The Edition: Britain is not ready for war – and Labour isn’t doing enough
Best of the Spectator
The Spectator
4.3 • 826 Ratings
🗓️ 20 February 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
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Summary
Britain is defenceless, declares the Spectator's cover piece this week. From the size of the armed forces to protection against cyber warfare, the government is not spending fast enough to meet the UK's security challenges. But is the public ready to choose warfare over welfare? And can we blame the young people who don't want to fight for their country?
For this week's Edition, host William Moore is joined by opinion editor Rupert Hawksley, columnist Matthew Parris, and Whitehall editor of the Financial Times Lucy Fisher.
As well as meeting Britain's defence challenge, they discuss: whether the Mandelson scandal is bigger than the Profumo affair; the organised gangs terrorising rural farmers in the UK; and, why some people just can't get enough of conspiracy theories.
Produced by Patrick Gibbons.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On Tuesday the 24th of March, our speakers will debate the motion, |
| 0:04.0 | this House believes we should abolish the licence fee. |
| 0:07.2 | Spectator Chairman Charles Moore and the telegraphs Alison Pearson |
| 0:10.2 | will propose the motion with Spectator editor Michael Gove |
| 0:13.4 | and former BBC America editor John Sopel opposing. |
| 0:16.8 | I'm Isabel Hardman and I'll be in the chair to maintain decorum and take your pressing questions. |
| 0:22.2 | Join us on Tuesday the 24th of March at 7pm and book your tickets at Spectator.com |
| 0:27.7 | forward slash debate. |
| 0:36.3 | Hello and welcome to the edition from The Spectator. |
| 0:39.6 | I'm William Moore, the Spectator's Features Editor. |
| 0:42.3 | The latest issue of the magazine has just gone to print, |
| 0:45.5 | and to talk about what's in it, I'm delighted to be joined by the Spectator writer Matthew Paris, |
| 0:50.1 | our opinion editor, Robert Hawksley, and the Whitehall editor of the Financial Times, Lucy Fisher. |
| 1:00.6 | This week's cover piece is defenseless, and in it, Tim Shipman reflects on the grim state of Britain's armed forces. |
| 1:09.1 | Well, Lucy, I'd love to start by coming to you. We're a week on |
| 1:12.4 | now from the Munich Security Conference in which we heard about all these threats to Britain, |
| 1:17.2 | all these renewed warnings. Does the state of Britain's armed forces concern you, as Tim |
| 1:22.7 | describes in detail in the piece? Well, look, it's a really important piece by Tim that I think brings to |
| 1:29.1 | the four several problems facing the government here. The first and most obvious one is around |
| 1:34.6 | funding. There is this funding gap of around £28 billion over the next decade for the government |
| 1:41.7 | to fulfil its flagship strategic defence review that came out last year. |
| 1:47.0 | And the government, in a classic sort of whitehall trick, brought out the shopping list of what it needs to defend the country, |
... |
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