Alastair Campbell

He's very, very – I got a message today from somebody fairly high up in the MOD who said, you know, ministers come and go, but we were rather hoping this one wouldn't go.

He's respected.

He's been good at his job.

The first part of his resignation letter actually is just a sort of very long list of all the things that he and Keir Starmer have done together to boost our defences.

So I think it's a very big thing.

Can I just come in on that?

They would probably argue that they did, not least, we talked several times on the podcast about the fact that they have shredded overseas aid and development money to put it into defence.

We've also talked about whether the easier thing might have been earlier in the parliament to say, we're facing a new defence threat, we're going to put up tax.

They didn't do that.

So these are choices that you make.

I think what ministers have found more frustrating is the time that this has taken.

So we had the strategic defence review where George Robertson, Fiona Hill, Richard Bacon came together and wrote a pretty comprehensive defence review.

It was always projected that that would be part of a two-stage process.

Then would come the defence investment plan about how we get to these longer-term goals.

And it has been sort of just, you know, knocked about and knocked about.

I couldn't help thinking when I was reading John Healy's resignation letter, Ben Wallace, another former defence secretary that we spoke to on leading, if you remember in his interview,

How many times did he attack the Treasury?

I mean, it was relentless.

And I wonder if John Healy's just got to that point of saying, you can't reason with these people.

You've got to do it.