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  "path": "/opinion/britain-france-defence-keir-starmer-labour-jacob-rees-mogg",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-24T22:30:49.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.gbnews.com",
  "tags": [
    "Britain could send civilian ships to Strait of Hormuz in bid to clear Iranian mines",
    "Labour minister claims Iran 'has NO intention of striking UK' just days after Tehran targeted Chagos",
    "Keir Starmer's Iran strategy branded an 'embarrassment' to the nation: 'We're not Great Britain!'",
    "The GB News Editorial Charter"
  ],
  "textContent": "\n\n\nWhat is happening to the state of our Armed Forces?\n\nWe had that tetchy exchange from the Prime Minister yesterday when, having promised to increase expenditure, He won't say when. It's always tomorrow. It's always on the never, never.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAnd yet there are real risks, risks that we are aware of. We now read in our newspapers that missiles from Iran could reach the United Kingdom, and we have no means of protecting ourselves from it.\n\nWe might perhaps be able to scramble a Spitfire if there were a real emergency. No one in Government seems to be taking it seriously, and it's all very well to blame the previous Government.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nTRENDING\n\nStories\n\nVideos\n\nYour Say\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nAnd, as a former Conservative MP, I know we didn't get everything right, but they've now been in office for nearly two years.\n\nThat is a time in which you are in charge and you can make decisions, but they fail to do so. They fail to read the strategic runes.\n\nThey failed to ensure that the Navy is in the right part of the world when trouble breaks out.\n\nIn a war, in a conflict, that was perfectly obvious and from which and of which they ought to have had some warning if they had any diplomatic antennae at all.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nBut finally, HMS Dragon limped along in the last couple of days, having been stuck in various other places en route. We simply don't have the ships that we need.\n\nWe don't have the armaments that we need.\n\nWe don't have the protection that we need and we don't seem to take it seriously.\n\nThat was the point of Bernard Jenkin's question yesterday, accusing the Prime Minister of being complacent.\n\n### BRITAIN'S DEFENCE - READ THE LATEST:\n\n\n\n\n  * Britain could send civilian ships to Strait of Hormuz in bid to clear Iranian mines\n  * Labour minister claims Iran 'has NO intention of striking UK' just days after Tehran targeted Chagos\n  * Keir Starmer's Iran strategy branded an 'embarrassment' to the nation: 'We're not Great Britain!'\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nThere is a real problem and what is needed, it seems to me, is a strategic rethink of what we are trying to do.\n\nIn the early 20th century, after the failures of the Boer War, we had the Esher Committee, which set out reforms to the way the Armed Forces worked together, then the Army and the Navy, to ensure that there was some way of bringing things together to make sure that there was an effective operation.\n\nIt's not all about money. We spend more money than the French and seem to get less for it.\n\nIt's about structures and making sure that money is well spent, and that you have what you need in a world that has become increasingly dangerous.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nIt's about an understanding of realpolitik as to what the risks are and who your friends are and who your enemies are.\n\nBut we have just allowed ourselves to grow fat and flabby. We are like the Angles paying the Dane geld to the Danes - that we were comfortable.\n\nWe were rich and it was easier to pay people to go away.\n\nAnd in the end, the Danes won't go away unless we are safe and secure and have a proper defence policy\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n**Our Standards: The GB News Editorial Charter**",
  "title": "'Britain spends more on defence than France but have nothing to show for it,' Jacob Rees Mogg blasts"
}