18/12/2024 10:15
The Guardian
Chancellor and PM have both defended decision not to pay compensation to Waspi womenTell us: are you affected by the decision not to compensate ‘Waspi women’?In his LBC interview Keir Starmer was also asked a lot about defence. (The interview was conducted yesterday in Estonia, where Starmer was attending a leaders’ summit for the Joint Expeditionary Force, a military partnership.) Starmer has already said he wants to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, but he has not said yet when that will happen. Nick Ferrari asked repeatedly if he would like to go beyond that, to 3%. Starmer just stuck to the line that he would be setting out a “pathway to 2.5%”.But he also said Donald Trump was right to say Europe should spend more on defence.We’re having constructive discussions with President-elect Trump. As you know, I met him a number of weeks ago and discussed a number of issues. I do think that when he says that Europe needs to do more, as a general proposition, I think that’s right, and we should do more. The crew here are very mindful of the fact this is now 33 years old, and they want to move on to the new equipment as soon as they can. But we don’t do our service personnel any favours by using equipment that is many years, in some cases, past its sell-by date.I travelled here today because our work with Nato is so important to our country.If you think about the impact that the conflict in Ukraine has had back at home on our country, it’s been huge. If you think just for a moment, about the risks to the subsea infrastructure in Norway. We had a high-level briefing on the work we’re doing in relation to the cabling of the pipelines that are under the sea and the risk. I have to make sure and be assured that we’ve got the capability to meet the risks to our country. Continue reading...
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