Hello and welcome to Inside Briefing, the podcast from the Institute for Government. I'm Hannah White.

So recess is over and Parliament is back and I hope everyone's feeling very rested because June is shaping up to be a pretty big month for the government.

The spending review is now just days away. We've had months of negotiations, endless briefings

more and more as the day draws nearer and hours of number crunching. It all comes to an end on

Wednesday when Rachel Reeves reveals how much money government departments will be given

for the next few years. So what choices are

facing the Chancellor? How much money does she have to play with? And what will her decisions reveal

about the government's priorities? We will take a look. But this week began with another big

government reveal, and that was the publication of the Strategic Defence Review, long awaited,

and quite long, 14 144 pages and 62 recommendations,

all accepted by the government to help get the UK fighting fit to, in the review's words,

fight and win a full-scale war. So there really is a lot to talk about today. And joining me

throughout is Alex Thomas, IFG's programme director

for the civil service and former civil servant. Hi Alex. Hi, Emma. And I am delighted that we're

joined today by Tom Newton Dunn, former political editor and defence correspondent at the Sun,

broadcaster, commentator and now host of a brand new podcast. Hi Tom. Hello, thank you for having

me. So tell us about your new podcast.

What's it called? And what are you going to be talking about? Well, it's called the general and

the journalist. It's been produced by The Times where I work. I'm the journalist, half of it.

The other half is General Patrick Sanders. He's the general bit of it. And as you'll know,

he was Chief of the General Staff, head of the British Army, until last summer,

about 11 months ago. So he's just stepped down. And it's really to encapsulate conflicts,

...