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- [00:00]
Frank Gardiner
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- [00:24]
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- [00:54]
Alex
So we've had the long awaited defense investment plan, the diploma, the DIP as it's known in shorthand.
- [01:00]
James
I didn't know it was the DIP until today.
- [01:02]
Alex
It is the DIP much delayed. The DIP setting out how the government's going to fund what it thinks it needs for defence over a long period of time. And Frank Gardiner is going to tell us all about it. But in order to do that, Frank, you had to go to a briefing at the Ministry of Defense to get the download on the detail before we all knew it.
- [01:21]
James
A secret briefing?
- [01:23]
Frank Gardiner
Well, in the sense that we weren't allowed to say that we were going to it, but yeah, so I mean it was sort of, I wouldn't exactly say it's James Bond, but we, you know, you roll up at the Ministry of Defense in Whitehall, you get, you show your id, your name's on the list and alongside about, I don't know, a dozen, maybe 20 journalists altogether, producers. You go down this corridor through various rooms and then it's sort of got little color codings according to what the, the level of security is. So we went through the lowest level of security where you're allowed to still have your phone with you. If you go into one that's higher up, the phone is taken off you and locked away in a box. But we were allowed to go into a room to study the printed document but we could not communicate anything in it until we got the embargo release thing. And the reason being that Parliament had already been shown the document. And we were told until the Defense Secretary gives his oral statement in Parliament and then sits down, then everything can be transmitted. But weirdly they kind of release bits and dribs and drabs and a lot of what was in the defense investment plan they released long before Dan Jarvis took his seat and sat back down again. So there were kind of staggered releases throughout. And all the while, sky and CNN and the Guardian are tapping away frantically. It reminded me a lot of sitting behind people in exams where you think, oh, God, you know, I finished and everyone's still typing. I must have done something wrong.
- [02:54]
James
Well, maybe you just absorbed everything in this document very, very quickly. And that was the point of this, was so you could get your head around it quickly, which is great for us because that's what we're going to talk about with you on this episode of Newscast.
- [03:05]
Frank Gardiner
Wonderful.
- [03:07]
Chris
Newscast.
- [03:08]
Alex
Newscast from the BBC.
- [03:09]
Keir Starmer
I will resign as leader of the Labour Party.
- [03:12]
Alex
And what will you do?
- [03:14]
Chris
Stare at a wall?
- [03:15]
Frank Gardiner
Humanity's next great voyage begins. You know, I like my buses. I'll come on to them.
- [03:19]
James
It's supposed to be me as a doctor.
- [03:21]
Alex
Ooh la la.
- [03:21]
James
Thinking about it like a panto helped.
- [03:24]
Frank Gardiner
Do we play music now or what do we do?
- [03:26]
Alex
Hello, it's Alex in the newscast studio.
- [03:28]
James
And it's James in the newscast studio.
- [03:30]
Chris
And it is at Westminster, but not
- [03:32]
James
for long, Chris, because you're off to Sheffield with Henry for Crossed Wires. Yes, crossed wires.
- [03:38]
Chris
So it's a brilliant.
- [03:39]
James
We have every day. Exactly.
- [03:41]
Chris
This is Crosswires with a capital C and a capital W. It's a brilliant podcast festival in Sheffield where we get to meet all sorts of other podcasters, but more to the point, we get to chat to lots of newscasters, which is a. A great joy. And we'll be recording a newscast in front of a live audience in South Yorkshire on Friday afternoon. And very much looking forward to it.
- [04:02]
Alex
Although the tickets are sold out already for this.
- [04:05]
Keir Starmer
They are.
- [04:05]
Alex
Chris. Yeah. I'm breaking the news to you. The newscast stickers are sold out, but there's a whole heap of other free shows that you can go along to. So if anyone's interested and you want to try and get tickets, you can go things like Top Comment, Fame Under Fire, Gangster. So, yeah, heaps. But not Newscast, because they've been snapped up already, you'll be pleased to hear.
- [04:23]
James
So that's Crossed Wires if you want to go to that. Although, as you say, Alex, you can't go and see Newscast unless you have your tickets already, of course.
- [04:29]
Alex
You in on the BBC Sounds app?
- [04:31]
James
Yes. And that's no doubt what you'll be doing. Frank. Frank Gardiner's with us. Hello.
- [04:34]
Frank Gardiner
Hello. Hello, James.
- [04:35]
James
Now, we're going to talk about the defence investment plan. But before we get into the detail of what was announced, Chris Worth saying that this was Keir Starmer's first speech since he resigned last Monday, or announced his resignation last Monday. And not only that, but talking about the very thing that lots of people would say directly led to his downfall.
