UK politics live: Gordon Brown calls for extra defence spending to be exempt from fiscal rules

Former PM says ‘exceptional’ aim to spend 5% of GDP should be a joint Nato and European initiative financed via bonds or a defence fund

Good morning. In every era in politics there are claims that the current generation of politicians aren’t as impressive as the ones that came before. A lot of this is just false memory warped by nostalgia, but in the UK at the moment there are eight former prime ministers and they provide a sub-set that does, sort of, stand up the theory.

Five of them were in office after 2010 – David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak – and their contribution to public life at the moment is, frankly, minimal, or negative. But the three who were in office before 2010 – John Major, Tony Blair, and Gordon Brown – remain serious voices. Major is 82, he does not speak out much, but when he does, he is always worth hearing. Blair is running a thinktank actively trying to shape policy in the UK and around the world. And Brown is perpetually engaged in trying to implement change for social justice, as he has been for most of his life.

Look, there’s one thing that’s happened over the last few months that has been quite unprecedented – to spend 5% on defence expenditure, as we want to spend 2030s.

But this is a Nato initiative. This is a European initiative. We should be doing this jointly.