Sunak’s Number 10 is much better at keeping secrets than others
Suddenly, at election time, political predictions become so much harder and riskier. Everything changes in a campaign, not least the news cycle.
That’s my excuse, at any rate, for failing to foresee the announcement of a general election in last week’s Politics at Jack and Sam’s.
There were a few clues – and one magisterial tweet from Financial Times journalist Lucy Fisher – but we were deaf to the signals.
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In this week’s Politics At Jack and Sam’s podcast, we reflect how this Number 10 – in big contrast to the last two – is much better at keeping secrets.
But the moment an election is called, the way information gets out alters and everything becomes trickier.
Follow live – general election latest:
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Normally political news emerges in so many different ways. There’s parliament. Government announcements. Questions, written and oral. MPs themselves, including ministers, wandering the corridors of the Commons where journalists can go stopping for a gossip.
All of that disappears at election time. Keeping things secret from the other side matters a lot more, while decisions and information is held by a much tighter group of people.
That’s why it’s not really feasible to do a weekly look ahead political podcast – and we’re responding by going daily. More details to follow.
Rishi Sunak‘s allies are quite upfront that the timing of the general election was a finely balanced argument and you can make a case both ways.
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Sunak defends wet election announcement
One of the big things that motivated Sunak to go now was that he was doing – in his view – big things; welfare announcements, defence spending commitments, NHS workforce plan.
But they found people weren’t listening and the polls weren’t moving. They weren’t “getting a hearing”. Which they put down to people being switched off from politics and apathy being high – and so the decision to call an election was motivated by that.
The other big consideration was that from around March, early April they were getting internal economic indicators, suggesting the economic conditions – things like inflation, interest rates – might be favourable sufficiently such that they could base a campaign around.
Fascinatingly, they say there wasn’t a “decision” meeting two months ago or even three weeks ago – the move was more like the tide coming in slowly.
Although Labour were caught on the hop – some staff had booked leave, were privately confident there was nothing coming this summer and the Labour campaign bus is not yet ready – candidates claim to be pretty happy with what’s happened so far.
However, the biggest challenge of the next five weeks will be seeing whether they can respond to the pressure of a campaign, and the relentless desire for more of everything.
Currently the narrative is that Sunak had a miserable start – in a few weeks, pictures of the PM in the rain could be a plucky fighter battling against the odds.
This feels unlikely right now, but having been through the 2017 campaign, we know anything can happen.
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There is “no doubt” the UK “will spend 3% of our GDP on defence” in the next parliament, the defence secretary has said.
John Healey’s comments come ahead of the publication of the government’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR) on Monday.
This is an assessment of the state of the armed forces, the threats facing the UK, and the military transformation required to meet them.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has previously set out a “clear ambition” to raise defence spending to 3% in the next parliament “subject to economic and fiscal conditions”.
Mr Healey has now told The Times newspaper there is a “certain decade of rising defence spending” to come, adding that this commitment “allows us to plan for the long term. It allows us to deal with the pressures.”
A government source insisted the defence secretary was “expressing an opinion, which is that he has full confidence that the government will be able to deliver on its ambition”, rather than making a new commitment.
The UK currently spends 2.3% of GDP on defence, with Sir Keir announcing plans to increase that to 2.5% by 2027 in February.
This followed mounting pressure from the White House for European nations to do more to take on responsibility for their own security and the defence of Ukraine.
The 2.3% to 2.5% increase is being paid for by controversial cuts to the international aid budget, but there are big questions over where the funding for a 3% rise would be found, given the tight state of government finances.
While a commitment will help underpin the planning assumptions made in the SDR, there is of course no guarantee a Labour government would still be in power during the next parliament to have to fulfil that pledge.
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From March: How will the UK scale up defence?
A statement from the Ministry of Defence makes it clear that the official government position has not changed in line with the defence secretary’s comments.
The statement reads: “This government has announced the largest sustained increase to defence spending since the end of the Cold War – 2.5% by 2027 and 3% in the next parliament when fiscal and economic conditions allow, including an extra £5bn this financial year.
“The SDR will rightly set the vision for how that uplift will be spent, including new capabilities to put us at the leading edge of innovation in NATO, investment in our people and making defence an engine for growth across the UK – making Britain more secure at home and strong abroad.”
Sir Keir commissioned the review shortly after taking office in July 2024. It is being led by Lord Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary and NATO secretary general.
The Ministry of Defence has already trailed a number of announcements as part of the review, including plans for a new Cyber and Electromagnetic Command and a £1bn battlefield system known as the Digital Targeting Web, which we’re told will “better connect armed forces weapons systems and allow battlefield decisions for targeting enemy threats to be made and executed faster”.
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PM Sir Keir Starmer and Defence Secretary John Healey on a nuclear submarine earlier this year. Pic: Crown Copyright 2025
On Saturday, the defence secretary announced a £1.5bn investment to tackle damp, mould and make other improvements to poor quality military housing in a bid to improve recruitment and retention.
Mr Healey pledged to “turn round what has been a national scandal for decades”, with 8,000 military family homes currently unfit for habitation.
He said: “The Strategic Defence Review, in the broad, will recognise that the fact that the world is changing, threats are increasing.
“In this new era of threat, we need a new era for defence and so the Strategic Defence Review will be the vision and direction for the way that we’ve got to strengthen our armed forces to make us more secure at home, stronger abroad, but also learn the lessons from Ukraine as well.
“So an armed forces that can be more capable of innovation more quickly, stronger to deter the threats that we face and always with people at the heart of our forces… which is why the housing commitments that we make through this strategic defence review are so important for the future.”
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