- [04:54]
Chris
Well, it was certainly a contributor. Yeah, it was a curiosity really today, in that we've been waiting for this defence investment plan for eons. I found myself yesterday in Manchester at a Andy Burnham event and today in Berkshire at a Keir Starmer event. It felt a bit like a general election campaign. But then it's the guy who's the current Prime Minister and the guy who's likely to be the next Prime Minister giving speeches one day after another. And then as you say, the sort of medium term context is this. This is a Prime Minister who was desperate to get this defence investment plan out, encountered so much internal political turbulence it cost him his Defence Secretary and his Armed Forces Minister just a matter of weeks ago, and who's one of his final acts in office, in all likelihood, assuming there isn't a challenge to Andy Burnham will be to attend the NATO summit in Ankara in Turkey next week. And he was desperate to have this plan out the door before he heads to that summit. So there he was at this drone manufacturer just to the west of London with the new Defence Secretary, Dan Jarvis, and indeed the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, with a slight valedictory air in his tone, setting out, at least in big picture terms before we got the document later in the day, what it was he was trying to land with this defence investment plan and the trade offs involved in delivering it.
- [06:19]
James
And there's a couple of strings to that, aren't there? The, the idea that the UK needs to be more like Ukraine or at least needs to learn lessons from Ukraine in terms of being, I think some people have described it as small and scrappy and investing in emerging tech, not least drones. And secondly, that the defense funding for the UK can't come at the expense of public services, although it has to come at the expense of something. And there's a bit of a tussle there. So let's just have a listen to the Prime Minister talking about that financial balancing act.
- [06:54]
Keir Starmer
You have some people in this debate who underplay the threat and deny the need to prioritise defence and security. You also have those who say you can fund defence without making sacrifices in other areas of capital spending. And you have those arguing that we can just raise borrowing, put it all on them. Never. Never. But let's be clear, Defence bonds are just borrowing by another name. We've looked at this very carefully, but the fact is doing this through borrowing would push interest rates higher at a time when one pound in every ten already goes on paying debt interest. And this government has fought hard to bring the public finances under control and it has paid off, helping to bring inflation and mortgage rates down. We should not sacrifice that now because this is the point that often gets missed. Strong public finances are a fundamental part of our strength in this world. Lose control of them, we're not just poorer, we're much less secure.
- [08:13]
Alex
So that was the Prime Minister who, when you listen to it, you got the sense that he was doing two things. He was making the case, in his view, that the government's found the money in a kind of fiscally responsible way to fund defense as he sees it needs to be done. But then there was also kind of that almost a bit of a nod to his political legacy with the reason we've done this is because the way we've managed stuff, and I mean, there's heaps of politics to this which we'll get into in a second. But Frank, I guess a lot of people are going to listen and think, okay, so he's talking about £15 billion of extra, extra spending as part of this defence investment plan. What's it going to go on and what's it going to mean in real terms?
- [08:50]
Frank Gardiner
Sure. Well, let's look at the kind of bald bear numbers, which is that there's currently supposed to be a 28 billion pound gap in defence spending. That is the gap between what experts say is needed to pay for Britain's defence, to defend us properly and the money that's actually earmarked. And that's why John Healey resigned, because he said he was only being offered 13 and a half, of which 3 billion was what's called treasury trickery. That's what was referred to. And it wasn't nearly enough. Now, Dan Jarvis took that job as, you know, ex parachute Regiment officer. He spent the last three weeks looking at how to basically squeeze more out of it. It's not just how much money you've got, it's what you spend it on. And they have shifted the defense investment plan much more towards autonomous robotic systems. The idea being that, okay, if there isn't that much more money, he managed to get an extra 1 billion odd out of treasury, but he has made it much closer to the kind of ways that wars are being fought currently using autonomous systems, AI and the idea being that all three services, the army, Navy and the Air Force. Navy, of course, includes the commandos. The Royal Marine Commandos will be operating using a mix of crude, that's as in crewed, what used to be called manned, but quite rightly, it's called crude these days because.
- [10:16]
Alex
So people on stuff. Does that mean.
- [10:18]
Frank Gardiner
Exactly. People actually sitting in the control seat alongside fleets of drones, whether they're on the surface, underwater, in the air, flying alongside, or in some cases, ground vehicles, which in Ukraine, for example, are being used to send kind of give replenishments, ammunition, fuel, food, water, to troops who are stuck in some grim foxhole, unable to move, because Russian drones are hunting them. And vice versa, you know, with the Ukrainians hunting Russians, these things are being used to avoid risking humans. So the idea being that, look, there isn't that much money, so they've got to make do with what they've got. And this is trying to make the best with what they've got.
