John Healey’s resignation from the government because it is not moving fast enough to increase war spending is indicative of the political difficulties involved in taking a hammer to all other government departments to break off lumps of finance to pay for it.

The requirement is so steep that the political price paid in running down our schools and hospitals, leaving potholes unfilled, wages frozen as inflation rips and the climate transition postponed until its too late, will be too much for any government to survive doing it: even if polling majorities in the abstract support the objective.

And the pretext for fulfilling Trump’s demand for 5% of GDP, that Russia, which has spent four years slogging its way through parts of Ukraine where it actually enjoys some popular support, and spends less than a third of the amount that European NATO does on its armed forces, has half as many soldiers and combat aircraft and a third as many tanks and artillery pieces is in any position to “attack NATO” is so absurd that they have to keep repeating it as an unquestioned mantra to believe in it themselves. 

Whoever leads the Party next should take a leaf out of Pedro Sanchez’s book, politely tell the US where it gets off in its new Cold War, keep war spending low, accelerate the energy transition, including welcoming inward investment from China, and take on xenophobia.