DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Despite all the warnings and mishaps, will Andy Burnham EVER wake up to the defence crisis?
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When it comes to Andy Burnham's fundamental responsibility to defend the realm, it is open to debate whether he is in denial or a slow learner.
The Prime Minister's latest wake-up call about the lamentable state of the Armed Forces has come in the form of yet another embarrassment involving the Royal Navy.
For its only ice patrol ship, HMS Protector, to break down and possibly be destined for the scrapyard would be unfortunate in any circumstances. But the fact that it is happening as tensions rise over the Falklands is a stark illustration of just how exposed we are.
It comes after MI5 chief Sir Ken McCallum's chilling assessment of global terrorism in the AI era. Nor is the threat from the sinister troika of Russia, China and Iran going away anytime soon.
Yet when Kemi Badenoch pointed out yesterday that the priority for this month's Budget should be reducing welfare in favour of military spending, Mr Burnham turned a deaf ear once more. The plain truth is that he hasn't the gumption to introduce the necessary cuts, so kicking the defence issue into touch is his default response.
Just as it is becoming increasingly obvious to everyone but the PM that we need to protect ourselves in this febrile geopolitical climate, the evidence about Britain's fiscal reality is becoming ever more compelling.
The Prime Minister's latest wake-up call about the lamentable state of the Armed Forces has come in the form of yet another embarrassment involving the Royal Navy
No less an authority than the International Monetary Foundation (IMF) has said the Government will need to slash expenditure in other areas if it is even to meet existing Nato commitments. Of course, even greater cuts will be required if we are to reach the more sensible defence spending goal of 3 per cent of GDP by 2030.
Come Budget Day, perhaps the PM will surprise us all by providing the protection Britain needs. But not for the first time, we won't be holding our breath.
Welfare carousel
Anyone with a basic grasp of arithmetic can see there is something seriously wrong when more than four million Britons are receiving personal independence payments (PIPs).
Now even the Left-leaning Resolution Foundation think-tank has found that one in six claimants appear to be ineligible for the benefit. Perhaps the only surprise here is that the proportion isn't even bigger.
The PIPs carousel began gathering pace in the post-Covid era amid a surge in cases largely fuelled by anxiety, depression and other mental health complaints. With around 1,000 new claims being approved every day, the annual cost to taxpayers is set to reach £41billion by 2030.
Yet despite these eye-watering figures, it emerged last month that a Government review into PIPs recommended revamping the application process to make it 'as easy as possible'. The average taxpayer – who is, of course, footing the bill for all this – might be forgiven for thinking a more commonsense approach would be to make it more difficult to submit a claim.
Either way, the Burnham administration has a moral duty to reduce the numbers on PIPs. Removing the 670,000 claimants who've clambered onto the gravy train without a ticket would be a good start.
Kemi's wise words
It was the height of summer when Mr Burnham indicated he would take a 'pragmatic' approach to drilling at North Sea gas and oil fields.
Yet with winter rapidly approaching we are no nearer to seeing any progress. As Mrs Badenoch put it to the PM in perhaps the wisest words heard in Westminster yesterday: 'Stop faffing about.'
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