarter of a billion pounds that is sold sourced to a US firm around the time of a visit by President Trump. And where we know, we know for a fact that Peter Mandelson's company, his lobbying firm, Global Council, that's a global council. Thank you. Were representing Palantir. It does raise some very, very significant questions and I think all of us should be looking into this further and seeking answers from both the MOD and Cabinet Office.
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Roland Oliphant
Global Council should just say lobbying company as you say Mandelson co founded and part owns, also works for Palantir.
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Venetia Rainey
I was wondering if you think there's a. There's a question here about the wider culture of, I don't know, networking connections in. In politics. I mean, there's one thing that comes out of the Epstein files is this kind of, you know, Lemblevatnik's name comes up quite a lot. Big donor to the Tory party in connection with both Manderson and Epstein. Do you think there has to be a, you know, political parties or the kind of, you know, our politicians need to have a long, hard look at? I don't know, just kind of a sense of values or transparency or virtue. It might sound a bit old fashioned, but I mean, there are serious questions, right, about how.
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James Cartlidge
Well, there are a few points on that. The first thing is there will be lots of politicians all, or people who network with politicians from all parties who are in some way named in the files or have appeared in photographs with, you know, in some way, shape or form where there is no suggestion of malevolent or, you know, in some way corrupt behavior. Because the sheer scale of the files, the amount of contact, etc. And we have to be cognizant of that. I mean, the Mandelson thing is extraordinary. It's very explicit. But in other cases it may be much more mundane. In terms of the point about the network of politicians, should we say, you have to remember the Telegraph is not a paper, I hope, which supports higher public spending being out of control, et cetera. We want to see discipline and the British public do not support public funding of British political parties, which would cost many millions of pounds. The point is we therefore have to raise that privately. And that does mean that you get donors and parties mixing all the time seeking the funding that they require if they are to fulfill their democratic process and have candidates and have advertising for candidates and all the other functions you know, funding Conservative Central office, in our case, or whatever the Labour Party equivalent is. So we have to be aware of that. But obviously, I think all of this has to be conducted with the level of probity that the public would rightly expect from those that they elect into high office.
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Venetia Rainey
But what it looks like is somebody who manipulated a desire for connections, for.
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James Cartlidge
Money, for status in hindsight, and hindsight is a powerful thing. But I mean, as I said, there is a difference between those who may have been caught up in this and may have questions to answer, and we have to differentiate between speculate on and where we know for definition sure.
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Venetia Rainey
And I wonder if you think there is a problem with people perhaps being not as cognizant of the dangers of approach by people who might be working for foreign governments.
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James Cartlidge
I think there is a much greater need to inform the public of risks of things like cyber attack, etc. There is knowledge of this, but perhaps there's not enough practice. Maybe. I think we might still be too complacent. You will know that the mod and other key government buildings are constantly hit with cyber attacks. We know that Russia is extremely cunning in the way it conducts these operations and I wouldn't underestimate anything on their part. And of course they have these very strong links with other potential adversaries and those, those dictator led powers like China, North Korea, et cetera. And so yes, we must be on our guard, but equally we're a free country and a free society, so you always have to balance the two. But I'll give you an example of where I think we could do more. When the Yantar, that spy vessel, was in our waters, Healey gave a statement to Parliament in which he spoke about the operation by one of our submarines. Now that's a very rare thing to do. I had the nuclear brief when I was a defense Minister. You would never talk about the operational side. You may talk about, you know, I did debates on say, nuclear infrastructure or whatever. You'll talk about spending up to a point, but obviously you can't be too transparent on those things because you know, that would be a benefit to our adversaries. We would love to know that information. And when he did that, I said to him he should lean in more, notwithstanding the need to be careful. We should level more with the public about the threat so that the public is more guarded. I think that is it. I think that's what we need to do not least, because if the public understand the level of the threat, they are more likely to therefore accept the ultimate point about the need to put more resources into defence compared to where we've been in recent years, which is remains a challenge.
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Roland Oliphant
What do you think the level of the threat is and which countries should we be most worried about? Is it all Russia or is it also China, Iran?
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James Cartlidge
Something that I was very struck by, which shows how the threat is complicated, is the report that you carried in your paper last week, which is that China had been providing these extraordinary machine tools to Russia to develop the Erezhnik, which is this incredibly potentially lethal, hypersonic, potentially nuclear missile, which is an extraordinary threat. And the fact China's doing that Shows to me just how menacing their threat is potentially. But I think on a pure day to day basis, I think Russia is the key threat for us because of our geography. It is a threat in our waters. You will know about how their planes buzz our airspace and that's before you go into cyber attacks and so on. But I think it's when you talk about the threat, there are two dimensions to it. There is the pure threat, if you like, that a country like Russia may do us harm. And I think most analysts would say the most likely practical effect of that is not direct military kinetic effect strikes or whatever. It is, gray zone stuff like ships doing funny things off our coast or looking at our cables, et cetera. But equally there is also the issue that the US and whatever we think of Trump, he's been entirely right in saying we don't spend enough on defense, particularly European NATO allies. We need to do more. They are going to be focused elsewhere. They've made that very clear. And so that combination means we have to spend more and we have to strengthen our defenses whether we like it or not. Basically it's a no lose situation. Now if we spend more, the US is more likely to commit to NATO and wholeheartedly as we want them to. And at the same time we will be stronger. We'll deter our adversaries. And of course, if it really came to it, our military would then have better capability in the sort that we want them to have.
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Venetia Rainey
Okay, so let's get to how to like, how to pay for that. Basically because this is the problem, right? So UVQ's labor of scrapping capabilities, just as a threat to our nation are growing, there is this 28 billion pound funding gap for the military. There were these reports that Keir Starmer convened a meeting to work out how to find the money. Where would you find the money?
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James Cartlidge
Well, you are spot on. We get a lot of people who comment on defense who will write articles about the threat or say we need to go to 3% GDP, 3.5%, 5%. They never ever say you get the money from. That's always the hard bit. That's for the politicians. So we came out with a policy in December which is in many ways inspired by my time as Defence procurement minister, which was to create a sovereign defence fund. It would raise many more billion for defence. This parliament, it consists of two elements, both of which do require choices and prioritisation which you have to, if you want to put more money into one thing and take it from somewhere else. So the first Part of that was moving R and D from other government departments into the MOD, which would be 6 billion this parliament, assuming the election is in 2029, so it's 2 billion a year. And then the second part of it was the government have something called the National Wealth Fund. It used to be called the National Infrastructure Bank. I was the Treasury Minister when we set that up. The National Wealth Fund essentially has around 20 odd billion of public funding in the form of various different debt structures which the current government have prioritized for net zero and investment in energy infrastructure and so on. And in our policy, around half of that £11 billion would instead have been used to divert to defence and we'd have changed that bank to that fund, to the Defence and Resilience Bank. In other words, using public money to support the resilience of our defence industrial base and crowd in private investment as well at the same time. So essentially it is, if I was to put it in a nutshell, that funding is meant to do for us what we've seen happen in Ukraine. So when I was in the mod, we did some extraordinary things for Ukraine. We procured for them far faster than we do for ourselves. We took risk, we supported them with uncrewed systems and drones and capabilities that were then proven in battle, as it were, and yet in parallel have done almost nothing for our own armed forces. And this was a great frustration for me.
