Editorial: John Healey's resignation exposes deceit around UK claims of increased defence spending

The resignation of John Healey as defence secretary shows that the country is in a deep crisis.

We have sky high debt, a growing entitlement culture that the nation simply can't afford, and out of control immigration.

All of this would be bad enough without war in the middle east that could spark a global energy and financial crisis.

The tragedy in Britain is that some things clearly need to be done, such as increasing defence expenditure at this time of global peril, and even a leader as weak as Sir Keir Starmer knows this, but his Labour landslide in Westminster in 2024 has made it impossible.

The government can't get reform of the grossly bloated welfare system through the House of Commons and so there is no money for things such as the armed forces.

Note that the crisis is kept alive not only by politicians at the national but at the local level. There is an irresponsible cross-party consensus at Stormont that welfare can't be cut, healthcare can't be made more efficient and London is to blame for insufficient funding. What nonsense.

Mr Healey has blown apart the trickery in Sir Keir's accounting to make it look like defence spending had increased.

In fact military spending is barely increasing at all.

The UK is not the only western country to get itself in this pickle. France, like Britain once a great military power, has done so too.

This is not just a scandal, it is a tragedy. We are heading towards the fifth anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the third of the Hamas invasion of Israel. China is getting ever bolder in its plan to crush that brave democracy, Taiwan, seemingly to western indifference.

How these bad actors must be chuckling at the foolishness of current British and leaders.