- [11:03]
James
And there's a fundamental shift, particularly for the Royal Navy, in terms of. We've talked about destroyers way back to the 19th century, and the UK has six destroyers at the moment, and there was a plan to replace them with a new class of destroyer. There was the number. Hadn't, I don't think, been confirmed as to how many, although some defense experts thought there might be half a dozen. And they're not going to do that, Frank, they're going to. There's a lot of talk about this hybrid navy. In fact, I heard you on the radio this morning talking about hybridization, which I struggle to say, but you said beautifully this morning. Can you tell newscasters what the hybrid navy is, how that is a change and you know what the thinking is behind it.
- [11:46]
Frank Gardiner
Yeah. So, first of all, the six destroyers that Britain has got are primarily air defense ships, so the name is a bit slightly confusing, really. But what they do is that they're armed with a lot of very powerful missiles like Asters or Vipers, which can shoot down incoming missiles. And they are, in some way Britain's best defense against any ballistic missiles that would be aimed at this country at any one time. We don't have all six operational. There's always at least two, maybe more, that are laid up.
- [12:19]
James
Some points it's been quite poor in that sense, because they've had problems, haven't. Especially in warm waters.
- [12:23]
Frank Gardiner
Correct. Yeah. So these were the type 45 destroyers, which were pretty good, were due to be replaced by something called type 83s. Those are now being scrapped in favor of something called common combat vessels, CCVs, smaller, cheaper. But each one of these will operate a whole fleet of drones. And by drones, I'm not talking about the kind of quadcopter thing you might get in a shop. These are, in some cases they are going to be barges that have got nobody on them, but have got a whole rack of missiles that can be remotely sent out into the North Atlantic. So some people have said, look, it's not entirely right to say, draw all your lessons from Ukraine, because we've got a particular problem in Britain, which is that we are quite close to what's called the Greenland Iceland, UK gap. It's where Russia's SSBNs, its nuclear armed ballistic missile submarines come out of Gaddjevo and the Kola Peninsula near Murmansk. They come around the corner of the North Cape into the Norwegian Sea and then they try to disappear. And these are the submarines that are carrying multiple nuclear warheads. So Britain wants to track them and know where they are. So do the Norwegians, so does the whole of NATO. The Americans, likewise. So we've got this big strategic task that can't be abandoned, but you can, with the use of underwater drones and sensors, you can basically punch up what you have got. It's not ideal. There's. Look, there's no question about it. Britain would be that much better defended if the government ponied up, you know, the full 28 billion. But it's not going to do that. And who knows what the next government will do, but they are making the most of what they've got.
- [14:08]
Alex
It's interesting on that point, Chris. So Frank mentioned, obviously John Healey resigned over this, as we know, really well documented. And the treasury has apparently found a little bit more now for this new defense investment plan, but still short of what many people think think is needed. But when you're picking over the numbers, and it was interesting, I thought, to hear Keir Starmer make quite a lot when he was giving the speech today about how they found that money by not borrowing, by looking through other government departments. But, you know, it's taking it from almost trying to spell out the trade offs that the government's having to make to find even this little bit extra, which isn't the entire fully funded amount that the mod had originally wanted. Chris?
- [14:47]
Chris
Yeah, precisely, precisely that. And the Prime Minister, having watched him up close over the last couple of years, and indeed before that in opposition, he's always been quite keen to spell out the reality of trade offs, but I thought he did it Even more so today, perhaps just acknowledging the reality of his tenure coming to an end, but also the day to day reality of being Prime Minister always, but perhaps particularly at the moment with a combination of a economy that is struggling and a tax burden that is historically pretty high, and then the pressures to spend a lot more on defence at just the same time that the welfare budget is going. In other words, he is confronted by grisly trade offs the whole time. And yeah, he was saying explicitly that he thought that any more borrowing wouldn't be economically responsible. He didn't name them, but he was having a pop at the Liberal Democrats because they've talked about this idea of defence bonds to allow you to borrow more money to spend it on defence. He described that as being on the. On the never, never, and that it would amount to borrowing whatever you decided to call it. And then talking explicitly about the trade offs. And this afternoon, since the Prime Minister's speech, we've heard an element of the backwash to those trade offs. So one of the planned infrastructure projects that is now under threat is the A46 in the Midlands. And so we have Hamish Falkiner, who is a minister and he's the MP for Lincoln, going public talking about his disappointment about the uncertainty of the A46 Newark Bypass Widening Scheme, and the MP for Newark, Robert Jenrick of Reform, also registering his frustration and talking about how a reform government, in his view, they claim, would deliver this road project. So there you are with a precise example of the trade offs here. The other elements of this that is currently being unpicked as we look through the numbers in the document is where does this plan leave Andy Burnham, assuming as we do he becomes Prime Minister in pretty short order in the next couple of weeks, even meeting the funding requirements of this plan in the years ahead, let alone the acknowledgement from the former Defence Secretary John Healey and the current Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis, that come the next spending review and the big questions about the budgets of the next half decade to a decade, that in their view they'll have to be more on top of what he's already promised.