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Venetia Rainey
Why not? You were in charge, right? So why couldn't you, you do that?
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James Cartlidge
So we were starting to do that. In February 2024, I published the first ever drone strategy for the Ministry of Defence. And that document was very clear. We should continue providing drones to Ukraine, but on the back of it, develop a UK sovereign drone ecosystem for development of uncrewed systems. I was very explicit in that document. Mass is not going to come from the old ways of lots of hundreds of surface vessels and a 1 million strong army like we had in the second war. That is not going to happen. It's going to be uncrewed and increasingly robotic, although we still need core personnel. But the point is, we then had a general election and it's really obvious to me what's happened. Having been both in the treasury and the MoD, labor came in, the treasury said, well, you can keep spending the 3 billion a year on Ukraine, that's an agreed funding line. But everything else we want to clamp down, we want to control in year spending and there's been really little or no procurement since the election and which is quite extraordinary when we should be.
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Roland Oliphant
Rearming you raised last year that they'd only procured three drones since the election. Has the situation changed since then? I know they are setting up a sort of drone hub in Swindon, Right. And there are a lot of startups and tech companies trying to get there, but whenever we speak to people from them, they say bureaucracy in the mod trying to actually get these contracts is extraordinary.
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James Cartlidge
Very good question. So what happened? March last year, we asked this parliamentary question. How many drones have been procured since the election for the British armed forces? The answer was three. We thought it'd be three million. 3,000. No, three. Which is quite interesting. Very low number. Looking at the thousand contracts that John Healey boasts about that he signed since the election, I can't see in that any serious capability purchases or anything. It looks like the sort of thing you'd have had to get stuff to do with the nuclear submarine program, the usual stuff like rifles or food for the army, etc. Etc. But no real significant new capability. And the difficulty is, since that question, we've asked it many more times, so every six months, say, what's the latest figure? And they now won't answer. So we've found it almost impossible to get answers at the same time. Ministers will then say, like Al Khan's did a few months ago at orals, he said, no, we've brought thousands of drones. Well, you have for kindred. Kindred is the task force to support Ukraine, but that is not for the British armed forces. As I keep saying, we've done lots of good stuff for Ukraine, we just haven't done it for our own armed forces yet.
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Roland Oliphant
Doesn't all of this come back to this funding gap? You guys can say Labour hasn't done much since the election. Okay, it's been nearly two years. But the funding gap is there after nearly a decade and a half of underinvestment in our military. And that happened under the Tories.
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James Cartlidge
Well, on the overall funding, we spent 5% on defence in 1985. Right. And Gorbachev became president and the Berlin Wall fell down four years later. Every year since then, it has fallen. It fell in the United States. Until recently, it fell from 5%. It was 4% in the early 90s, 3% in 1996, 2.5% in 2010.
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Roland Oliphant
And so a wider global trend. Absolutely. Take your point.
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James Cartlidge
And no one. But hold on. But I can't build a time machine. I can procure drones if I'm the mod, I can't procure a time machine. At the time, no one was saying or no one had a credible plan anyway to substantially increase defense spending. No one was saying that or arguing that. In fact, in 2010, just to be clear, when we came to power, the country was bankrupt and labor were going to cut it by 25%. So you do have to judge it by the time you were in. Having said that, you know, as the threats increased, spending did go up for the first time since the Cold War under Boris Johnson in 2019, and it has increased gradually since then. The final point is, look, I'm open. Kemi would say this. The world has changed. Anyone can see that. And when it changes, you've got to change your priorities. And defence needs to be the top priority for public spending, in my view. And that means you've got to make some difficult decisions. So, yes, we did say in our sovereign Defence Fund, we would move R and D from other departments to defence. That is a reprioritization. Likewise this National Wealth Fund, they are still going to be spending under labor, billions of pounds on net zero, et cetera, which I would argue they could probably find the money in the private sector. What you will not find in the private sector is the sort of money I think we all need to develop a defense industrial base that can produce our military care at the scale we need and without relying on China, which I think is critical.
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Venetia Rainey
General Richard Barron says that the government should relax its fiscal rules and borrow to fund defense.
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James Cartlidge
They still got to pay for it, though. That's not paying for it. Just to be clear. Someone has to pay for it. The Lib Dems the other day in the Chamber had this extraordinary proposition. War bonds, which is war bonds. And the line was, and if you watch the clip, he said, we'll borrow short term, £20 billion. And so I intervened on him and said, okay, obviously you spend the 20 billion. It's a short term bond. So two or three years later you've got to repay it. So the money still has to come somewhere. And he said, no, it doesn't, because it's a bond, which is bill. I mean, Jeremy Corbyn offered free broadband and said, we won't borrow to pay for it. We'll issue bonds, which, you know.
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Venetia Rainey
So you're not suggesting the government should relax its rules to borrow it?
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James Cartlidge
Look at the state of the public finances. You know, they've already relaxed the rules on capital spending quite significantly and they've got a lot of capital. What they'll have found is they've relaxed the rules on capital and they're trying to get lots of capital into the mod. It's not as simple as that. The MOD also needs a lot of what we call Ardell, I think, you know, normal people call day to day spending. Right. You need, still need a lot of that in the mod. Otherwise you can't have, you can't train your forces, you'll have fewer flying hours. And I've been in the situation when the money's tough and it's always under pressure because of the commitments we have as a country. They'll bring you a massive spreadsheet which shows you lots of tiny little things that add up to a reasonable amount of money. And it include things like flying hours, training hours and so on. And that's what labor are doing at the moment. They're hitting these little things that add up to a weakening of our capability because there is not the top level decision. And the best example of that is if you take the red book and the last budget, it has a table which shows you what Labour will spend on removing the 2 child benefit cap out to 2031. It shows every year what the spending is. We don't know what the Fed's budget will be in 2030 or in 2031. And I think that's an extraordinary indictment.
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Venetia Rainey
Some specifics about money. The Ajax program, it's cost billions, it's been about a $6 billion contract, it's delivered us I delays and injured soldiers. Is it, is it time to get rid of it?
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James Cartlidge
So our line is that they do need to. Basically the government's obviously doing all this independent reviews etc, which we're not privy to. And we've said, well, you were Minister.
