Future Career Prospects for Starmer

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK If you are currently overpaying on software to run your business Remember this number ten thousand That's the number of new businesses that join OdDu per month Join Odoo today at Odoo. com at OdWo. com. The United States is about to mark its two hundred fiftieth anniversary. And so on the gllobal story podcast from the BBC, we're telling surprising tales of American influence on the world stage and in ordinary people's lives all across the globe. We have this ability to export our story, and a lot of people bought it. I feel like the American Dream is alive, but not well rom the BBC, it's the United States at two hundred fifty. Listen on bbc d. com or wherever you get your podcasts. We've had the long awaited defeence investment plan, the Dip The dip as it's non shor h? I didn't know it was the dip until today. It is the dip. muchuch delayed the dip, setting out how the government's going to fund what it thinks it needs for defence over a long period of time And Frank Gardner is going to tell us all about it. But in order to do that, Frank, you had to go to a briefing at the Ministry of Defense to get the download on the detail before We all knew it, A secret briefing? Well, in the sense that we weren't allowed to say that we were going to it. But yeah, so I mean it wasort of I wouldn't exactly say it's James Bond, but we you know, you roll up at the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall, you get you show your ID, your name' on the list. and alongside about, I don't know. dozen maybe twenty journalists altogether, producers, You go down this corridor through various rooms and then it's sort of got little color codings according to what the The level of security is, so we went through the lowest level of security where you're allowed to still have your phone with you. If you go into one that's higher up, phone is taken off you and locked away in a box but we were allowed to go into a room. studied the printed document, but we could not communicate anything in it until we got the embargo releas thing. And the reason being that Parliament had already been shown the document. and We were told until the Defense Secretary gives his oral statement in Parliament and then sits down everything can be transmitted. but weirdly they kind of release bits and bits and dribs and dbs And a lot of what was in the defeence investment plan they released long before Dan Jarvis took his seat and sat back down again. So There were kind of staggered releases throughout. And all the while Sy and CNN and the Guardian are tapping away frantically. It reminded me a lot of sitting behind people in exams with, o God You know, I finished and everyone's still typing I must have done something wrong. Well, maybe you just absorbed everything in this document very, very quickly. and that was the point of this was to get so you could get your head around it quickly, which is great for us because that's what we're going to talk about with you on this episode of Newscast Wonderful ewscast. Newscast from the BBC. I will resign as leader of the Labour Party. And what will you do? Stare it at a wall. Humanity's next great voyage begins. You know I like my busses. I'll come ono them. It's supposed to be me as a doctor.. Thinking about it like a panter helped. Do we play music now or what do we do Hello, it's Alex in the newewscast Studio and it's James in the newewscast stududio. And it is Chris at Westminster. But not for long, Chris because you're off to Sheffield with Henry for Crossedwires. Yes Crossed wires. So it's a brillant we have every day newscast. Yeah exactly. This is Crossedwires with a Capital C and a Capital W. It's a brilliant podcast festival in Shefffield, where we get to meet all sorts of other podcasters, but more to the point we get to chat to lots of newscasters, which is a great joy and we'll be recording a newscast in front of a Lve audience in South Yorkshire on Friday afternoon and very much looking forward to it. Although the tickets are sold out already for this. Are they They are Chris. Yeah, I'm breaking the news to you. The newscast tickets are sold out, but there's a whole heap of other free shows that you can go along to. So if anyone's interested and you want to try and get tickets, you can go. thingsings like top comments, Fame under fire, gangsters. so yeah, heaps but not newscasts because they've been snapped up already. You'll be pleased to he So that's crossedwires if you want to go to that, although as you say, Alex, you can't go see N newscast unless you have your tickets already. Of course, you can listen on the BBC Sounds app. Yes, and that's no doubt what you'll be doing Frank. Frank Gardeners with us. Hello. Hello, hello, James. Now we're going to talk about the Defense investment plan. But before we get into the detail of what was announced, Chris, worth saying that this was Kir Starers' first speech since he resigned last Monday or announced his resignation last Monday. and not only that, but talking about the very thing that lots of people would say directly led to his downfall. Well, it was certainly a contributor. Yeah, it was a