Duncan Barkes | 09-Sep-26

the UK. On DAB+, on YouTube, on your mobile, and on your side. This is Talk. It's Talk, the home of common sense. This is Duncan Barks, I'm here through until ten. Let's get into our debate desk in this hour. Joining me in the Talk studio, Candice Holdsworth, hello. Hi. Mike Buckley, hello. Good evening. Political commentator and former Labour adviser. Good of you both to come in. One of the things we're putting to our Talk audience this evening is about this idea that we need to decide whether or not as a country we support warfare

or welfare. I mean, it's a bit of a tabloid question, but I make no apologies for that in an ideal world. You do both, but I don't think we live in an ideal world. And one of the reasons that we're putting this question to our audience is off the back of what the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, said in Prime Minister's Questions earlier today. For those people who missed it, this is what he said. Yes, we do everything to support our national security, but it can't come at the expense of social security. Having strong national

security also depends upon having resilience in our communities. This side of the House will not be forced to choose between the two, and we will set out a plan to get to 3.5% by 2035 at the spending review. It would be unbelievable, Mr Speaker, that the Prime Minister would say that. He is clearly unwilling. We need to fund our defence, not spend all of our money on welfare. I cannot believe that he would actually say that. So that was Kemi Badenoch and Andy Burnham in the House of Commons earlier in exchange during Prime

Minister's Questions. Candice, what did you make of it all? I wasn't surprised by that, because from what I've been picking up on, I think a lot of people in Labour have not liked the welfare versus warfare dichotomy, but also a lot of them don't like the idea of cutting welfare things for the NHS and spending it on defence. That's the sense I've got, and I think that based on what Andy Burnham's saying, they're going to say, well, we're going to solve the welfare issue by tackling root causes. We're not going to take people's

benefits away, that's what we're going to do. The criticism of that, of course, is, OK, but what's the timeline of that happening? I think there's very clearly an attempt by Kemi to put some clear blue water between Labour and the Conservatives over this. Mike, what was your thinking? I actually think it's helpful that there is clear blue water between the Conservatives and the Labour Party, because people need to be faced with a choice now, but certainly when we come to the next general election, I think that's clear on this, but

it's clear on the economy, it's clear on a number of other issues.