whatever the merits of the argument it doesn't add a dollar to the UK defence - meanwhile - back at the monkey house:-
form the Parliamentary Sketch in the Times:-
Earlier the house was anaesthetised by an eighty-minute statement from James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, about his department’s “integrated review refresh”. Refresh: it has a zingy, splashy quality. One imagines invigoration, a swim in the North Sea in the altogether, a glass of lemonade on a summer’s day. Cleverly’s performance did not quite match this. What a galloping gasbag he proved. Phrases stalled. His flow became glacial. It was like watching a constipated terrier trying to do its morning business on the lawn. Push it out, for heaven’s sake.
Five sentences were used where one would have sufficed. Each answer was preceded by a lumbering tread to the despatch box. He kept saying “posture”: nuclear posture, international aid posture, global diplomacy posture, international defence posture. The questioners did not help.
Cleverly’s shadow, David Lammy, was given a few overblown minutes. It felt at least double that. Lammy dropped his chin and spoke in sub-Churchillian tones about “crisises” and “a multi-polar world”.
Alicia Kearns (C), Rutland’s Henry Kissinger, though she has a deeper voice, embarked on one of her celebrated Philippics. Alec Shelbrooke (C, Elmet) and Simon Hoare (C, North Dorset) rolled their eyes. Hoare was half Shelbrooke’s size. Looked like his packed lunch. One of the oldest tricks among bores is to ask for a review but given that this was a statement on a review refresh, surely that avenue was closed. Nope. John Baron (C, Basildon) demanded “a fundamental threat-based review”. Stephen Kinnock (Lab, Aberavon) altered the pitch slightly by demanding “an in-depth strategic audit”.
When we got on to “critical minerals strategy”, all I could think of was tonic water for a bucket of gin.