Kiran Stacey

The one political issue we need to deal with.

And not only have you just had his defense secretary resign saying you're not going to spend enough on defense.

But if you look at the statement he's put out, it is really damaging for the prime minister and probably for the party as a whole.

We think the military chiefs had said, we think this requires another £28 billion on top of what's already been promised.

They're always going high.

It's what the military chiefs do.

They were saying £28 billion over the next four years.

That got moderated, we're told, to a request for £18 billion.

What sources are now saying today is that the Treasury came back with their final offer on Monday afternoon and they said something in the realm of 14 or 15 billion pounds, only 10 billion pounds of which was new money, though.

And that seems to have been very important.

And a lot of it was backdated.

So it was due to come in towards the end of the four year period.

And what John Healy has said is the gap between what we wanted and what you're offering is one of whether our country is safe or not.

And that is such a huge accusation to make against the prime minister.

It's difficult to know.

If you listen to Treasury people, they will say, well, look, the problem you've got is the Ministry of Defence, as you say, Nosheen, always asks for too much, number one.

And number two, always mismanages its projects.

Very famous example of this, the Ajax tank programme, tanks that basically didn't work and ran up huge bills as the Ministry of Defence tried to build them.

And the Treasury always says, well, look, you don't run these programs very well.

You ask for a lot of money.