WATCH: Former MP and soldier blasts John Healey for 'pathetic' lack of clarity on defence costs

GB News

Former Conservative MP Bob Seely has launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, saying he finds it "offensive" when the Labour leader "dresses up in a military uniform and looks like he's acting tough."Speaking to GB News, the former soldier criticised Starmer's plans for a "new era" of defence and slammed the Government's lack of clarity on how much certain aspects will cost.FULL STORY HERE.

Transcript

00:00How pathetic is that?

00:01It's pretty pathetic, and it's par for the course for the government, sadly.

00:05And John Healy, to his credit, is one of the better or least useless ministers.

00:09So if he doesn't even know, it's no wonder that people like, I don't know,

00:13Rachel Reeves and all the others, and Lucy Powell, sound so much worse.

00:16And as I say, he's one of the better ones.

00:18Just to get the numbers right, the laws that we know about anyway,

00:22when it comes to defence spending, aren't they using the money

00:25that we're giving Mauritius to give them Chagos in our defence budget?

00:29So when they say they're increasing the defence budget,

00:31actually, that involves us paying to give away sovereign territory, doesn't it?

00:34Yeah, it is, and it's one of the most disastrously stupid things

00:38this government is doing, and that's pretty much,

00:40and that's certainly saying something.

00:43We don't have to spend £9 billion giving the Chagos to Mauritius.

00:47All we have to do is say, actually, we're keeping it,

00:50and we could be spending that £9 billion on a lot of other things,

00:53whether it's winter fuel, whether it's supporting pensioners,

00:56whether it's supporting schools, or indeed supporting defence.

00:59There must be certain bits of this, Bob, though, sorry,

01:01that you do support, presumably the idea of school leavers

01:05and college students doing a year in the armed forces,

01:07because I actually think that was Rishi Sunak's policy, wasn't it?

01:11It was not dissimilar to Rishi's policy, but actually, look,

01:13I do support it, because, look, for me, I loved my time in the army.

01:17I was a reservist, and then I was mobilised for a decade

01:21on something called full-time reserve service.

01:23And if I had my time again, I'd do it properly,

01:26and I'd join the armies at a much younger age.

01:29I nearly did it when I was 18, then decided not.

01:31And I think it's a great career, and I absolutely really recommend it.

01:36Likewise RAF, likewise Navy.

01:38And if we can draw people in, I think they'll find it just structured

01:42and exciting, and it's got some discipline,

01:46and you do adventure training,

01:47and actually you've learned pride in yourself, pride in your country,

01:50and we don't have enough of that at the moment.

01:52So that bit works.

01:53Yeah, it's a shame they slagged off Rishi's ideas,

01:55but, hey, you know, that's hypocritical labour for you.

01:58Well, there we go.

01:59I can't help but wonder, though, whether or not the Tories

02:02do have to shoulder some of the blame here.

02:04I mean, under the Conservatives' watch,

02:06the armed forces, I think, is at its lowest,

02:08pretty much lowest ever level in recent times anyway.

02:11And you've also had issues like the RAF

02:13discriminating unfairly against white men.

02:16Yeah, it's not been great that we've been put in this position, is it?

02:19No, and I'm not going to sit there saying it was all great.

02:22Look, Putin started the new Cold War in 2007.

02:25If we were smart, we would have monitored that.

02:28We would have built up our deterrence.

02:29You're completely right, Patrick.

02:30The reality is that deterrence is expensive,

02:33but it is also always cheaper than fighting.

02:36And the fact is we're now spending a lot of money arming Ukraine,

02:40or reasonable sums of money arming Ukraine,

02:42because deterrence has not worked,

02:44because Putin thought we were weak.

02:46He didn't think we'd defend or support the Ukraine,

02:48and he didn't think the Ukrainians were going to fight.

02:51So if he understood our deterrence,

02:54and if he was deterred,

02:56we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now,

02:57and tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people

03:00wouldn't be dying on the other side of Europe.

03:02Just just quick.

03:03Just quick.

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