The old joke runs that you can tell when a politician is lying because his lips are moving. It is unfair – our elected leaders rarely indulge in flat-out, unambiguous untruths – but part of politics is certainly about presenting complex issues in a favourable light. The current government has its own strange and maddening approach to this, but I will come back to that.

Robertson’s rebuke is especially important because he was the lead author of last year’s Strategic Defence Review which Sir Keir Starmer hailed as a ‘landmark’ document

Robertson’s rebuke is especially important because he was the lead author of last year’s Strategic Defence Review which Sir Keir Starmer hailed as a ‘landmark’ document

Outside the arrogant utopianism of Zack Polanski’s Green party, there is a widespread consensus that the United Kingdom needs to spend more money on defence. It is also accepted that the increase must be substantial, not a tenth of a per cent here and there. On the opposition benches, the Conservative party has pledged to increase defence spending and the Liberal Democrats are singing from a similar hymn sheet.

This is not just a party political view. The administration in Washington has stretched the limits of diplomatic euphemism to encourage higher expenditure, and the UK’s Nato allies in Europe have made the same case in more nuanced tones. In February, Defence on the Brink, the advocacy and analysis group of which I am contributing editor,........

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