Infallible Gordon  

Hard on the heels of my post of yesterday (showing that, contrary to Gordon Brown's assertion that defence spending is rising year on year, it has in fact drastically declined as a share of GDP), come the findings of an inquiry by Channel 4's FactCheck.   These reveal that in real terms – taking inflation into account – defence spending has fallen year-on-year four times since 1997. Shadow Leader of the House, Sir George Young, raised the issue in the House at Business Questions today: Sir George Young: May we have a statement from the Prime Minister on his assertion at Question Time yesterday? He said that under this Government “the defence budget has been rising every year.”—[Official Report, 10 March 2010; Vol. 507, c. 291.] That is a claim the Prime Minister made repeatedly at the Chilcot inquiry last Friday, but as he should know, spending on the...