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Venetia Rainey
Of Defense Procurement in the past when Ajax was going on. Correct.
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James Cartlidge
And I'm happy to go into that as well. But what, in terms of where, in terms of where it is right now, and there are things I can't say, but in terms of where it is right now, they're conducting all these reviews and we said you've got to fix or fail it depending on what those reviews come out with, obviously. But you know, I always make this point when I'm talking to people about procurement that the day I got the job, if you remember, Dominic Raab had resigned as Lord Chancellor. Alex Chalk was Defence Procurement Minister. He replaced Dom Rabe and I replaced Alex Chalk. We were voting in the Commons. As I was walking around the division, all my colleagues were congratulating me. And about one in three who came up to me would say, oh, but you've got Ajax. You know, it's like that was the defining thing.
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Venetia Rainey
And like, it was a poison chalice.
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James Cartlidge
Like a poison. Of course, like a poison chalice. And it had been, if you remember, you know, under Ben Wallace stopped paying for months. He took that decision because it wasn't at all satisfactory.
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Venetia Rainey
Well, exactly. So, I mean, the policy has been, you know, fix it or finish it for years, including under the Tory government. And nothing else. I mean.
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James Cartlidge
Well, hold on.
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Venetia Rainey
So when I was your. And, you know, we thought you had.
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James Cartlidge
Fixed it, I thought they'd fixed it. I mean, don't forget in June. So two months after I got the job, I made a statement to Parliament about the results of the Sheldon review. Sheldon, who was this very senior lawyer, had been called in to look at the program and particularly the lessons that could be learned. So I stood up in front of Parliament and I said, this program has turned a corner. This program is now improving because for the first time, it was with what's called. It was doing what's called regular field training. That is, it's with the Household Cavalry and the army, and it's doing normal training instead of just these relentless sort of tests, what are called reliability growth trials. It was doing that for months before then. You know, testing is this thing. Okay. It was then cleared, and it was with. It was then back on regular training. So with the army, as you would expect, and obviously the plan is then that was going to be increased, the tempo that would be increased. Obviously, when I said that, I did it on the fact that I'd been told it was fine.
- [24:31]
Venetia Rainey
You have sympathy for Luke Pollard?
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James Cartlidge
Well, if you read what I said in the House of Commons, which is set under privilege, you can make your own mind up, because it's pretty explicit what I said. Madam speaker, the Minister and I may have our political differences, but on this, can I suggest we have something in common? We have both been misled about the viability of the Ajax program. After all, it's not just the recurrence of extremely worrying noise and vibration problems. But over the weekend, we have seen reports of serious allegations from anonymous General Dynamics employees suggesting systemic flaws with the Ajax platform. This includes a disgraceful incident where a General Dynamics employee publicly belittled the injured soldiers. This is utterly unacceptable.
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Venetia Rainey
Correct.
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James Cartlidge
Now, given all of this, and contrary to assurances given to successive ministers and accepted in good faith, and including by myself, surely the only possible conclusion is that the Ajax vehicle is fundamentally flawed.
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Roland Oliphant
When you became Minister for defence procurement in 2023, other than Ajax, were you shocked by the state of our armed forces military kit cupboard?
- [25:37]
James Cartlidge
We have, as you'd imagine, there's a massive range. We have some of the most extraordinary, what they call exquisite capabilities in the whole world. You know, I've been on a nucleus, all our nucleus. I've been on both an Astute and a ballistic nuclear submarine. They are the most extraordinary machines made anywhere in the world. And the UK does some pretty extraordinary manufacturing within that, which people underestimate, and not just for ourselves. You know, we have. We still. And by the way, we have the best people. And I don't say that, you know, wantonly, I think best trained, amazing attitude, you know, if you look at the full scale of our capabilities. But a lot of it is at the top end and it's expensive and it's great. The P8 is a fantastic.
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Roland Oliphant
Yeah, you've spoken about exquisite procurement or.
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James Cartlidge
Exquisite manufacturing, but which takes a long. To me, that's the old model, right? The old model is you set a very long timeline for something which is expensive and which takes years, and at the end of it, you get this thing, which is normally overdue, et cetera, over budget. In February 24th, alongside my drone strategy, I announced a new procurement model called the integrated procurement model, the heart of which was this idea that when you procure, you go for 50 or 60% of this perfect model. And most of the development happens in service. What's called spiral development, like how they.
- [26:51]
Roland Oliphant
Do in Ukraine iterating. I think that's what we need to be doing.
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James Cartlidge
Exactly. Now, there's a very good question. How can you do that if you're not actually at war? Well, actually, so one of the reasons for this sovereign defense fund, which I announced in December, is really to implement precisely this. So if you think I said we'd be moving R and D into the MOD to procure drones, if you buy a drone today, it will be sort of out of use pretty quickly. One of the reasons the treasury don't want to buy drones is because they think, well, what's called obsolescence, they'll be out of date. But on that basis, you would never buy dummy bullets for the army to train with. Right. Because obviously they're obsolete. The point is they have to train, they have to learn how to use these things. And so, for me, the purpose of the first part of our plan is a UK kindred. It is a UK version of what we've done for Ukraine, which is ring fencing, money to spend on sovereign capability on uncrewed systems for the army in particular, but also the Navy and Air Force to train with to then test with, so that they are constantly adapting and learning the new ways of fighting. And at the same time the firm is in response to that, constantly updating the capability. That's the new way of procurement that we need to move into. And I think the problem will be it takes a bit of risk financially because it's a different way of buying something right? And I think that's the system isn't necessarily ready for that. But we've been doing it, we've been doing it for Ukraine. Why can't we do it for the uk? That's my view.
- [28:11]
Venetia Rainey
We're going to take a short pause now, but stay tuned. Coming up, we're going to talk about whether the British right is going soft on Ukraine and NATO and also about how Britain should respond to the big global challenges of today. Is NATO falling apart? And what do you do about China?
- [28:38]
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- [30:56]
Venetia Rainey
Welcome back. You're listening to Battle Lines. With me, Roland Oliphant and Venetia Rainey. With us in the studio today is James Cartlidge, the MP for South Suffolk and also the Shadow Defense Secretary. You talk there about nuclear submarines.
- [31:12]
James Cartlidge
Yep.
- [31:13]
Venetia Rainey
And how impressive they are. Obviously, our nuclear deterrent has to be serviced in the United States. And I'm using this as a kind of. You can see how I'm segueing to. When you're in government, I suppose the. The NATO alliance seemed a little bit more solid than it is today. What can.
- [31:31]
James Cartlidge
I'm not sure I agree with that now.
- [31:32]
Venetia Rainey
You don't. You don't. You don't agree that after threatening to annex Greenland and explicitly saying that, you know, European defence isn't the priority, that it was, that we're not more exposed.