curiosity. really today in that we've been waiting for this defence investment plan for Eons I found myself yesterday in Manchester at a Andy Burnham event and today in Berkshire at a Kia Stara event. it felt a bit like a general election campaign, but then it's the guy who's the current prime mininister and the guy who's likely to be the next prrime minister, giving speeches one day after another. And then as you say the sort of medium term context is this is a prime minister who was desperate to get this defence investment plan out encountered so much internal political turbulence it cost him his defense secretary and his armed Forces minister just a matter of weeks ago and who's one of his final acts in office in all likelihood, assuming there isn't a challenge to Andy Burnham will be to attend the NATO summit in Ankara in Turkey next week. and he was desperate to have this plan out the door before he heads to that summit. So there he was at this drone manufacturer just to the west of London with the new Defense Secretary Dan Jarvis and indeed the Chancellor Rachel Reeves with a slight valedictory air in his tone. setting out at least in big picture terms before we got the document later in the day what it was he was trying to land with this defence investment plan and the trade offs involved in Dliver it and There's a couple of strings to that, aren't there? The idea that the UK needs to be more like Ukraine or at least needs to learn lessons from Ukraine in terms of being I think some people have described it as small and scrappy and investing in emerging tech, not least drones. And secondly, that The defense funding for the UK can't come at the expense Ove public services, although it has to come at the expense of something and there's a bit of a tussle there. So let's just have a listen to the Prime Minister talking about that financial balancing act. You have some people in this debate who underplay the threat and deny the need to prioritize defence and security You also have those who say you can fund defense without making sacrifices in other areas of capital spending And you have those arguing we can just raise borring put it all on them never never. But let's be clear, defense bonds are just borrowing by another name We've looked at this very carefully. But the fact is doing this through borrowing would push interest rates higher at a time when one pound in every ten already goes on paying debt interest. And this government has fought hard to bring the public finances under control. and it has paid off, helping to bring inflation and mortgage rates down We should not sacrifice that now Kiss This is the point that often gets missed Strong public finances are a fundamental part of our strength in this world lose control of them. We're not just poorer, we're much less secure. So that was the Prime Minister who when you listen to it, you got the sense that he was doing two things. He was making the case in his view that the governments found the money in a kind of fiscally responsible way to fund defence as he sees it needs to be done. But then there was also kind of that almost a bit of a nod to his political legacy with the reason we've done this is because the way we've managed stuff. And I mean, there's heaps of politics to this, which we'll get into in a second Frank, I guess a lot of people are going to listen and think, okay, so he's talking about fifteen billion pounds of extra extra spending as part of this defence investment plan What's it going to go on and what's it going to mean in real terms? Sure. Well, let's look at the kind of bold band numbers, which is that There's currently supposed to be a twenty eight billion pound gap in defence spending. That is the gap between water experts say is needed to pay for Britain's defence, to defend us properly and the money that's actually earmarked And that's why John Healley resigned because he said he was only being offered thirteen and a half of which Th billion was what's called treasury trickery, That's what was referred to. And it wasn't nearly enough Dan Jarvis took that job, as you know, parachute regiment officer. He spent the last three weeks looking at how to basically squeeze more out of it. It's not just how much money you've got, it's what you spend it on And they have shifted the defeense investment plan much more towards autonomous rootic systems, the idea being that OkayK, if there isn't that much more money, he managed to get an extra one billion odd out of treasury, but he has made it much closer to the kind of ways that wars are being fought currently using autonomous systems, AI And the idea being that all three services The Army Navy and the Air Force, Navy of course, includes the commandos, the Romine commandos u will be operating using a mix of crude, that's as in CREW ED, what used to be called mananned, but quite rightly, it's called crude these days. because So people on stuff, does that mean Exactly. People actually sitting in the control seat alongside fleets of drones, whether they're on the surface, underwater, in the air, flying alongside or in some cases, ground vehicles, which in Ukraine, for example, are being used to send kind of give replenishments, ammunition, fuel, food, water