It can be hard to believe, but it is only three weeks since John Healey resigned as defence secretary, saying that Keir Starmer had proven himself, ‘unable… to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats.’
It is insanity to give the armed forces half the funding they need and expect them to deliver all the missions to which they are committed
The financial settlement for the Defence Investment Plan offered an additional £13.5 billion for the armed forces. The Ministry of Defence had said that it would need £28 billion.
Now Dan Jarvis, a respected former Parachute Regiment company commander, is Defence Secretary, the Defence Investment Plan is still crawling towards publication, and Starmer has decided that if the Parliamentary Labour party wants Andy Burnham so much, it can have him. But the psychodrama is not yet over.
When Jarvis was appointed to succeed Healey on Britain’s least attractive military mission since Lieutenant General Percival took command of Singapore in 1941, he reopened negotiations with HM Treasury over the DIP’s financial settlement. But it seemed impossible he would achieve much change.