- [31:42]
Roland Oliphant
Or that slandering the contribution of British troops in Afghanistan.
- [31:45]
James Cartlidge
So both of those things are totally unacceptable. And I said so, particularly the point about Afghanistan. I said it when Vance said about this random country comment. You know, my brother served in Afghanistan. Lots of my parliamentary colleagues did, lots of my constituents did. I have constituents who. Who died in Afghanistan and, you know, we have their memorials in my constituency. It's incredibly hurtful what he said. Nevertheless, you know, in a scenario where things really kicked off and we were back to an old existential threat, I think NATO would be strong because it would have to be. It'd be in everyone's interest, as it was after 9, 11, you know, when we all helped the US following the attack on the Twin Towers, because it was in our common interest to do so. But you're right, the Greenland thing is an unacceptable political posture, which is the idea you'd impose tariffs on your allies, even for criticizing. I mean, this is all extraordinary and something I strongly oppose and which can be criticized very strongly as well. I think every politician in the UK feels that. The question is, I go back to my experience in the mod, there is still, at a military level, very strong links with the US day to day. And I Don't see that changing. It will. It will evolve because the priorities are evolving all the time. And that's the reality of where the world is. It's changing fast and it has done. The technological change is extraordinary and European countries do need to do more. So I think it's perfectly legitimate to say that the UK needs to find a way, for example, of making more of. Jeff, the Joint Expeditionary Force with Scandinavian and Baltic nations, which I think is a really effective.
- [33:20]
Venetia Rainey
Yeah, no one's disputing that. Everyone agrees that Europe needs to do more and so on. I'm not going to find any difference between you or John Healey or anyone else on that. That's why when we talk about Backstop for Ukraine, it all comes down to what the US Involvement will be. The German newspaper Devel recently ran a war game with the German War College about a hypothetical Russian incursion into Lithuania. And they found in that scenario, with sufficient kind of Russian excuses about, oh, it's a humanitarian organization operation, so on, that was enough to keep the Americans prevaricating, which allowed the Russians to win. The question is really about credibility, right? It's about. Yes, it's about our, our adversaries understanding that our major ally is. Is in this 100%. And doesn't it look like to you that that message isn't there at the moment? Aren't you worried about the, the credibility, the impression that our adversaries get?
- [34:23]
James Cartlidge
Well, I mean, obviously these are hypothetical. I mean, there are many war games you could play. And, you know, at the moment, lots of them would look on paper like they don't turn out particularly well. But I think against that, you have to measure the fact that, you know, we do still, on a practical level, do a huge amount with the US in terms of the political commitment. Actually, if you look at Rubio, he was very clear last year when we had this NATO conference that absolutely committed to NATO. In Article 5, the President, I mean, President Trump, there's no point denying this. He changes from day to day. I mean, he said a few weeks ago the Diego Garcia Chagos deal was absolutely. I mean, his word, I think, was stupid. Apparently. Apparently overnight, saying he may now approve it. I mean, who knows? He does, let's be honest, he does change his position from time to time and with his tweets and so on. But in terms of the US Fundamentally, we share the same interest, but we do have to recognize the world is evolving, and I think that's fair.
- [35:21]
Roland Oliphant
But is there a mismatch there? I'm Always struck. When I speak to soldiers or people in the mod, they say the alliance with America is still very strong. There's still tons of cooperation. We can't see that changing anytime soon. But when you speak to politicians and you think about the political and the optics, and I think, as Roland quite rightly points out, the optics to our adversaries, that alliance doesn't look strong. So is there a mismatch there? And does it maybe not matter what the politics. Are you saying it doesn't matter what the politics look like? Because the fundamentals of the alliance.
- [35:48]
James Cartlidge
Let's go to the example. Things have actually happened in real time. So, you know, the Houthis were an absolute menace. They threatened one of our Royal Navy ships, they were threatening international shipping when it came to it. And, you know, there needed to be action taken against their assets, where they were manufacturing their drones, launching their missiles and drones. We joined the U.S. typhoons flew with the U.S. and we, you know, launch kinetic strikes.
- [36:13]
Roland Oliphant
Mary wasn't convinced about doing that. That's what came out of those leaked Signal chats. J.D. vance didn't think we should do it, and J.D. vance might be the next American president.
- [36:21]
James Cartlidge
Well, I presume there was a debate about doing. Which there should be on. When you use military action, there should always be a discussion about the pluses and minuses. I think that's absolutely fine. But they did do it and they degraded from the reports we are aware of and we're now in opposition. But from what we were briefed by the omd, significant degradation of their assets and, in fact, much less activity against international shipping, since, it has to be said.
- [36:45]
Venetia Rainey
The other big thing that we're all talking about today, and as you were saying yourself before we came on air, worrying about your weekends in case Donald Trump does a thing, Iran, we still, I mean, I think, and we had an episode, just our previous episode was about this, that, you know, clearly we're not out of the woods yet. There is still a serious chance of American intervention there. I'm wondering what your view is on that. Do you think military strikes on Iran are a good idea and should the UK get involved?
- [37:15]
James Cartlidge
If so, obviously, if, you know, when the US and the Israelis acted together on the nuclear sites recently, we were explicit in supporting that. You'll remember, the government prevaricated and wouldn't answer straight questions on it. I did the media round, as you say, and I was very clear that we supported that it was the right thing to do on future military action. Obviously, it depends what form that takes. Now, in principle, US is our closest ally. We see Iran as a very direct threat, a very serious threat to the region, to ourselves, to our allies, particularly their nuclear program. So, you know, I think you can't comment and commit if you don't know what's happened and nothing has actually happened yet. But if you ask me, in principle, do we stand alongside the US against this threat? Of course we do.
- [38:04]
Venetia Rainey
I suppose the question is, does a Venezuela Star decapitation strike against the Islamic Republic? Is that wise? Or in your view, is that perhaps going to unleash more chaos and be more dangerous for the world than not?
- [38:16]
James Cartlidge
And.
- [38:18]
Venetia Rainey
That'S a pretty meaty question.
- [38:20]
James Cartlidge
Well, there are consequences to doing nothing as well, aren't there? And this is the problem. This is why I said there has to be a lot of debate around the course of action. You take no question. I mean, clearly there's a massive buildup type of assets, and that is leverage in negotiations. President Trump's been very clear about that, which is to try and get further concessions, which we strongly support on the nuclear program. We also want to see more sanctions. We agree with Labour about prescribing the IRGC and we would support legislation on that. But in terms of military action, you're right, of course, there's always risk with military action, but equally, without military action, look at the repression that's happening, the thousands of people who've been murdered by the regime, those who've been tortured, falsely imprisoned and so on and so on. You know, so my heart goes out to those people. I mean, that's, for me, the main thing. I just think, imagine living in Iran. You're desperate for freedom, you protest and, you know, you or your loved ones have been butchered as a result.
