The list of ministers talking total bullshit nonsense to the media last night also included Luke Pollard MP, the armed forces minister.
His claim was that extra defence spending is a great contribution to Labour's growth agenda.
This is total drivel misinformation. Of all types of government spending that can contribute to growth, defence spending is easily the worst. This is for one straightforward and obvious reason. This is that defence expenditure produces nothing at all of value to the rest of society.
Defence spending is, in economic terms, the equivalent of digging holes and not even then filling them in again. Not only is no value created for anyone. The reality is that harm might well result, whilst resources that could be used for social purposes are lost to this activity.
To put it another way, defence spending is like the proverbial black hole into which the Tories claim, quite untruthfully, that most government spending is poured because, in this case, that is how, economically, it contributes to the economy.
I repeat, I am not saying we do not need defence spending. I am saying Labour ministers need to stop talking crap offering falsehoods in defence (pun intended) of this spending.
Alternatively, if they do not know that they're spouting untruths, they are not fit for office. I rather suspect Pollard falls into that category. He acts and sounds like a willing fool.
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[…] like his colleagues, is saying something he must know to be […]
The Guardian has obediently swung behind Starmer with 2 cringeworthy fluff articles today, by Rafael Behr & Zoe Williams.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/25/keir-starmer-foreign-aid-military-prime-minister-legacy
&
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/feb/25/starmers-message-after-slashing-aid-is-simple-of-course-you-should-be-alarmed
Yuk!
Neither of those two are noted for their backbones.
“extra defence spending is a great contribution to Labour’s growth agenda”
Some estimates suggest an economic multiplier of… minus 9 (i.e. for every £ of defense spending economic activity is reduced by £9).
Have the report for those interested (health spending has an economic multiplier in the range +2.5 to +4)
Agreed
I agree that military spending is not a good way to grow the economy. So, yes, Richard’s comments that Luke Pollard’s, claim that extra defence spending is a great contribution to Labour’s growth agenda is complete drivel. But that’s on a par with many (most?) statements from Labour ministers. 🙁
Defender spending is like an insurance policy. It doesn’t provide a direct benefit but seeks to avoid a greater harm. “If you want peace, prepare for war.”
However, the claim that the fiscal multiplier for military spending is -9 seems a bit off. A priori this seems unlikely and is a controversial claim. A 2022 paper:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047272722000330
concludes:
“Using data on military spending for more than a hundred countries, we estimate an annual government-spending multiplier, pooled across the sample, in the range 0.74–0.83 at a one-year horizon. The multiplier estimates remain significant over longer horizons. We also find that the multiplier is larger in developed countries than in developing countries, in recessions than in expansions, under a fixed exchange rate than under a floating regime, and in closed economies than in open economies.”
A fiscal multiplier of 0.74 is poor. It means for every pound spent the economy grows by only 75p. That’s a terrible rate of return. Much better, from that perspective, to spend on health or a plethora of other things. But it’s a far cry from actually shrinking the economy by defence spending.
And without defence spending we have no insurance.
Giving money to the unemployed and other welfare/benefit programmes have better multipliers than defense spending. Somehow those are unaffordable yet defense spending is vital for growth. Labour logic.
Why is the “growth” argument trotted out? I don’t know.
There IS an argument to justify more spending on defence – that we want to preserve our independence and way of life… and that of our near neighbours; just use that.
Indeed, the lack of a multiplying effect of defence spending (as it currently stands (importing expensive kit that, you hope, remains unused) means that its inflationary impact is very modest and suggests it could be done by increasing the deficit.
But, again, we need to drop the talk of money and focus on capability. We have become so financialized that we believe that allocating a budget means that it actually happens. It does not – a look Water Industry regulation tells us that…. allocating money to “investment” is not actually delivering improved performance.
Britain had a huge navy prior to ww2. And very little of the budget was spent on it. Defense spending was going down ever since the end of ww1. Britain quickly rearmed in ww2 because the British government had constructed the industrial base to do so in 1935. The Leyland motors factory was one of conservative government factories. So much for free market thinking.
But this is the whole contradiction of capitalist growth, isn’t it? It’s indifferent to usefulness. The more we go out and buy stuff and throw a lot of it away, so we have to go out and buy more, the more ‘growth’ we create. Indeed, it’s actually better if we throw stuff away and buy more, rather than actually contentedly enjoying what we already have. So in a way, spending on the military is ideal for capitalism, isn’t it? – buy lots of stuff and get it blown up, so you have to buy more…
My view is that they could afford defence spending and do everything else without having to make sacrifices. That to me is the big lie.
If they want to cut, lets get rid of bases abroad and think about shoring up national defences.
I would pull out of NATO and any other bullshit operation but keep France on side. Getting all pally with Norway is interesting – not sure about that at all. My view would be that we would project peace and unity abroad, but if anyone came wanting to kick my door down, they’d be making a big mistake. It would cost them dear. Defence would be a domestic policy area – not an international one. Peace and aid would be the international politics.
A little off topic but Jeffrey Sachs excellent speech to the EU parliament on 24 feb. on the Ukraine conflict and USA’s (and UK) role in it , the Democrat hawks stupidities and more (worth a look) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewvrbvEckxQ