UK’s armed forces are in a sad state – and they have only themselves to blame

George Robertson, Tony Blair’s first defence secretary, a former Nato secretary general and an author last year of the latest in a series of evasive strategic defence reviews, accused Keir Starmer on Tuesday of a “corrosive complacency towards defence”. He said the prime minister was not willing to make the “necessary investment”.Lord Robertson could have directed his fire elsewhere. He must know that no government department has been so complacent in the face of years of devastating evidence of waste, profligate contracts, and policy decisions that have avoided confronting new but increasingly clear security threats to Britain and other western countries.Mandarins in the Ministry of Defence and successive defence secretaries have failed to confront the armed forces’ top brass – senior military figures who have a vested interested in preserving the status quo and continuing to fighting the last battles, reluctant to accept new geopolitical realities and new technologies

Reform activist suspended over racist and antisemitic comments remains election agent

A Reform UK activist in the Gorton and Denton byelection who was suspended over racist and antisemitic comments has been named as the election agent for three of the party’s candidates in Manchester ahead of polls on 7 May.Adam Mitula, an interim campaign manager in the Tameside area, confirmed in February that he had been suspended as a party member “pending investigation”.It came after evidence was published that appeared to show he posted a highly offensive racial slur aimed at black people, and also made what appeared to be a derogatory remark about Jewish women.A notice of election document published last Thursday shows that Mitula is now the election agent for Reform candidates standing in three wards in the Tameside area: Aron Webb, Audra Murray and Daniel Bennett.Mitula also appeared to have agreed with a Holocaust denier that the number of Jewish people murdered by the Nazis had been exaggerated

Starmer’s ‘corrosive complacency’ on defence has put UK in peril, says ex-Nato chief

The government has shown a “corrosive complacency towards defence” and put the UK in peril, according to a government adviser, in fierce criticism of Keir Starmer’s military policy.George Robertson, the former Nato secretary general and author of the government’s strategic defence review, believes Starmer is “not willing to make the necessary investment”, the Financial Times reported.In addition, Lord Robertson will warn in a lecture in Salisbury on Tuesday that the Iran war “has to be a rude wake-up call”.The former general Richard Barrons, who co-authored the defence review with Robertson, echoed his concerns. “It is a mark of how serious it is that someone who has been a Labour party activist for more than 60 years and was a Nato secretary general has now had to say it in these terms today,” Barrons told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme

Renewed ties with EU needed to boost UK security and economy, says Starmer

The economic and security benefits of a closer relationship with the EU are “simply too big to ignore”, Keir Starmer has told parliament as the British government prepares for more rapid alignment with European rules.Updating MPs on the Iran conflict and his visit to the Gulf last week, the prime minister was explicit about what he argued was the need for renewed ties with Europe given the chaotic global situation and Donald Trump’s unpredictable US administration.The Guardian revealed that ministers were planning to use so-called Henry VIII powers to dynamically align with EU rules by default, including the adoption of changed EU single market rules without full parliamentary scrutiny each time.Setting out what he said were the lessons of the Iran crisis, Starmer said that after Brexit, Covid and the Ukraine war the idea of a global shock to UK living standards was no longer “a novel experience”, and that lessons should be learned.This time, he argued, the response “must and will be different to reflect the changing world that we live in”, saying this included efforts to reduce energy bills

Nige and Zia set out plan to send ‘Boriswave’ traitors to the gulag | John Crace

The Reform UK press conference began a little behind schedule. Time in which Nigel Farage had gathered Zia Yusuf and a few others into a circle for a two-minute silence. A moment to reflect on the sad news from Hungary that Viktor Orbán’s 16 years as prime minister had come to a premature end. Orbán had had so much more to give the world. There would be no one left in the EU to block the €90bn loan to Ukraine

Shabana Mahmood says Southport inquiry report exposed ‘systematic failures across multiple public sector organisations’ – as it happened

In the Commons Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, is making a statement on the first report from the Southport inquiry, published today.Mahmood says she will be not using the name of the perpetrator, or dwelling on what happened.She says the report has exposed systemtic failings.double quotation markThe findings of the inquiry are unsparing. Sir Adrian [Fulford] has uncovered systematic failures across multiple public sector organisations