Rishi Sunak pledges big boost to UK defence spending by 2030

Professor Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director-general of the Royal United Service Institute think-tank, said: "The Germans got under the UK government's skin. Germany was going to be spending more on defence than the UK [in cash terms]. That's been quite a powerful factor because we're used to this image of ourselves as the leading power in Europe. Without this increase, in [cash] spending terms that would no longer have been true," he added.