to troops who are stuck in some grim fox hole, unable to move because Russian drones are hunting them and vice versa you know, with the Ukrainians hunting Russians These things are being used to avoid risking humans. The idea being that look, there isn't that much money So they've got to make do with what they've got and this is trying to make the best with what they've got And there's a fundamental shift, particularly for the Royal Navy in terms of, we've talked about destroyers way back to the nineteenth century. and the UK has six destroyers at the moment and there was a plan to replace them with a new class of destroyer. the number hadn't, I don't think, been confirmed as to how many of some defense experts thought there might be half a dozen. And they're not going to do that, Frank. They're going to There's a lot of talk about this hybrid Navy. In fact, I heard you on the radio this morning talking about hybridization, which I struggle to say, but you said beautifully this morning. canan you tell newscasters what the hybrid Navy is how that is a change and you know what the thinking is behind it. Yeah, so first of all, the six destroyers that Britain has got are primarily air defense ships So The name is a bit slightly confusing really, but what they do is they're armed with a lot of very powerful missiles like Asts or Vipers, which can shoot down incoming missiles and they are In some way, Britain's best defense against any ballistic missiles that would be aimed at this country. At any one time, we don't have all six operational. There's always At least two, maybe more that are laid up. Some points it's been quite poor in that sense because they've had problems. haaven't actually in warm waters. Correct. ye. U So these were the Type forty five destroyers, which were pretty good We werere due to be replaced by something called Type eighty three's. Those are now being scrapped in favour of something called common vessel, CCVs, smaller, cheaper, but each one of these will operate a whole fleet of drones. And by drones I'm not talking about the kind of quadcopter thing you might get in in a you know, in a shop. These are In some cases they are going to be barges that have got nobody on them, but have got a whole rack of missiles that can be remotely sent out into the North Atlantic. Some people have said, lookook, it's not entirely right to say draw all your lessons from Ukraine because We've got a particular problem in Britain, which is that we are quite close to what's called the Greenland Iceland UK Gap It's where Russia's SSB ends, its's nuclear armed ballistic missile submarines. Come out of Gjiev in the Kola Peninsula near Muransk come around the corner of the North Cape into the Norwegian Sea and then they try to disappear. And these are the submarines that are carrying multiple nuclear warheads. So Britain wants to track them and know where they are. so do the Norwegans, so does the whole of NATO. The Americans likewise So We've got this big strategic task that can't be abandoned, but you can with the use of underwater drones and sensors you can basically punch up what you have got. It's not ideal. lookook, there's no question about it. Britain would be that much better defended if the government poned up, you know the full twenty eight billion, But it's not going to do that And who knows what the next government will do? but they are making the most of what they've got. It's interesting on that point, Chris. So Frank mentioned obviously John Heley resigned over this, as we know, really well documented, and the Treasury has apparently found a little bit more now for this new defeense investment plan, but still short of what many people think is needed. When you're picking over the numbers, and it was interesting, I thought to hear Kir Starmer make quite a lot when he was giving the speech today about how they found that money by not borrowing, by looking through other government departments, by you know it's taking it from almost trying to spell out the trade offffs that the government's having to make to find even this little bit extra, which isn't the entire fully funded amount that the MOD had originally wanted, Chris. Yeah, precisely, precisely that. And the Prime Minister, having watched him up close over the last couple of years and indeed before that in opposition, he's always been quite keen to spell out the reality of trade offs. But I thought he did it even more so today perhaps just acknowledging the reality of his tenure coming to an end, but also the day to day reality of being Prime Minister always, but perhaps particularly at the moment with a combination of a economy that is struggling and a tax burden is that is historically pretty high and then the pressure to spend a lot more on defense at just the same time that the welfare budget is going up. In other words, he is confronted by grizzly trade offffs the whole time. And yeah, he was saying explicitly that he thought that any more borrowing wouldn't be economically responsible. He didn't name them, but he was having a pup at the Lberal Democrats because they've talked about this idea of defense bonds to allow you to borrow more money to spend it on defense. he