DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Defence cuts are a dereliction of duty

The thunder of war is rumbling ever louder.

With Vladimir Putin’s threats of nuclear strikes still ringing in the air, Ukraine has fired British long-range missiles at targets inside Russia for the first time. 

Sir Keir Starmer was right to rebuff the Kremlin’s scare tactics and give Kyiv the green light to launch the rockets. 

In such perilous times, it could not be more important that Britain shows it is serious about defending ourselves and our allies. 

So what message did Labour send out yesterday when it suddenly announced it was axing military capabilities to save money? The wrong one entirely. 

Defence Secretary John Healey said warships, helicopters and a fleet of drones would be decommissioned. 

Is this country being run by pacifists – or bean counters? Yes, the equipment was approaching the end of its shelf life and becoming uneconomical to repair.

And true, the cuts will recoup £500million to plough back into modernising the Armed Forces. But it will leave a gaping hole in Britain’s ability to project power when we are at the forefront of a global fight for freedom. 

Sir Keir Starmer (pictured) was right to rebuff the Kremlin’s scare tactics and give Kyiv the green light to launch the rockets

Surely it would have made more sense to wait until Labour’s strategic defence review was finished before deciding what kit to send to the scrapheap? 

Certainly, this will embolden Putin and other expansionist tyrants. 

It also risks annoying Donald Trump, whose incoming presidency has prompted uncertainty over America’s commitment to Nato.

Before the election, Sir Keir insisted that under a Labour government ‘national security will always come first’. That looks like yet another promise he’s broken. 

For the PM to spend billions posturing on foreign aid while winding down our defences is not only deranged. 

It’s also a dereliction of his first duty to keep UK citizens safe. 

More pain on the way 

It is overwhelmingly true that Labour governments leave the public finances in a worse state than when they took office. 

Usually, such damage takes place over several years. Sir Keir and his woeful Chancellor seem to have achieved it in weeks. 

Before the Tories were removed from power, the Office for National Statistics said the UK economy was ‘going gangbusters’. 

No less an authority than the Bank of England says that Ms Reeves’s short-sighted Budget, which ramps up spending and borrowing, will push inflation up further. Pictured: Rachel Reeves

Back then we had the fastest growth of all G7 countries. What a difference an election makes! 

Last week, it was revealed that under Labour, growth had slowed to a crawl between July and September. 

Now there is more unpleasant reading for Rachel Reeves, with inflation climbing to 2.3 per cent – a six-month high. 

True, this is a far cry from the spiralling food and energy prices seen recently. But it hardly bears well for the economic stability she promised during the election campaign. 

And more pain is on the way. No less an authority than the Bank of England says that Ms Reeves’s short-sighted Budget, which ramps up spending and borrowing, will push inflation up further. 

Experts say interest rates will have to stay higher for longer. In addition, the hikes in employers’ National Insurance and the minimum wage will raise unemployment, depress wages and force firms to close down. 

The dire consequences of the Chancellor’s all-out attack on the private sector in order to bloat the non-productive public sector was, sadly, all too predictable. No wonder two in five Britons believe they are worse off since Labour won power.

 Thanks to its overbearing arrogance, class-war spite and innumeracy, the party which says it puts working people first is comprehensively shafting them.