Boris Johnson seeks to defuse row over abandoning defence spending pledge

In a speech to a military conference organised by the Rusi thinktank, Wallace made it clear he felt the military required extra money. “If governments have historically responded every time the NHS has a winter crisis, so must they when the threat to the very security that underpins our way of life increases,” he said. “Sometimes it is not about what dividend you can take out, but about what investment in people and equipment you can put in.”