The case for spending on defence

Also: an epitaph for our times, and a novel way to read the news

Photo by Alastair Grant/ WPA Pool/Getty Images

The pitch-perfect return after a journey of more than 700,000 miles, travelling at nearly 25,000mph: that was Artemis II. A successful, against-all-odds search for a downed airman in Iran, using secret technology to track a heartbeat in the wilderness, which seems to come more from science fiction than the physical world. And, thirdly, eerie and unsettling reports about the latest AI breakthrough, Mythos, from the tech company Anthropic. If there is anyone left to write the history of our times, our epitaph might be: their machines were never so brilliant, their political leadership never so bad. Which of these things matters more? You know the answer, which is why you are reading this magazine. And yes, the brilliant and the awful originate in the same place.

Turbulation tribulation

Is there a single word for accelerating turbulence? Apparently so: it’s turbulation, which is new to me. Amid the turbulation, Keir Starmer is learning on the job. The Iran war, the Prime Minister says, will define us for a generation and we must respond with strength. The Defence Secretary, John Healey, adds that we are in a new era of defence because of this new era of threat.

Good words, truthful words, but in the end words, words, words. Where is the investment review? Where is the accelerated spending in response to our embarrassing military weakness? Where’s the missile defence? Starmer, Healey and the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, are the people to answer the question, and until they do Trump’s jibes will continue to sting. This will all connect to domestic politics next month. We don’t know yet what the May elections will do to Starmer. I am hearing quite loud “not dead yet” vibes from Scotland, where Anas Sarwar is fighting hard; further south, Lucy Powell, who could have been the thorniest thorn in Starmer’s side, is doing her bit to fight his corner.

Strategic investment

Neither of the obvious challengers in Westminster, Wes Streeting and Angela Rayner, seems to have the appetite to move; on recent media rounds, Streeting could not have been more impeccably loyal to the PM. But surely cabinet ministers reading polling showing them losing their seats, one after another, to Reform and the Greens, will heighten the tension?

So after his instinctive got-it-right call to defy Trump, how does the Prime Minister leverage this into longer-term purpose? International leadership requires relevance. Without an effective military defence, and being outside a larger bloc, we don’t have it. The shelving of the Diego Garcia legislation because of Trump’s hostility is just another example of our strategic weakness. And that means, of course, Keir Starmer’s as well.

If he wants to exploit the moment, he has no choice but to finally push the Treasury into a larger and faster rebuilding of proper defences in a hostile world, while continuing the turn to Europe. It means following through and it means making the argument, day after day. If I was holding my breath, I fear I’d be lying on the ground blue-faced and unconscious by now.

A golden age on stage

Outside politics, thank goodness, we still live in an age of giants. Suzie Miller, the playwright who gave us Prima Facie, and now Inter Alia, is a writer for the ages. In Miller’s new play, Rosamund Pike gives a performance I will remember to my dying day – up there with Mark Strong and Lesley Manville in Oedipus two years ago; Brian Cranston in All My Sons and Andrew Scott in just about everything. I wasn’t there, but I can’t believe that British theatre in its alleged glory days of Gielgud, Ashcroft and company during the last century was better than what we’re being offered now. In London, it’s a golden age.

Not, however, in Primrose Hill. I wrote recently about the wonderful work being done to de-escalate knife violence, and it is really impressive. But on one warm holiday evening we lost a wonderful young man to a knife attack, and another injured. Everyone is grieving. Some of us recall, also, that the Royal Parks police were disbanded by the Met in November.

Paper trail

Confession: I am not this week “at large” but at home, painting, ahead of a show at Eames Fine Art in Bermondsey, alongside works by my great art heroine, the late Gillian Ayres. Because I no longer have my own studio and work in the kitchen, I’ve had to buy lots of paper to lay down everywhere to avoid a truly catastrophic mess. It turns out that some news sites on my smartphone also print out their stories, with pictures, in colour, on paper. You can buy bundles of the stuff in shops. It’s better. My attention isn’t snatched away by whining alerts from social media sites. This could catch on. Maybe, one day, we should try a paper edition of the New Statesman?

[Further reading: Andy Burnham’s backers are trying a rebrand]