- [39:12]
Venetia Rainey
It is horrific. And we've had some, some really chilling accounts from people about what's happened, because.
- [39:20]
James Cartlidge
There'S a lack of information coming out.
- [39:22]
Venetia Rainey
I mean, we found that the, like, the Internet blackout has slowly begun to lift and we've begun to get messages and the. I mean, the reports we have are as horrific as you would expect. Could we ask about China? Yes, this, this, this country. And I think a lot, to be fair, I think this, this is a theme throughout this conversation, that I think a lot of this issue, for people outside politics, this looks like a bipartisan issue. This country seems to have a schizophrenic attitude to China. Is it David Cameron and George Osborne's golden age, or are we kicking Huawei out? Or is it engagement with James Cleverly as Foreign Secretary? Is it the current or, you know, should Keir Starmer have gone to talk to Xi Jinping? It's really confusing.
- [40:15]
James Cartlidge
I actually think it's a bit more straightforward than that.
- [40:16]
Venetia Rainey
Are you sure? Because we struggle to decide whether, is this a challenge? Is this a threat? How should we be engaging with this?
- [40:24]
James Cartlidge
I said earlier on spending, the world has changed. I mean, it's clearly we are not in the same level of threat as when David Cameron was looking to have greater trade relationship with China. There's a complete change since then, which is we've had a land invasion in Europe, the first time by a major power since the Second World War, which has involved over a million casualties and which is still going on with bombing of civilians, which is a frightening prospect, just like we had in the Blitz, et cetera. And, you know, within that, China is aiding Russia and supplying weapons to them, as I said earlier, certainly supplying the capability to manufacture weapons. Iran is supporting them. North Korea, you've got that axis of dictatorships. So I think it's much more a case of a clear and present danger now in a way that's very explicit now, as Kemi has said, we still, yes, you have to have a relationship with China. You have to engage with them, but not be supine and have a strategy, have a robust strategy, be robust. So I'll give you one, if I may just give you one example. We were talking about the Sovereign Defense Fund. One of the priorities for that, which we set out when I launched it, was that if we want to increase output in defense, which we all agree on, we want to have the ability to produce enough drones or munitions that if the military threat turns serious into a shooting match, we can support that, we can increase our output. But how do we do that without relying on China or those cheap raw materials that we have done in the past? And so one of the reasons for the fund is to enable our industrial base to invest with the government into things like retooling their factories and so on. That's what we would do if we were in government. Now, I think it's an absolute priority, looking at critical minerals, et cetera. So you can engage with China, but don't be dependent on them. Recognize the seriousness of the threat. And obviously, on the other point, do not allow them to have a massive embassy in the heart of London next to our key cables for the financial center with these dark rooms in the basement that we don't know what are going to be for. So be strong, be aware of the threat and not be supine like Starmer.
- [42:23]
Roland Oliphant
China is the world's second largest economy. We were always going to be the junior partner in that relationship. Most countries in the world are. That's just realism. Right. And our economy is also a national security issue. You can't do any of this stuff with defence if we don't have a good economy. So a relationship with China, a working relationship with China is essential. So isn't Starmer right to have gone to Beijing? You accused him of kowtowing. Isn't that just a bit party political? Isn't that just what you have to do when you're in politics?
- [42:48]
James Cartlidge
There's a massive difference if you go.
- [42:49]
Roland Oliphant
And try and make this deal between.
- [42:50]
James Cartlidge
Engaging with a country and before you go, giving planning permission for a super embassy in the heart of your capital in order to gain access and gain some pretty small beer in return, you know. Yes. The Scotch whiskey industry. Wonderful silo tariffs, that's brilliant for them. And I want to see a strong Scotch whiskey industry. I want to see a strong UK economy. But that is what we mean by supine and kowtowing. You don't have to do that to have a relationship with the country. And you know what he's done there in my view is he's shown real weakness and they're aware of that. The Chinese are not stupid. You have to show strength to them even if they are the stronger partner. You can show strength with your allies lead on this issue and I think there is much more we could do. But for me it's about the dependencies. That's what we should worry about, particularly from a defense point of view.
- [43:37]
Venetia Rainey
Embassy was sold under a Conservative government. I've spoken.
- [43:43]
James Cartlidge
I mean, when you say sold, you mean the land?
- [43:45]
Venetia Rainey
Yes.
- [43:46]
James Cartlidge
So the planning application went in. I as I under recall when Boris Johnson was Prime Minister. But China is entitled to have an embassy. All countries are tied.
- [43:54]
Venetia Rainey
It's an embassy on the Royal Mint.
- [43:55]
James Cartlidge
Right.
- [43:57]
Venetia Rainey
That place.
- [43:57]
James Cartlidge
But it's about the scale of it and what we've since with this threat.
- [44:02]
Venetia Rainey
Of these and the symbolism of it. And the symbolism of it of it being the former RAW mint and all of that.
- [44:07]
James Cartlidge
Yeah.
- [44:09]
Venetia Rainey
A diplomat, an important diplomat from an important country told one of my colleagues the other day, look like that was the mistake. Once you sold that land, they were going to build that and there was no way of wriggling out of it and you probably had like the least worst option was probably for you from, from, from this experience to perhaps point of view to let them build it. You're just going to have, to mitigate the security risks. This has been coming for a long.
- [44:36]
James Cartlidge
Time, but a lot more's happened since then. We've had the spying issue in Westminster. Right. And many other things besides. And obviously there'll be things we don't know about that happen all the time because they're so active. I think that, I think there is a. I do think it shows there is a difference between recognizing the threat that they are as your, the primary, the primacy of your policy, if you like, and at the same time recognizing, yes, of course, you have to have an economic relationship, given the size of the country, we do trade with them, et cetera. But eyes wide open, reducing those dependencies. And I think that, you know, I'm not sure there is a strategy in government, for example, to properly reduce our dependencies in these areas. There have been lots of green papers and white papers. There was the Strategic Defense Review talked about it, even talked about food security in the strategic defense issue that I can't remember which page it is. And what's happening is they're taxing our farmers who are not going to have small family farms anymore. So I think that we do need to stress resilience much more as a country, and part of that is not being dependent on China for so much of our industrial supply chain.
- [45:36]
Roland Oliphant
You mentioned critical minerals. China is involved in processing over 90% of the world's rare earths and critical minerals, even though they only produce about 60% of it. How can we realistically counter that supply chain dependency? What's the conservative plan for that?
- [45:49]
James Cartlidge
Well, I mean, clearly we're not. I don't think you could realistically say everything would be done in the UK as a starting point. So you'd look at other allies that, that are more dependable, supply chains that are more dependable. And so there'll be a mix of options. There are things we can do. There are some critical communities we obviously have more direct access to. We have close allies like Australia who have strong access, et cetera. But all of this, I mean, they're.