described that as being on the on the never never, and that it would amount to borrowing whatever you decided to call it. And then talking explicitly about the trade offs. and this afternoon, since the Prime Mister's speech, we've heard an element of the backwash to those trade offff. So one of the planned infrastructure projects that is now under threat is the A forty six in the Midlands. And so we have Hamish Fulkner, who is a minister and he is the MP for Lincoln. public talking about his disappointment about the uncertainty of the A forty six Newark bypass widening scheme. and the MP for Newark, Robert Generick of Reform also registering his frustration and talking about how a reform government, in his view they claim would deliver this road project. So there you are with a precise example of the of the trade offs here. The other elements of this that is currently being unpicked as we look through the numbers in the document is where does this le this plan Lave Andy Burnham, assuming as we do, he becomes Prime minister in pretty short order in the next couple of weeks, even meeting the funding requirements of this plan in the years ahead, let alone the acknowledgement from the former Defense Secretary John Heeeley and the current Defense Secretary Dan Jarvis that come the next spending review and the big questions about the budgets of the next decade, half decade to a decade that in their view, they'll have to be more on top of what is already promised You mentioned both of them there, John Heley and Dan Jarvis and they had a discussion. Is a discussion the right word about this? Exchange. Exchange in this afternoon. So why don't we have a listen to that Threats are still growing Demands on defence are still rising in this dangerous world They st means that we will be spending as a nation two point seven percent. GDP on defence in twenty thirty date that NATO now warns we could face a Russian attack So with European security at stake My right hble friends agreed. the more needs to be done in the months ahead, beyond the dip to develop a clear, credible funding plan that will hit three percent and that will meet our NATO commitment of three point five percent By twenty thirty five. Madamresident, I am very grateful to Rot friend for his service in government. He did an excellent job as defefence Secretary and I aim absolutely to build on the work that he did. I know that he will share the pride that this Government has in the commitment that we have already made ER two hundred ninety eight billion Over the next four years, fifteen billion pounds of new money in this plan and with an increase in defense spending in real terms by twenty seven percent to twenty nine thirty But he's right We do need to do more, we will need to spend more defence on defence, and that's why there was a clear commitment that that will be a number one priority at the next spending review We have an absolute obligation to our armed forces and to our allies. When I talk to my NATO allies, they look to the United Kingdom for leadership That is leadership that we have provided over a number of years, including under the previous government, but it is a leadership that this Gvernment will continue to provide So I think kind of beyond the politics of all of this, There are three tests fundamentally that I think you can apply to this defence investment plan as to whether it is to work One is Does it fulfill Britain's commitment to NATO? Does it allow Britain to step up to the plate and do for NATO what it is expected to Now in terms of two point seven versus three percent, that's a bit of a bit of a fail I'm And in terms of the size of Britain's army, which is only going to set to rise to seventy six thousand from the current seventy three seventy four thousand, but at least it's reversing that decline and Is there enough money J no, there's not enough money for what people wanted But as I say, they are trying to make what there is go further Is it fit for purpose for the twenty first century? Is it configured Is this plan configuring Britain's military to fight a modern twenty first century war And I would say it goes some wayere towards it. The problem is we don't know what's around the corner, so there's this huge investment in drones But the raays of countrying drones is electronically through electronic warfare You know, it's perfectly possible that a few years down the line, there will some new technology will come on that we hadn't even thought of in this studio today will possibly make some of this stuff already obsolete. That's what happens with defence procurement. It's always many years It lags many years behind. but Unfortunately, Britain has a pretty poor track record in wasting a lot of money on projects that don't always deliver when it comes to defence procurement. It doesn't mean to say you shouldn't do it. Of course you' got to do it, but it needs to be tightened up. You've set out three really good questions there. I'm going to add another one on top of that, which I'd love to ask you, Alex, and Chris about which is Is even this, even with the cuts to roads and energy projects fully funded? Because I think I'm right in saying that when I was looking through the