- [17:19]
James
Well, you mentioned both of them there, John Healy and Dan Jarvis, and they had a discussion. Is the discussion the right word about this exchange? Exchange in Parliament this afternoon? So why don't we have a listen to that?
- [17:32]
Keir Starmer
Threats are still growing. Demands on defence are still rising in this dangerous world. And today's step means that we will be spending as a nation 2.7% of GDP on defence in 2030, the date that NATO now warns we could face a Russian attack. So, with European security at stake, would my Right Honourable friends agree that more
- [17:58]
Frank Gardiner
needs to be done in the months
- [17:59]
Keir Starmer
ahead, beyond the dip, to develop a clear, credible funding plan that we'll hit 3% and that will meet our NATO commitment to 3.5% by 2035?
- [18:13]
Dan Jarvis
Madam Speaker, I'm very grateful to my Rotomura friend for his service in government. He did an excellent job as Defence Secretary and I aim absolutely to build on the work that he did. I know that he will share the pride that this government has in the commitment that we have already made. 298 billion over the next four years. £15 billion of new money in this plan, and with an increase in defence spending in real terms by 27% up to 2930. But he's right, we do need to do more. We will need to spend more defence on defence. And that's why there was a clear commitment that that will be a number one priority at the next spending review. We have an absolute obligation to our armed forces and to our allies. When I talk to my NATO allies, they look to the United Kingdom for leadership. That is leadership that we have provided over a number of years, including under the previous government. But it is a leadership that this government will continue to provide.
- [19:15]
Frank Gardiner
So I think, kind of beyond the politics of all of this, there are three tests fundamentally, that I think you can apply to this defence investment plan as to whether it is going to work. One is, does it fulfill Britain's commitment to NATO? Does it allow Britain to step up to the plate and do for NATO what it is expected to now, in terms of 2.7 versus 3%, that's a bit of a. Bit of a fail. And in terms of the size of Britain's army, which is only going to set to rise to 76,000 from the current 73, 74,000, but at least it's reversing that decline. Is there enough money? No, there's not enough money for what people wanted. But as I say, they are trying to make what there is go further. Is it fit for purpose for the 21st century? Is it configured? Is this plan configuring Britain's military to fight a modern 21st century war? And I would say it goes some way towards it. The problem is we don't know what's around the corner. So there's this huge investment in drones, but there are ways of countering drones electronically through electronic warfare. You know, it's perfectly possible that a few years down the line there will Some new technology will come on that we hadn't even thought of in this studio today that will possibly make some of this stuff already obsolete. That's what happens with defence procurement. It's always many years, it lags many years behind. But unfortunately, Britain has a pretty poor track record in wasting a lot of money on projects that don't always deliver when it comes to defence procurement. It doesn't mean to say you shouldn't do it, of course you've got to do it, but it needs to be tightened up.
- [20:59]
James
You've set out three really good questions there. I'm going to add another one on top of that, which I'd love to ask you, Alex and Chris about, which is, is even this, even with the cuts to roads and energy projects, fully funded? Because I think I'm right in saying that when I was looking through the detail, there was some suggestion that a big chunk of even this funding hasn't quite been identified yet. Is that right?
