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Order! Order!

Hello there, I'm Alicia McCarthy,

and this is today in Parliament from BBC Radio 4 for Friday the 18th of July,

where there's a stark assessment of the UK's preparedness from the peer behind the government's defence review.

The next war is going to be nastier and more brutal and we need to be ready for it.

Also on this programme, as a committee of senior MPs gears up to question the Prime Minister,

one former member says they shouldn't be afraid to jump in if they're not getting answers.

I'm afraid Boris Johnsham was a classic case in this. Boris would come up with a stream of words,

very little of which had much to do with the actual question that you were asking him.

And MPs remember the pilots who flew spitfires to take vital reconnaissance photographs.

It didn't have the same sort of defences and plating.

It had no gun. You couldn't defend yourself.

And you were flying over enemy lines.

But first, the peer who led a review into the UK's defences has told the Lords that it's an understatement to say the country is unprepared for war.

Lord Robertson, a former Secretary-General of NATO, said the UK didn't have the ammunition,

the people, the training, the spare parts, the logistics or the medical capacity to deal with

mass casualties.

The Labour peer said the Strategic Defence Review, which was commissioned by the government

shortly after last year's election, made 62 recommendations.

But he had a concise summary of its conclusions.

We are underinsured, we are underprepared, we are not safe. This country and its people are not safe.

...