- [46:12]
Roland Oliphant
Close politically, but they're pretty far away. And if that supply chain got disrupted.
- [46:16]
James Cartlidge
So you've got something like you've got to map the supply chain, work out your dependencies and then look at what the options would be. And in many cases there'll be an option that is not perfect. Pardon me, but it's better than relying on China. But where's the funding for that? You see, I think, if you think of it like this, that when we are saying so if you take the 11 billion we think in the National Wealth Fund should be spent on the industrial resilience of Britain, particularly for war preparedness, instead of net zero. First of all, I think investing into cables, pipes, there'll be plenty of private investment for that. Now, I'm not sure you need a state intervention. I think you do need a state intervention to correct the market failure happening, which is that, understandably, we're all driven by price, especially the cost of living. So therefore there's this strong embedded Chinese supply chain because it's very cheap and competitive. Right. In a pure sense of the terms, it may be that the price you pay ultimately is bigger. But I think to fix that you'll need a government intervention, which is what we've been very clear on, and another part of it, and I do think this is important. I'll be going down to Plymouth to look at a defense SME over the next couple of days. And the thing about those defense companies, going back to what we're talking about on procurement, the thing they'll say to you is they're going to have to sell to America. They're going to have to maybe wind themselves up. So a big part of this defense fund is for the UK to be able to be much more robust about the government lending to SMEs and taking stakes in them, enabling them to be strong, to rapidly develop capability. Because at the moment they're all twiddling their thumbs wondering what's going to happen and that's not good enough with the.
- [47:46]
Venetia Rainey
Threat we face on a slightly more domestic politics question. But I think it's important, really. Really, you seem, you're quite robust on NATO. Yeah, it sounds of things. You believe that Russia is a major threat.
- [47:58]
James Cartlidge
Yes.
- [47:59]
Venetia Rainey
Believe we should continue to support Ukraine.
- [48:02]
James Cartlidge
Of course.
- [48:02]
Venetia Rainey
Yeah. You're all, you're all across that. So I'm just. Since you sit on the right of politics in general, and, and we all know about the kind of, you know, the struggle between the Tory party and Reform over that. I'm really interested in whether you think that the British right, which has, I think so far been quite resilient to these, this kind of Russian messaging about, you know, who cares about, about Ukraine or whatever, we should look to ourselves and so on.
- [48:34]
James Cartlidge
Right.
- [48:34]
Venetia Rainey
We have seen that in, I know, in, in certain other populist, you know, right wing parties in America and so on. That message hasn't, that hasn't really gained traction, I think. But, you know, reform is a party led by a man who said he deeply admires Vladimir Putin. Are you concerned about, I suppose, reform's attitude to Russia and national security, and I suppose by extension about the mood or the climate or the attitudes more generally among your colleagues on the British right, Do you think that that robust Atlanticist, pro Ukraine, pro NATO attitude still holds firm?
- [49:20]
James Cartlidge
I think the overwhelming view of the British public and people on the right of center and in the left is to support Ukraine. And there's a reason for that. They see very simply that you've got the bad guy, the dictator, the oppressor, the butcher who is murdering all these people, kidnapping children, versus a sovereign democracy that was invaded without provocation. However, you are absolutely right to mention Nigel Farage and Reform because he said that the war was provoked by NATO. He said it and he repeated it relatively recently. He said it last June. He said it in the general election. I think that is totally unacceptable and unforgivable. And, you know, it beggars belief for me that there are people who think somehow he is a true conservative. A true conservative is Margaret Thatcher, who stood up to Galtieri when he invaded the Falkland Islands. A true conservative, Winston Churchill, who stood up to Adolf Hitler. A true conservative is Ronald Reagan, who stood up with Mrs. Thatcher against the Soviet Union and the threat it posed to ourselves and the whole Western order. And we triumphed. And we triumphed because, like true conservatives and with the support of a lot of people in the center as well, we stood firm at a time when there was real fear that we would one day have the reality of what the Cuban missile crisis threatened, that is something nuclear happening. And we stood firm. We've got to do that again. And it does worry me that Nigel Farad says those things. I mean, my experience personally is that reform voters at large, I think from my experience probably do get the. Are a bit unnerved about what he might have said. He probably would be supportive on this issue. I think. I think most people are. But there are. There's, if you like, a sort of, of a core hardcore, you might call them, of some of the reform, the MAGA movement, et cetera, who do have a very different view on Russia for some reason or another. And I can't entirely explain that. Some of it may even be the result of the many, many years of bots and others putting stuff into the social media sphere that has been shared. I mean, certainly I have had, and these are a tiny fraction of people, just to be clear, I think overwhelming majority of people strongly support what we did on Ukraine, recognize how it's a threat to us that we have held at bay, as it were, by supporting Ukraine as well as being morally right. But there are these very small number of people with these quite distinct views. A common one, I find, for example, is people who are anti vax and pro Russia. I don't know why. I think maybe over the course of the pandemic, got stuck into some conspiracy theories, etc. Certainly I've done interviews before where I get these emails, by and large agreeing, but a small number which is, you know, oh, they'll talk about Ukraine being a Nazi state and they will talk about. They often do mention the vaccine, et cetera. I don't know where those views came from, but I think they're a tiny number. But they have penetrated into sort of, it would appear, into some reform members and into maga, as far as I can see. But I'm not concerned about that because I think the wider British public are overwhelmingly supportive. I think there is. There'll be people who worry about the money we spend, you know, and we have to explain to them that that money is helping to keep this country safe. Right. And so I think there is a job to do that we have to keep reminding people that Russia is still bombing innocent civilians in Ukraine and deliberately trying to bomb their energy because it's minus 20. I mean, what a nice guy. You know, this man is a threat to us and to the Western world, and I think we have to stand united against that.
- [52:44]
Roland Oliphant
What do you make of the wisdom of Ukraine having peace talks with Russia right now, as you say, as they're bombing cities in minus 20 degrees Celsius conditions?
- [52:53]
James Cartlidge
My message hasn't changed. We all desperately want peace. You know, it's horrific what is happening.
- [52:59]
Roland Oliphant
But equally, can there be peace with.
- [53:01]
James Cartlidge
Putin and does he want it? I think the biggest question is whether Putin really wants it, because what would be terrible for us, the UK and our Western allies is to have a peace that was seen to be a victory for Putin in send a terrible, terrible signal and he'd be back for more. We all know that. We know what his plan is. His plan is he wants to restore the sort of greater glory of the Soviet Union. There are certain countries that he's probably got his eye on, you know, and he's actually been quite explicit about that. If you look back over what he said over his political career, you know, and I worry that he doesn't really want peace. And that is a big concern. However, his Achilles is the economy, clearly. I think. I think maybe Tellorov had This figure yesterday, 50% of the GDP of Russia is now going on the war. That's an extraordinary figure.