- [21:26]
Alex
Yeah, that's what it says in the document. So on the government website they published the plan itself and then a sort of explanation of the financing behind the 15 billion extra. And in that it says that so far some 10 billion of that has been identified with some 4 point something billion. I think it's about 4.6, 4.7 billion to still be identified in the budget in 2026. And this is where it comes back to Chris's point really about how this is going to have to sit pretty high on the incoming Prime Minister, widely presumed to be Andy Burnham, at the top of his in in tray and to do list because there's that immediate potential thing like is, is there still another four point something billion to be identified in funding this defense investment plan? Question 2 then comes back to this question about trade offs which the Prime Minister was being so explicit about today. But as Chris says, you already see the pushback when it comes to a specific road scheme that there's now a question mark over in order to fund. And that's the real essence of the choices that politicians have to make. Because everybody might want to say we need more money for defense or we need more money for the NHS or we need more money for education. But when you start to have to spell out what's going to not have money spent on it as a direct consequence, there's quite often a kind of pushback. And then there's that outstanding, much bigger question for Anti Burnham about the route to 3.5% of GDP, which is the government's committed to that NATO target by 2035, but that's not funded in this plan.
- [22:49]
James
And Chris, so from what Alex is saying there, if there's an extra 4.7 billion to find, is that a whole lot of other roads projects that are going to be cut and there's going to be a whole lot of big arguments about them and more government ministers and or backbenchers jumping up and down and getting angry.
- [23:04]
Chris
Well, it's a fair question, absolutely. I mean, Keir Starmer didn't say this today, but there was a sort of subtext that almost amounted to, you know, this stuff's really difficult. Andy, over to you, there was kind of a sense of that, you know, that these trade offs are really, really tricky. And you know what? One of the thoughts just on this wider thing that I was struck by from a conversation I had today at this event, somebody who's steeped in defense but also steeped in politics. And it's a recurring thing and it heads more frank into your territory than to mine. But I see it on the political side and it's the extent to which the country, society, governments have properly started a conversation about what might be necessary in terms of defence spending into the next decade and beyond and with what consequence and with what trade off. And this person was talking about a political meeting they'd been at not a vast amount of time ago with a crowd of folk who were talking about priorities and all the rest of it. And you won't be surprised, but it's just worth making the point that they were talking about the NHS and the state of schools and potholes and, you know, road schemes etc, etc. And barely anyone mentioned defence. So whilst there might be a recognition in the big picture because we see the pictures and all the rest of it about the situation in Ukraine and elsewhere, where does it sit in the list of priorities in the kind of national psyche and plenty of folk within the defence political world that I come across sort of say, look, we get that we need to spend more money on this, but we haven't yet landed the argument more broadly. The theory being that if you can land that argument, maybe is it not necessarily easier but not quite as really damn difficult to make the political argument about the trade offs that become necessary?
- [24:57]
Frank Gardiner
Yeah, I think that the trouble is for any government, it's just not a vote winner, you know, unless the that the country is very visibly under threat, it's not a vote winner. And I think it's worth sort of looking at what other European countries pay. So we currently spend roughly 2.5% of our national wealth of our GDP on defense, far less than we used to spend during the Cold War. That compares with say, 3.3% for the Americans, 3.7% for Germany and the Baltic states and Poland all spend around 4% or more because they are closer to the threat. Russia spends about 7.5% of its GDP. It's put its entire economy onto a war footing and it's been there for the last three or four years. So in terms of percentage terms, we lag quite far behind and there's no plan, there's no roadmap as to how we're going to get to that 3.5%. Now, if you remember at one of, at a recent NATO summit, and I'm going to be going to anchor it, by the way, too, which would be really interesting. It'll be Starmer's last summit.
- [26:06]
Chris
I guess I will see you there, Frank.
- [26:08]
Frank Gardiner
Very good. Well, I doubt I'll, you know, I
- [26:10]
Chris
mean, opposite ends of the vast, cavernous thing. Yeah, no, exactly.
- [26:15]
Frank Gardiner
But Donald Trump is almost certainly going to be given, you know, Starmer a bit of an arm twisting, saying, come on, your last act is to, is to bump this up and do a bit more because he would like to see Britain do a lot more to lead in Europe for NATO and to spend more. There's a lot of political pressure to do that because US Military commanders are now worried that Britain's military is so small and in some cases underfunded that they question what sort of a contribution it can really make. And of course, you couple that with the bad vibes coming out of Washington because, you know, Trump is crossed that Britain didn't join him in his Persian excursion, as some people have referred to it done in, in the straight of Hormuz. You know, it was a war of choice that Britain decided not to get involved in. And I think most of the country would say, well, thank goodness for that.
- [27:11]
Alex
On the NATO point, there's something that you hear quoted or said. And in fact, John Healey, the former defense secretary, was making this point today as part of his argument for more defense investment. Was this NATO warning that a Russian attack could be likely by 2030? We're already in 2026. And I just wonder for, you know, newscasters or people listening at home, I mean, that's just a really sobering thought. But do we know like, the provenance of that, how likely that is, how, what's the, what's behind that, Frank?
