Two former Labour defence secretaries have urged ministers to slash welfare to boost spending on Britain's security.
In an excoriating speech, former Nato chief Lord Robertson said Britain's national security had been left 'in peril' by Labour's failure to live up to promises to increase defence spending.
The Labour grandee, who wrote the Government's strategic defence review last year, accused Rachel Reeves of blocking funding for the armed forces and urged ministers to free up cash by slashing the bloated benefits budget.
'The cold reality of today's dangerous world is that we cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget,' he told an audience in Salisbury.
'Britain's welfare budget is now five times the amount we spend on defence. So I ask, are we certain that this is the right priority - jeopardising people's future safety and security, while maintaining an increasingly unsustainable welfare bill?'
Asked how defence secretary John Healey had taken his criticisms, Lord Robertson said: '[He was] extremely, extremely angry with me, but sometimes you just have to say something.
'My country is in danger, so I felt that I had to speak out. That will be uncomfortable in the short term, but in the longer term, they know what they need to do.' He added that 'many soldiers died as a result of the failure of the Labour government to act upon defence procurement' during the war in Afghanistan.
He was backed by fellow Labour peer Lord Hutton, who served as both defence and work and pensions secretary in the last Labour government.
Lord Hutton urged Sir Keir to grip the issue as the 'defining moment in his premiership', saying he has 'a very, very short period of time to start putting this right and sending out the signals to Putin' that Britain is serious about defending itself.
He told Times Radio the Government has 'got to get a grip on the rising welfare budget'. But he warned that, almost two years in, 'there's no real sign that it's got any agenda for correcting the very steep rise in welfare payments'.
Two former Labour defence secretaries have urged ministers to slash welfare to boost spending on Britain's security.
In an excoriating speech, former Nato chief Lord Robertson said Britain's national security had been left 'in peril' by Labour's failure to live up to promises to increase defence spending.
The Labour grandee, who wrote the Government's strategic defence review last year, accused Rachel Reeves of blocking funding for the armed forces and urged ministers to free up cash by slashing the bloated benefits budget.
'The cold reality of today's dangerous world is that we cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget,' he told an audience in Salisbury.
'Britain's welfare budget is now five times the amount we spend on defence. So I ask, are we certain that this is the right priority - jeopardising people's future safety and security, while maintaining an increasingly unsustainable welfare bill?'
Asked how defence secretary John Healey had taken his criticisms, Lord Robertson said: '[He was] extremely, extremely angry with me, but sometimes you just have to say something.
'My country is in danger, so I felt that I had to speak out. That will be uncomfortable in the short term, but in the longer term, they know what they need to do.' He added that 'many soldiers died as a result of the failure of the Labour government to act upon defence procurement' during the war in Afghanistan.
He was backed by fellow Labour peer Lord Hutton, who served as both defence and work and pensions secretary in the last Labour government.
Lord Hutton urged Sir Keir to grip the issue as the 'defining moment in his premiership', saying he has 'a very, very short period of time to start putting this right and sending out the signals to Putin' that Britain is serious about defending itself.
He told Times Radio the Government has 'got to get a grip on the rising welfare budget'. But he warned that, almost two years in, 'there's no real sign that it's got any agenda for correcting the very steep rise in welfare payments'.
There is something almost Shakespearean about the way it has come to this. Remember where it began – on that grey July morning, with Keir Starmer striding confidently up Downing Street, pledging not just to renew British politics but cleanse and purify it.
Now the man who vowed to restore standards, dignity and trust to our nation stands finally, and fully, exposed.
A liar. A charlatan. A capricious fool.
The revelation that Peter Mandelson failed his formal vetting by the security services prior to his elevation as Washington ambassador is, on one level, staggering.
That Keir Starmer forced through Mandelson's appointment to such a highly sensitive post, then misled parliament, the Press and the British people about the true facts, elevates this to a scandal on a par with Profumo's perfidy.
But on another level it was all too predictable. It was clear back in March – when Starmer refused six times to answer Kemi Badenoch's simple question about whether he'd spoken to Mandelson before his appointment – that the PM feared this was the crisis that would terminate his premiership.
