War drums are beating - we need people marching along

The relentless beat of war drums within Nato gets louder by the day.

- SAM KILEY

Mark Rutte, the alliance's secretary general, added to the noise by saying "we have to go further and faster" to expand Europe's war machine.

With the US taking a step back and demanding more from across the Atlantic, the stakes could hardly be higher. But defence spending rising to levels seen during the Cold War means less money for health, education, policing - stuff that really matters.

It means more moolah for the perennially dodgy revolving door in defence procurement, where former government officials and politicians take lucrative gigs with defence companies and overcharge the British taxpayer for lousy military equipment.

It puts strategic decisions in the hands of generals, admirals and air marshals, who often favour their own services over the national interest, and who made a bloody mess of Britain's efforts in Iraq and Helmand, Afghanistan.

And if the 3.5 per cent of GDP target for defence spending that Nato believes is necessary is met, then we're all going to get poorer because taxes will go up. It's all a terrible idea. But the alternatives are much, much worse.

Sir Keir Starmer has said that the UK will, he hopes, spend up to 3 per cent of its GDP on defence "to make Britain safer and stronger, a battle-ready, armour-clad nation with the strongest alliances and the most advanced capabilities".

The British prime minister gets it. He knows that Britain, and the rest of Europe, alongside Canada, have relied on America taxpayers to fund the UK's security for too many decades.