- [53:48]
Roland Oliphant
German intelligence services. Yeah.
- [53:50]
James Cartlidge
That will be massively impacting the standard of living.
- [53:52]
Venetia Rainey
Oh, is that GDP or state budget?
- [53:53]
Roland Oliphant
State budget.
- [53:54]
James Cartlidge
State budget.
- [53:54]
Venetia Rainey
Sorry.
- [53:54]
James Cartlidge
Absolutely.
- [53:55]
Venetia Rainey
Right.
- [53:56]
James Cartlidge
Yeah, sure. After. But nevertheless, I mean, it's still an extraordinary point that. Imagine what impact that will have on all the other public services, et cetera. So, you know, the economic pressure is that. But that's why our other point, of course, they're having to rely more and more on China. This is not just one adversary, as has always been the case through history. We have to stand strong with our allies because our adversaries stand strong with each other.
- [54:18]
Venetia Rainey
I'm throwing this question as you as a politician, not as a Tory politician, but just as a politician. From my privileged position as a representative of the ordinary punter in the streets, you've spent a lot of time here saying how labor are doing things wrong.
- [54:38]
James Cartlidge
And.
- [54:38]
Venetia Rainey
And we were fixing it and they came along and they got stuff wrong. From my perspective, and I think from a lot of ordinary people, this isn't a party political issue like you have both, over the course of the past several decades, really messed up defense and run it down. And it kind of. I find it really frustrating when it's either that, you know, we could have John Healey here saying, like, well, the Tories did this and we inherited this mess. And I have you here saying, oh, well, you know, we were fixing it and labor came on. As far as I'm concerned, that's just not true. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. There's a difference. Wait, wait, no, wait. Because isn't. Isn't there a point here? This is a. Defense is a really. We're in a really grave moment in history.
- [55:27]
James Cartlidge
Yeah.
- [55:27]
Venetia Rainey
We're in a really serious situation where kind of the political point scoring on the House of the. On the. On the floor of the House of Commons or getting the right sound bar on a Today program really has to take a back seat. And wouldn't it be better for both sides to show a degree of maturity maybe by kind of holding hands up and going, you know what? Yeah. When the coalition came into government in 2010, the British army had 113,000. Now it's 75,000. That was on us. And then in a way, kind of send the message that this is a moment of, I suppose, almost a moment of national emergency, a moment of a time for national unity on this. And as I say, I put the same point to one of your Labour opposite numbers, if they're sitting opposite me. I'm just wondering what you make of those.
- [56:23]
James Cartlidge
Well, first of all, in terms of the record, if you look at. So Ben Wallace has this famous quote when he talks about hollowing out. He said successive governments since the end of the Cold War have hollowed out defence. It's very difficult to have a non partisan discussion because Keir Starmer in the last three primary questions has quoted that as referring to Tory cuts. That is not true. He referred to successive government and that's the whole point.
- [56:48]
Venetia Rainey
Well, Ben Wallace said in front of I think the Communist Defence Committee, he said Labour and Conservative government.
- [56:54]
James Cartlidge
Whereas John Healey, Luke Pollard, Keir Starmer will always take that quote and say Ben Wallace said the Conservatives hollowed out defense. And that is the problem. It's very difficult to engage in the way you're saying. When people do that I accept.
- [57:08]
Roland Oliphant
Isn't that more finger pointing?
- [57:10]
James Cartlidge
Hold on. I'm not just going to sit there and take it. Forgive me. I'm not going to sit there and take it. That's why I got told off by the speaker twice at PMQSE name Meek because I was so angry about what Keir Starmer had said. In my view, justifiably. The point is I have said Ben Wallace was saying, I've accepted spending fell under all governments. I said that earlier in the program since the Cold War it's called the peace dividend and we can look back on that. I mean certainly you take the coalition and one party does have a bit of blame here, in particular the Lib Dems as a condition, that coalition was to delay our nuclear submarine program. And look at the impact that's had tours of 200 days now for our ballistic submarine defense which is extraordinary and which to me should be the biggest issue issue. It's absolutely terrible for those naval personnel. But the thing is we've supported the government on Ukraine. They supported us. And in terms of record, just remember and people say, oh look, Europe's doing more. When Ukraine was invaded by Russia in the outright invasion, the one in 2022, only one country stood by them basically and that was us. Right. Ben Wallace and Boris Johnson had to show massive leadership because the Foreign Office didn't even want them to do this. They gave them anti tank weapons a few weeks before the invasion. Those weapons were critical in stopping the column on the way to Kyiv. And if it got there and Ukraine saw him in use myself and Ukraine had fallen. If Ukraine. But you didn't take the decision to supply Them.
- [58:32]
Venetia Rainey
No, I didn't.
- [58:33]
James Cartlidge
If Ukraine had fallen, we would have been on a 1939 scenario with a Russian army right up against NATO in a terrible scenario. Right. And no other government would have done that, in my view, would have had the guts to stand up to the Foreign Office and ignore the advice. No other country in Europe did it. And that had a real outcome. You can do our spending, but what matters is what you do. And in that moment of crisis, as you say, and that was real crisis, we showed extraordinary leadership. Now we had to give up our artillery, our Storm Shadow missiles, and we have now got a depleted military inventory. I accept that. So I totally agree. National security should be above party politics. But if you have a government which makes a very explicit choice to fund welfare when we all know they should be funding defense, my job as shadow secretary of State in our Constitution is to hold them to account for that. And the country knows they've made a mistake and they want to see us hold them to account for it.
- [59:22]
Venetia Rainey
When we have guests in, we're talking, you know, we ask them about their favorite film about. About their job and what they do.
- [59:28]
James Cartlidge
Yeah.
- [59:28]
Venetia Rainey
You know, so is there. Is there a movie about, I suppose, about politics, about. About being an MP that you watch and you go, you know, what could be war?
- [59:39]
James Cartlidge
There are far more war films than there are films about being an MP World.
- [59:41]
Roland Oliphant
That's your favorite war film.
- [59:43]
James Cartlidge
I mean, there are several that I, you know, admire, and they do because Telegraph keeps publishing a list. It's always different. It's like a list once a week. Best War Films by Simon Heffer did one as well. I recall in your paper, I. A film I love a lot which is partly humorous is Kelly's Heroes. Because it's not just about defense. It's about free enterprise. But the problem is you can't explain that without giving away the ending. And so people have to watch it to understand why, what that means. No spoilers here, but. And just. It's humorous. But it's still a very good war film. And there's this brilliant scene where, of course, you know, I don't think it really gives it away a lot. People learn pretty quickly. They obviously go behind enemy lines to raid a bank for their purely selfish, you know, free enterprise goal rather than for the war effort. And the American advance is stalled. And, you know, Kelly and his band have taken a Sherman and are going to hit this bank and they're stuck at some bridge where they're under fire by the Germans. And the general who's Frustrated about the lack of advance by the Americans, is listening in on the radio to this exchange of chat. And he's. And you know, he's told by this, this officer, they're using code words like bank heist and stuff. And Kelly comes on, he says, we can't move, we can't move. And the general's going, no, go, go, go. And says, we're going to keep going. We've even got the grave diggers unit. He says, they've got the gravediggers unit.
