Chris Mason

You might remember in that essay writing competition that was going on during half term a few weeks ago, Tony Blair talked about

in his view, you know, the damage that that causes.

And it might not be a popular argument for many to crank it back up again, but that it would be a useful thing.

So the Prime Minister can point to these, you know, the difficult decisions with his colleagues, the difficult trade-offs, say, with international aid, but he then still confronts the reality that as far as...

John Healy's concerned, Al-Qaeda's concerned, plenty of people who've served in the military are concerned.

It's not touching the sides in terms of the money that they think defence needs.

And then we will find out when the defence investment plan is ever published.

And his commitment is to do it before the NATO summit in Ankara in a couple of weeks' time.

Everyone's sort of thinking it might be next week, but I suspect that might be a bit soon if they're having to find a way of re-presenting it so it doesn't sound

Like it's the thing that John Healey rejected.

Completely.

I mean, on the timing.

So as you say, they're sticking to the same public deadline.

Dan Jarvis, the new defense secretary, will go to a NATO defense minister's meeting next Thursday.

He has to decide and the government has to decide.

Are they just going to press on with it and publish it?

Or is there scope for some sort of rewriting?

But the thing is, it's not really rewriting because, okay, there might be some arguments to go on about what's in it in terms of what the money is being spent on.

The critique is principally one of, is there enough money?

And if there is an acknowledgement that that's not the case, then the process gets infinitely more complicated.