- [27:41]
Frank Gardiner
I'm partly to blame. I think that's happenably single handedly declared war on Moscow. No. So it's not. That is because last year I interviewed the head of Germany's armed forces or the Chief of Staff, somebody called General Carsten Breuer, and he was the first senior military figure to say we have to be prepared for the possibility that Russia will attack a NATO country by 2030. Now, that's not to say it's going to happen, but Putin is in a bind. His special military operation has turned into a quagmire for him. He's hemorrhaging men, money and material in Ukraine and he's not winning. He's not necessarily losing, but he's not winning. So there is a fear that he's going to look for some kind of distraction. And there is something that I call the Nava Test. Nava is a town in the east of Estonia, right on the River Nava, right hard up next to Russia's border. It has a majority Russian speaking population. It's totally conceivable that Putin will one day say we had to go in and defend those poor Russian speaking people because they begged us to do it. And they're being oppressed by the beastly nasty NATO governments there in Tallinn. And were he to do that, certainly at a roundtable I've recently been at, the expectation is that we couldn't rely on Trump's America to come to NATO's aid, so Europe would quite possibly be on its own. And that doubt is dangerous because it sows in Putin's mind the possibility that he might be able to get away with what he did in Crimea in 2014, what he did in Georgia in 2008, and what he has tried to do since 2022 in Ukraine.
- [29:24]
James
And that is just funnily enough, what I was thinking about a minute ago when you were saying the United States would criticise Britain in the terms you were describing, is that the UK and other European nations might well retort. Well, it might not be that the UK is able to defend itself or other NATO allies, but at least it would be willing to do so. Which could not necessarily be said of President Trump by, we assume, given or, you know, nobody knows that for sure, that he wouldn't if Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which regards an attack on one nation as an attack on all members, were invoked, which has only ever been invoked once, hasn't it, for nine, 11.
- [30:04]
Frank Gardiner
Yes.
- [30:05]
James
So that, Chris, is a big challenge for the incoming Prime Minister, who we do assume will be Andy Burnham in terms of. I mean, this is A big strategic question for him, a big geopolitical question. Does the UK get closer to Europe? Does it need to do more with Europe? Is NATO where it needs to be focused in terms of defence and security, or is there an alternative to NATO that doesn't rely on or doesn't consider the United States as such a dependable or important ally? Chris? And that's a challenge, isn't it?
- [30:37]
Chris
Massive, massive, massive challenge. The Prime Minister talking a lot today about European security, effectively nodding to, without saying it explicitly, exactly that point that Frank was mentioning there about the prospect of a scenario where America is not willing to help out NATO allies. And for Andy Burnham, who likely is in Downing street in three weeks time confronting this wider challenge as he adjusts to the whole business of international affairs in the job, who does he make as Defence Secretary? Who does he make as Foreign Secretary? Who does he make as Chancellor? All of this will play into these discussions around the funding gaps and then the longer term questions. And to put it gently, this kind of stuff is not something that sits in the entry of the Mayor of Greater Manchester. It's the massive step up that in all likelihood he's about to make. And again, to pick up on Frank's point about defence not usually being a vote winner unless there is a real sense of imminent tangible threat, how does he, in juggling the tricky trade offs, try and meet the demands that will come his way very, very quickly around defence whilst also being conscious that he is maximum three years away from a general election? It's really tough. And some of these things may in the very short term be parked mentally in the political conversation because of the novelty of an incoming Prime Minister and who their cabinet is and the, and if you like the theatre, the drama around that. But what mattered about this morning and matters massively about the NATO summit next week, is that so many of these macro questions, not least the international picture, are absolutely live and will fundamentally be exactly the same for a new Prime Minister coming in as they have been for Keir Starmer and in their own way have contributed to Keir Starmer's kind of premature political demise.