- [61:09]
Roland Oliphant
It.
- [61:09]
James Cartlidge
Get me there. And so he demands to be taken to the front and to start attacking again. It's just, it's very funny, but on sort of more serious ones, if you like. I mean, it's, it's. It's semi serious, I'd say. A lot of people talk about Saving Private Ryan. I, I actually really like Cold War stuff, you know, the tension and Six Days is a really good film. It's not very famous, but it's a. I think it's a Netflix film. It's about the 1980 Iranian embassy siege, about the SAS. Because I remember all the stuff in the Cold War was when I was a child, you know, and I remember my dad telling me about the fear of they had in the Cuban Missile crisis and we. And we were taken as boy scouts to the local fire station and they pressed a button on the wall and it was the four minute warning. Do you remember the four minute warning?
- [62:02]
Venetia Rainey
I don't know.
- [62:03]
James Cartlidge
Four minute warning was. It's four minutes and then it's the apocalypse sort of thing. You know, it's the fire brain had to go up. This was in Barnett. They had to go up to the Hill in Barnett and put an air tyran on which was of no use to anyone. Be totally obliterated in a nuclear war.
- [62:16]
Roland Oliphant
Minutes to panic.
- [62:17]
James Cartlidge
Yeah, quiet. But so, so Cold War films as well. I'm, you know, there's. And I love John le Carre, obviously they tend to be, I think, series rather than films technically, you would argue.
- [62:27]
Roland Oliphant
James Cartlidge, thank you very much for joining us on battle.
- [62:29]
James Cartlidge
You're welcome.
- [62:30]
Roland Oliphant
That was a really interesting chat. He was really strident on defending Tori's record, which I suppose you'd expect. And I feel like he didn't quite bite on the sort of crossbench cooperation thing, although clearly the will is there, but he doesn't feel like Labour or sort of fitting partner for that sort of thing. But then you sort of ends up being catch 22.
- [62:50]
Venetia Rainey
It kind of comes back to the Kind of, oh, he said, she said, like this kind of, this kind of throwing it back at them. But I mean, you know, he seemed receptive to the idea. I don't think he's alone in that. I think, I do think that you can find lots of people when you talk to them who recognize that the public feel like that. I, as an ordinary British voter, you know, I do find it immensely frustrating when we're talking about, okay, well, you know, NATO could be at war in X years and are we on the brink of World War 3 and is NATO collapsing? And the conversation always seems to come back to the next headline and a way of blaming on the other side. I wouldn't accept that behavior from my children, to be honest. I spent ages trying to drum that kind of behavior out of my children, tell them that's not okay. And you know, I know there's a. He's right. There is a role for an adversarial, an adversarial system because it's about holding the other side to account. And that's democracy and that's parliamentary democracy. I think on the party political thing, it's a really interesting kind of dichotomy because you could see there in everything he said, there really is a consensus, there really is a cross party consensus, there's a national consensus. And he talked about a national consensus that he believes still holds on the right of politics about Ukraine. And yet despite all of that, both sides find it really difficult to set aside this party political thing. For us on the outside, it's frustrating. I wonder how frustrating it is for them on the inside trying to navigate that schizophrenia.
- [64:30]
Roland Oliphant
The other thing that I found myself unconvinced by is his certainty that the NATO alliance remains fundamentally unshaken. I just can't quite believe that. It just feels like this is a long term trend in terms of America retreating. And I think you mentioned the war games that you've been reading by Duvelt. I've also been reading if Russia Wins by Carlo Messala, German academic, another war Game. And it looks at Russia taking a bite out of Estonia and America again saying, oh, well, the Estonians, you know, neglected the Russian population there. It's not enough for us to invoke Article 5. I think that's realistic.
- [65:03]
Venetia Rainey
No, I think, I think this is, this is a really serious question. But I think kind of public facing politicians have a bit of a problem here. If you speak to kind of of big, the, you know, Britain's big strategic thinkers, there is a view that we don't have a choice. We're completely reliant on the Americans. We're so embedded.
- [65:22]
Roland Oliphant
Yeah.
- [65:22]
Venetia Rainey
In them. You can't turn around and, and, and say, oh, you can't question the alliance. Because we just can't really, in a way. So, you know, I, I'd have expected a similar kind of answer from, from anyone in government, you know, So I think. I think that was a very kind of standard answer. I'm not. I do wonder whether he really believed it, you know, and I do. I do wonder whether anyone with their eyes open really believes that the, the transatlantic alliance is not in a moment of extreme jeopardy. He talked about the British response to the invasion of Ukraine. And I think that's. We have to give him that. I mean, I, I do think. I do think the Boris gov. Boris Johnson, they nailed it. They didn't just nail it. He's not wrong about resistance within the Foreign Office and the mod as well. Right. There was a real fight in government about whether or not. Whether it was wise, whether it was worth it, sending those N Laws over. And the reason I mentioned that I saw them in action was because day two of the war, we were able to report that N laws had been used in action, destroyed Russian tanks outside Kharkiv, as I understand that had an impact, you know, in Downing street, because the people who fought for it were able to say, look, it worked. But I think he's.
- [66:50]
Roland Oliphant
I mean, that's history defining.
- [66:51]
Venetia Rainey
Yeah. No, I mean, I think. I think we have to give him that. I think. I think. I think. I think. I think they did overcome institutional resistance to do that. That's all for today's episode. We'll be back. Or for Nisha, actually, we'll be back on Monday with our start the week episode. Until then, that was Battle Lines.
- [67:09]
Roland Oliphant
Goodbye.
- [67:13]
Venetia Rainey
Battle Lines is an original podcast from the Telegraph, created by David Knowles and hosted by me, Roland Oliphant and Venetia Rainey. If you appreciated this podcast, please consider following Battle Lines on your preferred podcast app. And if you have a moment, leave a review as it helps others to find the show. To stay on top of all our news, subscribe to the Telegraph, sign up to our Dispatches newsletter or listen to our sister podcast, Ukraine the latest. You can also get in touch directly by emailing battlelinestelegraph.co.uk or contact us on X. You can find our handles in the show Notes. The producer is Peter Shevlin and the Executive Producer is Louisa Wells.
- [68:00]
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