And now, despite the misplaced mobile phone and deleted messages, we can all see why. Last year Starmer stated to Parliament directly and unequivocally that 'full due process was gone through' in relation to Mandelson's vetting, and that as a result he retained full confidence in him.
What's more, he claimed that it was the same process routinely undertaken for all new ambassadorial appointments.
Yesterday's revelations confirm beyond doubt that statement was a clear, cold, calculating lie. Not only had the initial vetting been conducted – on the Prime Minister's orders – by two of Mandelson's close personal friends (the PM's chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and communications director Matthew Doyle).
But the subsequent formal vetting process had red-flagged Mandelson. And according to the Labour-supporting Guardian, which broke the story, Foreign Office officials had to invoke a rarely used procedure to override the vetting decision.
But it's not just the lies. As I've been writing for several weeks, since the Mandelson scandal broke, and MPs voted to force the Government to release all the documents relating to this sordid affair, Starmer and his aides have been involved in a comprehensive and concerted attempt to cover up the truth.
Set aside the convenient theft of McSweeney's mobile, along with the loss of reams of sensitive and pertinent messages it contained. Thousands of other emails and messages have 'disappeared'. Relevant briefing documents have been deleted. And as the Guardian also reported, 'senior government officials have been considering whether to withhold from parliament documents that would reveal that Mandelson was not given vetting approval from security officials'.
Yet even the lies and the cover-up pales into insignificance compared to the enormity of what the latest Mandelson disclosure reveals. I spoke to a senior member of the Whitehall security establishment. They said: 'Do you realise how rare it is for someone to fail vetting? Whatever it was, it must have been something really major.'
Sir Keir Starmer has been branded a man unfit to run the country, who has lost the moral right to govern after the Peter Mandelson vetting scandal.
In an excoriating verdict on the Prime Minister, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch also condemns him as a PM consumed by his own survival who was putting national security at risk.
And with Sir Keir fighting for his political life, she renews her call for him to do the decent thing and resign – and to stop blaming officials for why he didn't know that Mandelson was appointed US ambassador despite having failed a crucial security vetting.
Writing for The Mail on Sunday, she says: 'The hypocrisy is staggering... He is taking the public for fools.'
She also says: 'Keir Starmer claims to be furious with officials. It is us who should be furious with him ... While he protects himself, decisions are delayed and problems fester.'
Mrs Badenoch's intervention comes ahead of a crucial week which could decide the Prime Minister's future, starting with his statement to MPs in the Commons tomorrow in which he will reiterate claims he did not know about Mandelson's vetting status.
But just 24 hours after tomorrow's Commons showdown, Sir Olly is expected to publicly defend himself for the first time at an explosive meeting of the foreign affairs committee.
Mrs Badenoch's brutal takedown of the Prime Minister came as:
It emerged that security chiefs handed a dossier to Sir Keir's team about Mandelson's dubious links to Russia and his relationship to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein in 2023, further undermining the Prime Minister's claims he had no knowledge of the unsuitability of his appointment.
The Tories plot a major Commons D-Day showdown over the scandal, using the same tactics first weaponised against Boris Johnson by Sir Keir himself.
Armed Forces minister Al Carns was said to be on 'resignation watch', with some Labour MPs insisting that Sir Keir must either quit or face a leadership challenge in the wake of his 'serial failure of judgment' over Mandelson.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey called on Sir Keir to publish a separate Cabinet Office due diligence report on the New Labour grandee, completed before he was appointed, adding that 'chucking civil servants under the bus isn't good enough'.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar stood by his call for the PM to quit, saying the latest twist in the Mandelson affair 'demonstrates why I said what I said in February'.
Former Labour minister Graham Stringer told the MoS last night: 'When the challenge to Sir Keir comes, I cannot say – but a challenge is inevitable.
It's fitting that a minor scandal should be his undoing, mirroring his pursuit of Boris Johnson over the trivial "Partygate" "scandal" which led to the end of Johnson's premiership.
What planet is deluded Prince Harry on, lecturing Putin and Trump on the eve of King Charles’ historic trip to America?
Watching him address the Kyiv Security Forum on a secret visit to that country, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry as he said in all solemnity: ‘I am not here as a politician.’
