This is John Batson, colleague Simon Constable, writing for the Wall Street Journal and

Barron's and other distinguished publications, lives in the south of France. He's in Englishmen.

And the news from home is that Kirstarmer and the labor government are proposing to reduce

benefits to the disabled, those who are not working, in order to make a

down payment on rearmament. I asked Simon what the BBC 4, Channel 4, makes of this.

Simon listens in the morning. This is a political talk for all of Britain, actually the whole

of the Commonwealth.

Simon's answer is complicated and conclusive.

Simon Constable on BBC 4's opinion of Secure Starmer and the Labor government,

cutting butter to buy guns.

More of this later.

Well, they were questioning ministers and saying, look, you know, if you have

someone with a serious disease and you're really going to cut that, you know, cut this benefit

from them, is that really fair? And I think that that question of fairness has been sort of driven over roughshod by the Labor government.

And I think that's very telling about the UK is that we know if someone's having a hard time.

We want to help them.

But the way it's been done and the way it's been rushed in after the need for more armaments was mentioned,

then it's just looking like they don't know what they're doing and they're just, you know,

panicking and stuff. So I think it looks bad always for Kier-Stama at the moment,

and that may, as I said, last for quite a while.