detail, there was some suggestion that a big chunk of even this funding hasn't quite been identified yet. Is that right? Yeah, that's what it says in the document. So on the government website, they published the plan itself and then a sort of explanation of the financing behind the fifteen billion extra And in that, it says that so far some ten billion of that has been identified with some four point something billion, I think it's about four point six, four point seven billion to still be identified in the budget in twenty twenty six. And this is where it comes back to Chris's point really about how this is going to have to sit pretty high on the incoming Prime Minister, widely presumed to be Andy Burnham at the top of his int tr and to do list, because there's that immediate potential thing? like is there still another four point something billion to be identified in funding this defence investment plan Question two then comes back to this question about trade offs, which the Prime Minister was being so explicit about today, but as Chris says, you already see the pushback when it comes to a specific road scheme that there's now a question mark over in order to fund defence. And that's the real essence of the choices that politicians have to make because everybody might want to say we need more money for defence or we need more money for the NHS, or we need more money for education But when you start to have to spell out what's going to not have money spent on it as a direct consequence, there's quite often a kind of pushback. And then there's that outstanding much bigger question for Andy Burnham about the route to three point five percent of GDP, which is the government's committed to that NATO target by twenty thirty five, but that's not funded in this plan And Chris, so is from what Alex is saying there, if there's an extra four point seven billion to find Is that a whole lo lot of other roads projects that are going to be cut. and there's going to be a whole lo lot of big arguments about them and not more government ministers and or backbenchers jumping up and down and getting angry? Well it's a fair question. Absolutely. I mean Kar Stama didn't say this today, but there was a sort of subtext that almost amounted to you know This stuff's really difficult, Andy, over to you There was kind of a sense of that. You know that these trade offs are really, really tricky. And you know what? onene of the thoughts just on this wider thing? I was struck by from a conversation I had today at this event with somebody who's steeped in defense but also steeped in politics and it's a recurring thing. it heads more frrank into your territory than to mine, but I see it on the political side And it's the extent to which country, society governments I've properly started a conversation about might be necessary in terms of defence spending into the next decade and beyond and with what consequence and with what trade off. And this person was talking about a political meeting they'd been at, not a vast amount of time ago with a crowd of folk who are talking about priorities and all the rest of it, and you won't be surprised, but it's just worth making the point that they were talking about the NHS and the state of schools and potholes and You know, road schemes, et cetera, et cetera, and barely anyone mentioned defense. So whilst there might be a recognition in the big picture because we see the pictures and all the rest of it about the situation in Ukraine and elsewhere, where does it sit in the list of priorities in the kind of national psyche? And plenty of folk within the defense political world that I come across sort of say, look, we get that we need to spend more money on this, but we haven't yet landed the argument more broadly. The theory being that if you can land that argument, maybe necessarily easier, but not quite as really damn difficult to make the political argument about the trade offs that become necessary Yeah, I think the trouble is for any government, it's just not a vote winner. you know, unless the country is very visibly under threat. It's not a vote winner and I think it's worth sort of looking at what other European countries pay. So we currently spend roughly two point five percent of our national wealth of our GDP on defence far less than we used to spend during the Cold War That compares with, say, three point three percent for the Americans three point seven percent for Germany. And the Baltic States and Poland all spend around four percent or more because they are closer to the threat Russia spends about seven point five percent of its GDP. It's put its entire economy onto a war footing and it's been there for the last three or four years. So In terms of percentage terms, we lag quite far behind and there is no There's no plan, there's no roadmap as to how we're going to get to that three point five percent Now if you remember at a recent NATO summit, and I'm going to be going to anchor it by the way too, which will be really interesting. It'll be Stalmmer's last summit, I guess. I will see you there, Frank. Very good. Well, I doubt I know would that be ask't we have Spain. Yeah, no exactly. Donald Trump is almost certainly going to be given