All of life sometimes feels like a hurdles race- do we sail confidently ever more complex obstacles sprinting to the winning line, or do we stumble and trip our way over just hoping to finish uninjured? This last week has (at last) felt a bit like the former!I have campaigned for most of my Parliamentary career for an increase in defence spending. So I was delighted by this week’s announcement that we would move to 2.5% of GDP, or an extra £75 billion, over six years. That will make us the largest defence nation in Europe, and second only to the US in NATO. It will unlock all kinds of capabilities and personnel. The world is a more dangerous place than it has been for a very long time, and so it’s only right that we are beefing up our defence capabilities. I called on Labour (and insofar as they matter the LibDems) to match our commitment, which they (rather shamefacedly) did not do. Our commitment sends a strong message to Putin and to our NATO allies, and it is a shame that our message does not come from the whole House. But given that Mr Starmer was until recently a member of a Shadow Cabinet committed to abolishing Trident and changing the army into a ‘national defence force’, I suppose that mild pacifism is about as good as you can expect.