he did read the papers - he disagrees with them
"The Royal Navy is tiny. One of its two aircraft carriers is
an embarrassing dockyard case. Britain’s shipbuilding skills are notoriously weak, which is why sailors’ hearts sink when new warships are ordered here instead of from foreign yards, which deliver better vessels for less money."
"Most new defence money is going to support maritime capability, Johnson’s vision of “global Britain”. Yet the Ukraine invasion almost immediately exposed as unrealistic the “
Indo-Pacific tilt”, proclaimed by the government in 2021’s Integrated Review. Whatever the outcome of the war, it seems essential for us to contribute to permanent Nato tripwire forces in Poland and the Baltic states, to deter further Russian aggression. Like it or not, Europe is our continent"