The right wants money for defence. It should start with MoD wastefulness – or even the pensioner triple lock | Polly Toynbee

**TL;DR:** The right wants money for defence. It should start with MoD wastefulness – or even the pensioner triple lock | Polly Toynbee

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What we know

There is nothing left to be squeezed from disabled people or families, yet some continue to bang the same old drum What’s it to be, warfare or welfare, social or military spending, guns or butter? ” In her “ Britain awake ” speech, Margaret Thatcher in 1976 warned that the Soviets “put guns before butter, while we put just about everything before guns” – though defence spending fell as a proportion of GDP in her time, and faster as the cold war ended.

But that peace dividend needs repaying now we are back in cold (and quite hot) war with Russia, only with the US no longer reliable, nor even a friend. The present day “guns v butter” has morphed into a warfare/welfare zero-sum. How dispiriting that Al Carns repeated it on resigning last week as armed forces minister. “There is an argument around welfare,” Carns says. “I am a firm believer that it’s about hands up, not a hand out. ” Why the juxtaposition?

This ex-colonel of the marines would “ take the c

Context

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Practical takeaways

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Last updated: June 16, 2026.

Additional context: early-cycle stories often look bigger in headlines than in day-to-day impact. The useful move is to identify the smallest set of facts that would change your decision, then wait for those facts to land.

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