Hello and welcome to rock and roll politics, the podcast with me, Steve Richards.

Thank you very much for tuning in wherever you are in Britain

and the rest of the world. And as ever, we've got a lot to cram in in our time together.

If it's okay with all of you, I'm going to reflect on the defence. I pause because I find it so depressing really. The debate about defence spending,

I find it depressing not in the way that quite a lot do. Oh, why aren't we spending billions and

billions more? I find even that question quite depressing in its implications. But we'll explore that.

A lot of you, I think, in the cooperative will disagree. Some will agree. And you can get in touch

subsequently in the normal way, talking of which we will have a very few of your questions in

question time today. but keep them coming.

They are fantastic and stimulating and brilliant, always.

Just a few notices before that.

Rock and Roll Politics Live at the Cambridge Book Festival on the Saturday night.

That's April the 25th tickets at the

festival website. So you can have a kind of day in Cambridge, you know, go punting or whatever

people do in Cambridge or swim in the river. That's what I would do. I wouldn't go punting,

swimming in the river. Then having a glass of chilled white wine,

reading a book, going to the art galleries, and then in the evening, you can go to rock and roll

politics live. And then on May the 11th, that King's Place, there's a live show, and it's the

Monday after the elections. And a huge amount will be going on on that Monday as a result of the

elections. And I love these live shows where things are happening as the show takes place on the

stage. It's happened many times before in this fibril era we're living through. And it just adds a layer of drama. So do come along

to one of those shows. Now, defence spending, isn't it interesting and depressing that in all

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