Shots fired on defence spending

Plus: Labour lessons from Down Under, and the case for inequality

Jun 30, 2026

Better late than never. Some nine months after it was due, the Government’s Defence Investment Plan was published today – with £15 billion in extra military spending. That’s far less than our defence chiefs think they need (see our Stat of the Day, below), and even this figure will force PM-to-be Andy Burnham’s new chancellor to find another £4.7 billion in this autumn’s Budget. A charming leaving gift from Starmer to his successor.

The Amos review into the scandalous state of Britain’s maternity care was also released today, and the Government has already committed to implement its recommendation to create a maternity commissioner – something Theo Clarke advocated for in CapX back in January.

Astonishingly, the report also found that maternity wards did not always have senior doctors on duty at nights and weekends. There have been some 750 recommendations on how to fix maternity care since 2015. Let’s hope this set finally delivers.

Below you’ll find all the latest pieces from CapX, plus what we’re reading from around the web.

Marc Sidwell
Editor, CapX

Today’s Takes

Fresh thinking from CapX

*Bob Hawke campaigning with his wife Hazel. Patrick Riviere/Getty Images*

What New Zealand and Australia can teach Burnham

Roger Partridge

‘The antipodean governments of the 1980s understood what British Labour has forgotten: a party of the people must be a party of growth.’

‘Growth cannot be ordered from the top down – it can only be nurtured from the bottom up,’ says Andy Burnham. He’s right. But if he means it, he should follow the example of two Labour parties who used the insight to unleash their economies: New Zealand and Australia in the 1980s. Read More

This Buy British plan is a recipe for trade war

Ben Ramanauskas

‘Andy Burnham can kiss goodbye to a closer relationship with the EU if he does this.’

It received less media attention than many of his more eye-catching announcements, but yesterday Andy Burnham stated that under his premiership, British firms would be favoured for government contracts. It would be a costly mistake: bad value for taxpayers, corrupting for the favoured firms and infuriating to some of our closest allies. Read More

Stat of the day

The CapX Reading List

The best of the web today

Starmer's swansong: the Defence Investment Plan

Lisa Haseldine, The Spectator

‘The DIP will raise the country’s core defence spending to just under 2.7% of GDP by 2030.’

The Defence Investment Plan (DIP), published today, is Keir Starmer’s swansong, and he presented it as a strategy built on tough choices over spending. There’s more money for drones, for the GCAP fighter and for the nuclear deterrent. Nevertheless, the plan does little more than paper over some substantial cracks. And it risks being squashed by the whims of his successor. Read More

In defence of inequality

James Sproule, The Telegraph 🔒

‘There is no better way of undermining sclerotic societies than offering opportunity to those who may lack social connections but have considerable ambition.’

Both the prime-minister-in-waiting and a frontrunner for chancellor recently made headlines attacking inequality. But entrepreneurial billionaires haven’t unfairly hoarded their wealth, and Britain hasn’t actually grown more unequal in recent years. The 1970s show where punitive taxation in the name of equality leads: a moribund economy, throttled ambition and a stultified social order. Read More