- [32:28]
Frank Gardiner
One of the things, Chris, that's buried, and you've probably seen it in the small print in the defence investment plan, is 330 million pounds earmarked for protecting Britain's undersea cables. Now, I think this is the one area where, if there is to be a national conversation, some people who might otherwise say, look, I couldn't give a stuff about defense, it's somebody else's problem. Ukraine, yeah, whatever. Might actually sit up and take notice because Britain has about 60 undersea cables on which it depends on almost entirely for the transmission of its data, its financial data, telecoms, et cetera. Plus you've got the gas and electricity pipelines. We're an island. We depend on the stuff that's coming from Norway, from across the Atlantic. And these are actual physical fiber optic cables that go all the way down onto the seabed. Now, Russia has been scoping these out using a part of their defense ministry called Gugi G U G. I don't ask me what it stands for in Russian, but it pretends to be deep water research for that Reed, sabotage and subversion. So, you know, what they do is they're kind of scoping out where these cables are and in the event of war they will cut them. They've got deep sea submersibles that can deploy from their ships, that can go down to extraordinary depths thousands of meters with effectively a giant pair of scissors that can cut these cables. So that £330 million that's earmarked for protecting these cables, even that probably isn't enough, but it's a start. But that is an area, I think, where people might sort of. I mean, the analogy I often give is I take my phone out of my pocket and say, well, that's odd. I can't get through to my bank, I've got no signal. That's really odd. Hang on, the cash points aren't working. That's when people will realize what a Russian threat to this country means. It's not a mushroom cloud over London or Manchester, God forbid. It's far more likely to be something non kinetic. But that really damages our way of life because make no mistake, Putin hates this country.
- [34:39]
Chris
And picking up from that in terms of reimagining what modern conflict could look like. Just last week, and this plays into this wider conversation about the national debate around our security. Just last week, a load of the armed services had a exhibition in speaker's courtyard in Parliament in the blisteringly hot sunshine of last week's heat wave, where under various canopies they brought their latest gizmos to effectively show off to MPs but also educate MPs and the rest of us journalists and anybody else who was kind of passing through about what the kit that, that in their view we need to combat exactly those kind of threats, Frank, are needed and how expensive they are and the technology development around them. And in fact, one of these things I was being shown was one of These underwater drones that can go down and look to see if any of our crucial wires have had basically suspicious stuff attached to them. And this is the, I guess this is the front line, isn't it? In the, currently, in the. Is battle the right word? I don't know, tussle. But conflict is probably not quite the right word.
- [35:53]
Frank Gardiner
But with, with Russia, yeah, which I think, you know why it's wrong to say, oh, we're cutting XYZ to pay for more guns. It isn't about guns. It's about ways to defend this country. It's about way, you know, non lethal ways of stopping people from hurting us. And that in many cases involves hiring, frankly, lots of computer people, you know, to sit behind screens. You know, they might be in T shirts and flip flops, but they're defending this country. That is part of defense.
- [36:24]
Chris
Another person who I bumped into, into today at this event, who I asked, you know, what this person did and they had to be quite careful about some of the specifics, as you'll understand in this, in this kind of world, said it's not the sexy way to describe it. They were sort of reflecting. But they're a computer programmer. That's what they do. It happens to be at the cutting edge of defense and drone technology and lots of things I wouldn't claim to understand, but it's absolutely this. That is the frontier of this new world of how countries think about how they might attack one another or try and undermine one another.
- [37:03]
Alex
I mean, talking about jobs, Chris, and what people do for their jobs, I've been reading, and I might be putting you on the spot here actually, but I've been reading some of the reports about, about what Keir Starmer might have his eye on next, potentially even the NATO Secretary General gig. You got any intelligence? Well, excuse the pun, there's all sorts
- [37:21]
Chris
of things flying around because as is, as is inevitable in any walk of life or in any business or whatever, when, when a vacancy becomes available, then, and I'm talking here about the Prime Ministerial vacancy, then there's a whole set of conversations that follow up, obviously in a very Westminster and Cabinet context. And then for someone like Keir Starmer, what might he choose to do next? Somebody who I think has been, I think it's reasonable to say has been perhaps more comfortable often on the international stage than he has been on the domestic one. Of course, he's had some flack for all that. The whole never hear kier thing, which he pushes back from and talks about how the incestual and the domestic are one of the same thing in the. In the contemporary world. But, yeah, what about various vacancies at international organizations that may crop up in the next couple of years? The honest answer, I mean, who knows? Let's see. One thing that some say is that he might revel in doing exactly that. Others within the Labour Party are acutely conscious to make a more parochial point in all of this, that were he to find himself in a role that Menti could no longer be a member of Parliament, that would mean a by election in Holborn and St Pancras in central London, which I suspect the Green Party might be quite keen on having a real run at. So let's see, who knows? I mean, there's all sorts of things he could end up doing domestically, where he stays in Parliament in the way that rishi sunak has, etc.
- [38:50]
Keir Starmer
Etc.
- [38:50]
Chris
But yeah, there is a bit of chat about what he might do, whether he thinks he's got another big job in him.
- [38:56]
James
Well, whether or not he's going to be, whatever, Secretary General of NATO or whatever. Your colleague, Beth Rigby seems to have a new job. Chris, from the news conference you were at with the Prime Minister earlier.
- [39:06]
Chris
She does. Have you got the clip? There you go. Play the clip.
- [39:08]
James
Yeah. Yeah, we can. Yes. Let's hear it.
- [39:10]
Chris
Let's. Let's hear it.
- [39:12]
Keir Starmer
Beth from Sky Sports. Beth Rigby,
- [39:16]
James
Sky Sports. I wish it was. I wish it was.
- [39:20]
Chris
Thank you, Sky News.
- [39:22]
Keir Starmer
Beth, not Sky Sports, but I'm sure
- [39:24]
Chris
you could do that as well. Beth was given, I think, what Beth would acknowledge was something of a promotion by the Prime Minister there. I don't say that as any slight to our brilliant colleagues at Sky News. I think Beth said, if we heard that correctly, something like I Dream or something. Something along. Along those lines, Beth can ask a. A devilish set of questions. She's a great interviewer. So I. I wonder if the Prime Minister was sort of secretly imagining a world where Beth had been at Sky Sports for much of the last couple of years, rather than throwing sort of verbal challenges in his direction.
- [39:58]
Alex
Thomas Tuchel might not have wanted that quite some time.
- [40:01]
Chris
Well, no, this is true. To be fair to the Prime Minister, I should say, because he's had a rough old time politically. He's never shied away from coming on and taking difficult questions and always acknowledges the role that journalists have in a democracy, asking tough questions of those in power.
- [40:15]
Dan Jarvis
Good.
- [40:15]
James
And you're always happy to ask them.
- [40:17]
Chris
Indeed. That's the job.
- [40:18]
James
Thank you very much, Chris. Thank You, Frank.
- [40:21]
Frank Gardiner
Thanks, James. Thanks, Alex.
- [40:23]
James
Well, that's nearly all from us. But before we go, thank you for all your applications to be supported reporter.
- [40:28]
Alex
Supporter reporter. Right. I'm fascinated by this because I did dare, I hate to confess, I did dare to take a few days off. So I've missed the genesis of supporter reporter. Right. And I find it genius.
- [40:41]
James
It's good. It's Adam's thing, not mine.
- [40:43]
Alex
But take credit, James.
- [40:45]
James
I will try to explain it. Even though Adam is Adam's. These things are always Adam's, though, or the teams, to be fair. But Adam has. I love all these things. Anyway, supported reporter, I think was a good idea because it is. We're trying to find a newscaster in every country that's playing in the World cup finals, or at least with very good connections to them. And we have another one, Alex, from Fiona. And Fiona says newscast. This is a good one. I like this one. Thanks, Fiona. Newscast has become essential listening for me, especially as I'll be moving to London in August as the correspondent for Swiss public broadcaster Radio and tv. Oh, congratulations and welcome. Though if the government really does hit it further north, I might end up reporting from the doorstep of number 10 north in Manchester instead. And Fiona goes on, I could also be your supporter reporter with a link to Switzerland, because I'm Swiss, I live in a village in the Swiss countryside of just 2,000 people. That sounds nice. I played football as a girl and at the time, the men's team were the only public role models we had. These days I normally prefer watching the women's games, but I'm still enjoying this year's World cup and I'm thrilled Switzerland has made it this far. And Fiona says the time difference and late night matches aren't a problem for her because her one year old, Karen, has decided that 3am is party time. Anyway, thanks, Fiona.
- [42:02]
Alex
Thank you, Fiona. And thank you, Kyron. I'm sure your mum thanks you at 3am as well, all of the time. So if you want to be our supporter reporter, you can do that. Just get in touch. You can email newscastbce.co.uk or you can WhatsApp 033-01-239480. So get in touch and we hopefully hear from you soon.
- [42:21]
James
But that's it from this episode of Newscast.
- [42:23]
Keir Starmer
Goodbye.
- [42:24]
James
Newscast.
- [42:25]
Alex
Newscast. From the BBC. From one newscaster to another, thank you so much for making it to the end of this episode. You clearly do, in the words of Chris Mason, ooze stamina.
- [42:37]
James
Can I also gently encourage you to
- [42:39]
Alex
subscribe to us on BBC Sounds. Tell everyone you know. And don't forget, you can email us anytime@newscastbc.co.uk or if you're that way inclined, send us a WhatsApp on 033-01-23948. Be assured, I promise you listen to everyone.
- [43:14]
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