John Healey has done the whole of Britain a great service. He has reminded us that the first duty of any government is the protection of our country and its people.
It is non-discretionary and non-negotiable. Unlike other areas of expenditure, like welfare, health, or education, when it comes to defence, we must spend whatever is necessary to meet the external threats we face.
When the level of threat goes up, as it has done in the last few years, then we must make whatever adjustments are required to the rest of our spending to keep our people safe.
At the end of the Cold War, we made assumptions about how dangerous we believed the world would be, and we cut back on spending on defence and security, releasing funds that we called “the peace dividend” into other areas and priorities.
There can be no doubt today that the so-called “peace dividend” is over.
Russia, China and Iran, along with their allied countries and groups, are making our world a much more dangerous and unpredictable place.
All Western nations must face this new reality and recognise that our addiction to ever-increasing welfare spending and rises in the national debt are unsustainable at best and undermining our safety and security at worst.
The gap between the rhetoric of the Prime Minister and the delivery of the Labour Government’s own defence investment plan has become not only a national disgrace but is undermining Britain’s reputation abroad and damaging the confidence of our allies in our ability to play a meaningful part in our collective security arrangements through Nato and other commitments.
Defence projects are complex and often take a great deal of time to reach fruition, which is why we need a stable and predictable budget.
Industry needs certainty if it is to make the adjustments and investment to provide the capabilities on which our Armed Forces will depend.
The economic mismanagement under Labour, coupled with the constant pandering to their high-spending left-wing and the debilitating instability of the perpetual leadership battles, is making such stability virtually impossible.
John Healey has behaved in a brave and honourable way, sacrificing his position in an acknowledgement that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor had left him with no other choice.
Today, we have had confirmation that the Labour Party can no longer be trusted with the defence and security of our country.
It is as tragic as it is frightening.