You know, stammer a bit of an arm twisting, say come on, your last act. is to bump this up and do a bit more because he would like to see Britain do a lot more to lead in Europe of NAT for NATO and to spend more There's a lot of political pressure to do that because U.S military commanders are now worried that Britain's military is so small and in some cases, under funded they question what sort of a contribution it can really make. And of course, you couple that with The bad vibes coming out of Washington because You know, Trump is cross that Britain didn't join him in his Persian excursion, as some people have referred to it done in the Strait of Hormuz. You know, it was a war of choice that Britain decided not to get involved in, and I think most of the country would say, well, thank goodness for that On the NATO point There's something that you hear quoted or said, and in fact Jhn Hilly the former defeense seecretary, making this point today as part of his argument for more defense investment, was this NATO warning that a Russian attack be likely by twenty thirty. We're already in twenty twenty six. and I just wonder for you know newscasters or people listening at home. I mean, that's just a really sobering thought. But do we know like ence of that how likely that is what's behind that, Frank? I'm partly to blame, I think because that's out a bit a blame. single handedly declared war on Moscow. No, it's not that is because last year I interviewed the head of Germany's arrmed Forces or the chief of staff, somebody called General Carsten Breyer. And he was the first senior military figure to say, we have to be prepared for the possibility that Russia will attack a NATO country by twenty thirty. Now that's not to say it's going to happen Putin is in a bind his Special military operation has turned into a quagma for him He's hemorrhaging men money and material in Ukraine and he's not winning. He's not necessarily losing, but he's not winning. So there is a fear that he's going to look for some kind of distraction And there is something that I call the Narva test Narva is a town in the east of Estonia right on the river Navva hard up next to Russia's border It has a majority Russian speaking population totally conceivable that Putin will one day say We had to go in and defend those poor Russian speaking people because they begged us to do it and they're being oppressed by the beastly nasty NATO governments there are in Talin and Were he to do that Certainly at a round table I've recently been at The expectation is that we couldn't rely on Trump's America to come to NATO's aid. So Europe would quite possibly be on its own. And that doubt is dangerous because it sews in Putin's mind the possibility that he might be able to get away with what he did in Crimea in twenty fourteen What he did in Georgia in two thousand eight and what he has tried to do since twenty twenty two in Ukraine And that is just funnily enough, what I was thinking about a minute ago, when you were saying that the United States would criticize Britain in the terms you were describing, is that the UK and other European nations might well retort, well, it might not be that the UK is able to defend itself or other NATO allies, but at least it would be willing to do so, which could not necessarily be said of President Trump by we assume, given or you know, nobody knows that for sure that he wouldn't if Article five of the NATO Treaty, which regards an attack on one nation as an attack on all members were invoked, which'll never been invoked once, hasn't it? for nine hundred and eleven? Yes. So that, Chris is a big challenge for the incoming Prime Minister. who we do assume will be Andy Burnham in terms of I mean this is a big strategic question for him, a big pol geopolitical question. Do the UK get closer to Europe? Does it need to do more with Europe? Is NATO where it needs to be focused in terms of defense and security, or is there an alternative to NATO that doesn't rely on or doesn't consider the United States as such a dependable or important ally Chris and that's a challenge, isn't it? Massive, massive, massive challenge. The Prime Minister is talking lot today about European security, effectively nodding to without saying it explicitly, exxactly that point Frank was mentioning there about the prospect of a scenario where America is not willing to help out NATO allies. And for Andy Burnham who likely is in Downing Street in three weeks time confronting this wider challenge as he adjust to the whole business of international affairs in the job. Who does he make his defense secretary? Who does he make his foreign secretary? Who does he make his Chancellor? All of this will play into these discussions around the funding gaps and then the longer term questions And to put it gently, this kind of stuff is not something that sits in the intro of the mayor of Greater Manchester. It's the massive step up that in all likelihood he's about to make. And again, to pick up on Frank's point about defence not usually being a vote winner unless there is a real sense of imminent tangible threat how does he in juggling the tricky trade offs try and meet the demands that will come his way very, very quickly