I'm John Batchel with my colleague Joseph Sternberg. He's in London. He writes political economics for the Wall Street Journal editorial page where he's a member of the editorial board.

We're speaking of where will Sir Kerr Starrmer, leading an overwhelming majority in parliament, find the money he needs in order to devote even 2.5% of the GDP

to defense building over these next years if the UK is to change its posture as a member of NATO

and a friend of the EU. I read a headline from the Telegraph, most recently, pointing to the difficulties ahead for sicker-star Marmer.

Benefits bill to be cut in ruthless, that's a quote, crackdown on wasteful spending.

Rachel Reeves, that's the Chancellor of the Exchequer, her deputy to say governments focus on efficiency and value for money, quote,

extends to our approach to welfare. Joe, it's called the dole in movies that I used to watch about

Britain recovering from the Second War. And today it has other euphemisms, but it comes down to the

question of why are so many people not working

and why is it more attractive not to work than it is to work in Britain? I believe those

are questions being asked by Labor. Well said. However, there's also in the telegraph now,

this is a Tory-sided paper reporting that there's a revolt building in the vast majority of up to 80 MPs.

Is that credible?

And what is welfare in Britain?

Is it different than in the U.S.?

We have a couple of minutes?

Well, I think that the issue that they are running into here in the U.K.

It's just the benefits offer has become extremely expensive.

And at the same time, the labor government is desperate to try to generate more economic

growth. And although they weren't quite admit it, I think that one thing that they might

have noticed is that the previous conservative party or Tory administration over the 14 years

that they were in power, one of the

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