‘I am here as a soldier who understands service, as a humanitarian who has seen the human cost of conflict.’ He then proceeded to call out both Presidents Putin and Trump, the two most powerful leaders of the world.
That this dim-witted, tone-deaf lost boy believes he has the right to lecture world leaders – or that anything he says now should be taken seriously – is beyond parody.
Not that I have any time for either Trump or Putin, both of them are monstrous human beings.
But Harry’s absurd intervention in world affairs isn’t just the folly of a foolish prince who decided to jot down some thoughts while idling away the hours at his sun-kissed multi-million dollar Montecito mansion.
Its cynical timing smacks to me of naked opportunism.
For he appears to have timed it to coincide – dare I say it, overshadow – his father King Charles’ and Queen Camilla’s historic visit to America next week.
Even as the King is about to attempt to repair the fragile Special Relationship between Britain and the US by meeting Trump in Washington, his idiotic son is aiming pot shots at the President.
Keir Starmer was hit with another resignation today after a toe-curling Cabinet meeting where he tried to brush aside calls to step aside. Jess Phillips declared she had lost confidence in the PM's 'fight and drive' as his grip on power loosens further. The intervention came after members of his top team - said to include Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood - privately urged him to make a graceful exit in the wake of disastrous local elections.
But Sir Keir effectively dared his rivals to move against him this morning, telling the weekly gathering in No10: 'The Labour Party has a process for challenging a leader and that has not been triggered. 'The country expects us to get on with governing. That is what I am doing and what we must do as a Cabinet.' Health Secretary Wes Streeting, regarded by Sir Keir's dwindling band of allies as being behind the coup, was present to hear the stark message. However, Sir Keir is said to have immediately moved on to the Iran war.
According to one Government source: 'Keir said in Cabinet that he won't discuss the elections or his leadership, and that he will only speak to cabinet ministers about that individually. Then after the meeting he refused to see Cabinet ministers individually.' Extraordinarily Housing Secretary Steve Reed appeared to be posting on social media from inside the Cabinet room, urging people to 'unite behind the PM'.
A few loyalist ministers spoke to waiting reporters as they exited through the famous black door - although a grim-faced Mr Streeting strode away silently. Pat McFadden insisted nobody had challenged the PM during the meeting. Baroness Chapman said Sir Keir was still in charge. 'I saw a Cabinet united and focused on dealing with the issues that are confronting the British people,' she said. She added that Mr Streeting had spoken, but only 'about the work that he's doing in the Health Service'.
One Government source goaded that Mr Streeting's failure to bring up the leadership at Cabinet showed he had 'lost his nerve'. The dramatic scenes came as Miatta Fahnbulleh joined the rebellion, becoming the first minister to quit. She is regarded as closely linked to Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband. Significantly, one of Sir Keir's closest allies Darren Jones said he would not 'get ahead of any decision' when asked this morning whether the PM would lead the party into the next election.
More than 80 MPs have now publicly called for his resignation, telling him to 'get real' and recognise 'it's over', while six ministerial aides have walked out. Labour's Left-wing is panicking that Blairite Mr Streeting has outmanoeuvred them and will end up with the keys to No10. They want to slow the process so Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham can get back into the Commons and be a contender.
In a sign of the rising tensions, former shadow chancellor John McDonnell said this morning: 'Wes Streeting has launched a coup for fear of a democratic process and whilst candidates are blocked. Handing leadership to Mandelson's protege is a gift to Reform.'
As Westminster faces the prospect of a fourth PM being kicked out in just four years today:
The UK's borrowing costs have jumped as markets take fright at the danger of the Government lurching to the Left;
Rachel Reeves has pulled out of an event in the City of London as the sense of crisis mounts;
Andy Burnham has been spotted arriving at Euston station amid rumours he will announce a path to return to the Commons;
Concerns have been raised that the King will be embarrassed by having to deliver a State Opening speech for a 'zombie' PM;
A despairing minister has admitted Labour MPs look like hypocrites after condemning the Tories over a 'carousel of chaos';
A poll has showed Labour support falling back after the local elections, level-pegging with the Greens on third.