around defence whilst also being conscious that he is maximum three years away from her a general election. it's really, it's really tough. And some of these things may in the very short term be arked mentally in the political conversation because of the novelty of an incoming prrime mininister and who their cabinet is and if you like the theatre, the drama around. But what mattered about this morning and matters massively about the NATO summit next week is that so many of these macro questions, not least the international picture, are absolutely live and will fundamentally be exactly the same. for a new Prime Minister coming in as they have been for K Stara and in their own way have contributed to to Kir Stama's kind of premature political demise One of the things, Chris, that's buried and you've probably seen it in the small print in the Defense invasment plan is three hundred thirty million pounds earmarked. for protecting Britain's undersea cables. Now I think this is the one area where if there is to be a national conversation S people who might otherwise say, look, I couldn't give a stuff about defence. it's somebody else's problem. Ukraine, yeah, whatever. might actually sit up and take notice because Britain has about sixty undersea cables on which it depends almost entirely for the transmission of its data. it's financial data telecoms, etca Plus, you've got the gas electricity pipelines We're an island. We depend on the stuff that's coming from Norway, from across the Atlantic. and these are actual physical fiber optic cables that go all the way down onto the seabed. Now Russia has been scoping these out using part of their defence ministry called GoogI, GUGI Don don't ask me what it stands for in Russian, but it pretends to be deep water research for that read sabotage and subversion. So you know what they do is they're kind of scoping out where these cables are and in the event of war, they will cut them deep sea submersibles that can deploy from their ships can go down to extraordinary depths thousands of meters with effectively a giant pair of scissors that can cut these cables. So that's three hundred and thirty million pounds that's EMar for protecting these cables. Even that probablyper isn't enough, but it's a start But that is an area, I think where people might sort of, I mean, the analogy I often give is I take my phone out of my pocket and say,' odd I can't get through to my bank. I've got no signal. That's really odd. Hang on, the cash points aren't working That's when people will realize what a Russian threat to this country means. It's not a mushroom cloud over London or Manchester, God forbid It's far more likely to be something non kinetic, but that really damages our way of life Make no mistake, Putin hates this country And picking up from that in terms of reimagining what modern conflict could look like just last week and this plays into this wider conversation about the national debate around around our security just last week a load of the armed services had an exhibition in Speaker's courtyard in Parliament in the blisteringly hot sunshine of last week's heat wave where under various canopies, they brought their latest Gizmos to effectively show off to MPs, but also educate MPs and the rest of us, journalists and anybody else who was kind of passing through about kids that In their view, we need to combat exactly those kind of threats, Frank are needed and how expensive they are and the technology development around them. And in fact, one of these things I was being shown was of one of these underwater drones that can go down and look to see if any of our crucial wires have had basasically suspicious stuff attached to them And this is the I guess this is the front line, isn't it? in the currently in the is battle the right word? I don't know, Tussle, but conflict is probably not quite the right word, but with Russia. Yeah, whichich I think you know why it's wrong to say Oh we're cutting X,Y, Z to pay for more guns. It isn't about guns. It's about ways to defend this country. It's about, you know, non lethal ways of stopping people from hurting us, and that in many cases involves powering, frankly, lots of computer people, you know to sit behind screens You know, they might be in t shirts and flip flops, but they're defending this country that is part of defence. Another person who I bumped into today at this event who I asked, you know what this person did and they had to be quite careful about some of the specifics as you'll understand in this kind of world, said, it's not the sexy way to describe it. They' sort of reflecting, but They're a computer programmer. That's what they do. It happens to be at the cutting edge of defense and drone technology and lots of things I wouldn't claim to understand. But it's absolutely this, That is the frontier of this new of how countries think about how they might attack one another or try and undermine one another. I mean talking about jobs, Chris and what people do for their jobs. I've been reading and probably might be putting you on the spot here actually, but I've been reading some of the reports about what Kir Stahmer might have his eye on next, potentially even the NATO Secretary