Alastair Campbell

And just to underline that, the one part, I mean, people are going to have all their criticism of Keir Starmer and, you know, he's faced plenty.

But he has managed to develop this reputation as being pretty sound on foreign affairs and defence.

So the one kind of really strong point that he has in his favour, John Healey today, is considerably undercut.

And I mean, I was speaking to a couple of ministers in the immediate wake of this, both of whom said,

said they did not see this coming at all.

They'd heard there were kind of murmurs and there were troubles.

And one said, actually, they thought that John had maybe underplayed his hand in the first part of the negotiations.

So the Treasury didn't really fully understand how kind of on the rampage he might end up being.

I don't know.

But neither of them saw this coming.

But both did say that it's kind of of a piece of...

Stuff just taking too long to resolve of decisions not being taken at the pace that they need to.

So, and if you just think, to think over the last few days, there we are on Sunday, President Zelensky flies into London.

Why London?

Because Keir Starmer has managed to develop this good relationship with Macron and Merz, the E3, the European three big defense powers.

And, you know, they say the right things and they talk about the support.

But then literally within two or three days to have your defense secretary come out and say that since we've started arguing about this defense investment plan, things have actually got tougher, not least because of Iran.

And he refers to the high north and the potential of war in the Arctic.

So I can't really answer your question.

It's very, very frustrating.