The unreality of Labour’s rosy picture of an economy that can’t, in fact, pay for our defence

“You’d better start believing in Ghost-stories girlie – You’re in one!” Captain Barbossa, Pirates of the Caribbean (2003)

Poor Elizabeth Swann. Convinced in the hit film, that a pirate captain has spun her an elaborate and fantastical yarn, and whilst desperately sticking to her principles and the laws of nature she is forced to accept that reality really does seem to be arguing against everything she thinks and believes.

This morning that is how Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer should be feeling. But don’t count on it.

Number 10 will actually be pleased politically and domestically – because whatever the high moral tone from that ivory tower that has as much to do with the Prime Minister’s stance on Iran as international law – that Starmer has had his Hugh Grant, ‘Love Actually” moment, and shown himself to be able to say ‘no’ to the bad guy in the White House.

At present “we were not involved” in the strikes on Iran has echoes of Corbyn about it. Of course there is huge public concern about being dragged into an escalating war. I share them. But to return to the start, you’d better start believing in a middle eastern war – we’re in one.

I’ll return to this in a moment but there was always going to be a moment when our politics went through the looking glass. Yesterday was it.

In one version of reality the British economy has been stabilised to a point that all is now well, and Britain’s National Security is safe from both Iran and the wild and illegal activities of a dangerous American President and Prime Minister of Israel, all thanks to a determined and cautious Chancellor and the steely moral guardianship of Sir Keir Starmer.

It is a version of reality to which, objectively I cannot subscribe but it is also one many others, including the Conservative Party cannot either.

The Spring Statement was big on spin and not much else. When a hapless Treasury Minister defended it on Sky News by reaching for the  stale “we’ve had to tackle the problems Liz Truss left us with” you know they’re clutching their pearls and at straws.

I can leave the Shadow Chancellor to explain the Conservative position, on ConHome this morning. The reactions to the Spring Statement from many think tanks, finish the job off.

Lord Ashcroft’s most recent polling – that has over time had some hard truths within for the Tories – contained who is most trusted on the economy, a key metric he’s been tracking for the past 19 months. It’s the Conservatives.

“Asked who would do the better job running the economy, voters chose Kemi Badenoch and Mel Stride over Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves by a 4-point margin, with 40 per cent saying, “don’t know”. Only just over half of 2024 Labour voters named the Labour team; more than seven in ten 2024 Conservatives chose the Tory team.” Lord Ashcroft polls.

I’m going to stick to defence and the war.

Rachel Reeves made a small reference to the unfolding situation in the Middle East at the top of her speech, but therein lies – at times literally – their problem. Not only are the Government being accused of vacillation and dereliction of duty defending our assets and denying their use to a key ally, but they also can’t pay – and have ignored questions about how they’ll pay – to be able to do so.

Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty asked the Chancellor this very question about defence spending. Rachel Reeves seemed to suggest that they had overseen the largest defence spending increase in years, and that was why “we’re degrading the capability of Iran to continue these attacks”

That’s news to everybody, because we aren’t, and the money hasn’t been spent, just promised. Word on when we might actually reach the point where it materialises is not to be found. It risks turning up as much too little too late as a British Type-45 Daring class Destroyer to the Mediterranean.

Despite having roughly similar political clothing as our Labour party in government, Australia and Canada have signalled that they support the US in tackling Iran. Making it all about regime change has posed some serious questions. With reference to Iran that is a dubious wish for reasons I spelt out on Sunday. But it is clearly the only way you can tackle the far more historical motivation that we should all want to stop Iran’s progression to having nuclear weapons. The determination not to be involved which has irked the President so much is based on Starmer’s rigid adherence to international law even when it is flouted by the target, observing authoritarian regimes, and nuclear physicists in bunkers in Iran.

It seems odd, that having burnt up so much political and public credit to push forward a deal that was supposed to guarantee the use of the crucial strategic air base at Diego Garcia, for Britain and the US, at staggering cost, and under an over played threat of legal action, we have done so nonetheless, and immediately denied it’s use to our closest ally. One of the smartest foreign office officials I came across has just issued a scathing assessment of our prediliction for rigid adherence to law that has ceased to make sense or at best its modern contradictions need confronting.

You will note many a Starmer loyalist, often using the same phrases – or lines to take as the Downing Street spin doctors call them when they issue them – have said Trump did not tell allies about the immediate strikes, so of course the British PM is having to react to events not ahead of them.

Well as I say the war he doesn’t believe in, he’s already in.

The moment key gulf allies with British citizens in residence were targeted by Iranian drones, the moment RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus was hit, he had no choice to act, or rather let others do it for him. The French are already ahead of defending our assets in the Med. What baffles me is how predictable this all was.

If a third of the US Navy has been amassing for weeks in the gulf, whilst negotiations brokered by the Omanis – note Prime Minister that their neutrality did not afford them protection from Iranian counter strikes – there was every reason to assess, what it was for, likely scenarios, and why you might want a T-45 destroyer patrolling in the Med. Second year war studies students could have predicted that.

It might have ended up as academic had the negotiations succeeded. However we learn that even after being offered a ‘lifetime supply of nuclear fuel’ from the US to power a purely domestic Iranian power generation plan the regime would not accept it. Then what did everyone think their uranium enrichment was really for?!

But the negotiations did not succeed. They haven’t, in various forms, for some time. Trump pulling out of the JPCOA agreement in his first term had much to do with that failure, but it’s no secret that he and Netanyahu had long decided if it can’t be agreement, it will be force. If a government functionary at my level knew all this two years ago, I’m damn sure the current incumbent of Downing Street does, or should.

Splashed across the papers today are Trump’s brutal swipe at Starmer. It’s personal, because that’s how Trump views any international relationship, even though the so called ‘special relationship’ is between two nations and in multiple arenas and not just two men in their respective offices. It will survive the barbs, it is very challenged by our stand off stance.

In one respect, and even given that Trump is no Roosevelt, or Truman who sanctioned the use of atomic weapons, Starmer is no Churchill:

Churchill fought a war having argued for years that Britain was economically and militarily unprepared.  Starmer is trying not to fight a war arguing via his Chancellor that never before has so much been promised for defence.

For so little return when it matters, it would seem.