general Gig You got any intelligence? excluse upon? There's all sorts of things flying around because as is inevitable in any walk of life or in any business or whatever, when when a vacancy becomes available then and I'm talking here about the prrime mininisterial vacancy. then there's a whole set of conversations that follow on obviously in a very Westminster and cabinet context. and then for someone like Kia Stara, what might he choose to do next somebody who I think has been I think it's reasonable to say has been perhaps more comfortable often on the international stage than he has been on the domestic one. O of course he's had some flack for all that the whole never hear Kar thing whichich he pushes back from and talks about how the international and the domestic are one of the same thing in the contemporary world. But yeah, what about various vacancies at international organizations that may crop up in the next couple of years? The honest answer, I mean, who knows, let's see. One thing that some say is that he might revel in doing exactly that Others within the Labour Party are acutely conscious to make a more parochial point in all of this that Were he to find himself in a role that meant he could no longer be a member of Parliament That would mean a by election in Hoban and St. Pancras in Central London, which I suspect the Green Party might be quite keen on having a real R out. So let's see, who knows I mean, there's all sorts of things he could end up doing domestically where he stays in Parliament in the way that we should se seeen ouras, etcetera, et cetera. But yeah, there is a bit of chat about what he might do whether whether he thinks he's got another big job in him Well, whether or not he's going to be whatever Secretary Genal of NATO or whatever, yourour colleague Beth Rigby seems to have a new job, Chris. from the news conference you were at with the Prime Minister earlier. She does. Have you got the clip there? You you can play the clip? Yeah, yeah yes, let's hear it. Let's hear it from Skyportseth rugby I wish I. I wish it was. Thank you. Sky Ns for not Sky sports, but I'm sure you could do that as well Beth was given, I think what Beth would acknowledge as something of a promotion by the Prime Minister there I don't say that as any slight to our brilliant colleagues at Sky News. I think Beth said if we heard that correctly, something like IDream or something something along those lines. Beth can ask a devilish set of questions. She's a great interviewer. so I wonder if the Prime Minister would was sort of secretly imagining a world Beth had been at Sky Sports for much of the last couple of years rather than throwing sort of verbal challenges in his direction. Tom Mr Doogl might not have wanted that quite so much this is true. To be fair to the Prim Minister, I should say because he's had a rough old time politically, he's never shied away from coming on and taking difficult questions and always acknowledges the role that journalists have have in a you know, in a democracy asking tough questions of those in power Good, and you're always happy to ask them. It inde. That's the job. Thank you very much, Chris Thank you, Frank. Thanks, James. Thanks, Alex Well, that's nearly all from us. But before we go, thank you for all your applications to be supportupp a Rorter. Support a reporter, right? I'm fascinated by this because I did dare, I hate to confess. I did dare to take a few days off. So I've missed the genesis of support a report right and I find it Genius. 'sood. It's Adam's thing, not mine, but take credit, J in just He's nice to explain it, even though Adam is Adam's these things are always Adam's. they are the teams, to be fair Adam has a lot of these things. Anyway, Sorter Rorter, I think was a good idea because it is we're trying to find a newscaster in every country that's playing in the World Cup finals, or at least with very good connections to them And we have another one, Alex. Okay from Fiona and Fiona sayss this is a good one. I like this one. Thanks, Fiona. Newscast has become essential listening for me, especially as I'll be moving to London in August as the correspondent for Swiss, public broadcaster, radio and TV. Oh congratulations and welcome. Though, if the government really does head it further north, I might end up reporting for the doorstep of number ten North in Manchester Instead. And Funo goes on, I could also be your supporter reporter with a link to Switzerland because I'm Swiss. I live in a village in the Swiss countryside of just two thousand people. That sounds nice. I played football as a girl and at the time the men's team were the only public role models we had. These days I normally prefer watching the women's games, but I'm still enjoying this year's World Cup and I'm thrilled Switerland has made it this far And Fiona says the time difference and late night matches aren't a problem for her because our one year old Kyryn has decided that three AM is party time. Thank. Thank you, Fiona. and thank you, Kyiron. I'm sure your mum thanks you at three AM as well all of the time. So if you want to be our supporter reporter, you can do that, just get in touch. You can email newscast at bbc dot co dot u