Latika Takes

Latika Takes interviews Ben Judah

Latika M Bourke — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 08:14:34 GMT

This week Latika Takes: The Podcast is in London speaking with , who served as special advisor to former UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

Mr Judah discusses the UK’s relationships with China, Europe, the United States and his failed attempts to kickstart a new CANZUK club, comprising Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

Ben Judah, former special advisor to David Lammy with Latika M Bourke.

He discusses his fears about the debate around UK Defence Spending, the credibility gap opening up in NATO and why the UK needs to borrow Australia’s model of government to be more effective in achieving its goals.

This discussion references an article published by the Financial Times detailing leaked comments by the UK’s Ambassador to the US, Christian Turner, saying Israel was the UK’s only special relationship.

What I'm Reading

Latika M Bourke — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 23:43:17 GMT

Keir Starmer clings on: ‘It’s not about vanity’

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaks to the BBC.

It is beyond sad watching Keir Starmer cling to his leadership, for the sake of so little. He continues to pay the price for running an agenda-free election campaign and, in government, is trapped by his own political ineptitude, a charmless Chancellor in Rachel Reeves and a Labour party that thinks the country’s problems can be fixed by endless welfare.

The departure of John Healey as Defence Secretary was a body blow. Healey is no leadership rival (more on that below) and was an uber-loyalist to the prime minister.

His decision to quit because Starmer and Reeves have no intention of funding defence to meet a threat level that includes a potential attack by Russia on NATO within three and a half years is devastating.

But Starmer is unperturbed, as usual. He filled Healey’s vacant post with the junior home office minister Dan Jarvis.

In a veiled warning to potential leadership challengers in his own party, he said: ‘Whoever is prime minister is going to face the same prevailing winds as I am facing, none of that is going to change.’

Asked if he wanted to lead Labour into the next election, he said that was what he wanted to do, but acknowledged: ‘I need to turn things around.’

He said he did not want to ‘plunge’ the country into the ‘chaos’ of a leadership election but added: ‘If it does happen, I will fight.’

‘Let me be clear that this is not about personal vanity, it is not about stubbornness, it is about a very deep sense of duty,’ he said.

‘I was elected to serve this country notwithstanding difficult circumstances - that is what I am doing.’

BBC

Defence matters for Labour’s next PM

Former Labour MP has an interesting analysis about what the row means for the future of the party’s electoral viability, and the more immediate leadership contest.

He says Healey goes with his reputation enhanced, although writes his former colleague’s obituary. This may be hasty as Healey could emerge as a credible, consensus candidate, drawing upon his bolstered reputation, as I wrote here.

A cabinet minister resigning over a point of principle is rare enough to command respect. He goes with his reputation enhanced.

Which makes Jarvis’s task brutally clear. He inherits a settlement his predecessor judged a danger to the country: spending creeping from 2.6 per cent of GDP next year to 2.68 per cent by 2030, an extra £13.5 billion against the £28 billion the service chiefs say they need. The armed forces minister Al Carns, another decorated soldier, walked out alongside Healey. In resigning after John, Carns showed that however stellar military his career, his political judgement was poor. The causes he proclaimed in his resignation letter required him to be on the inside, not on a tour of the resignation interview circuit.

The defence community, from the chiefs to the supply chain, is distinctly irritated, and worse: it agrees with the Secretary of State who just resigned. Jarvis’s biggest challenge is convincing that community he can hustle up the defence budget across Whitehall, against a Treasury that has just faced down a defence secretary and won.

My guess is that he can. Here is why. The single biggest question being put to the various candidates for the Labour leadership, despite there being no vacancy, is where do you stand on defence and the defence budget. Wes Streeting has gone to the backbenchers to build his platform. Andy Burnham circles with his. Every contender knows that credibility on national security is now the entry ticket to the contest, just as Jarvis himself argued back in 2019 when he said a Labour leader “had to be credible when it comes to the economy and when it comes to national security”. A prime minister fighting for his political life cannot afford to lose two defence secretaries over money in one parliament. Jarvis knows it. The Treasury knows it. That is leverage, and leverage is what Healey, for all his virtues, never quite had.

There is a deeper shift underneath. For a decade the party’s centre of gravity ran through health, housing and the cost of living. It now runs through the defence of the realm. Politics has moved, at last, onto Dan Jarvis’s ground: the man with the medals, the comprehensive education and the marathon habit, who has waited fifteen years while lesser CVs overtook him in the queue.

Tom Watson's Newsletter

The Steely-eyed Messenger of Death Goes to the MoD

The Parachute Regiment does not hand out sentimental nicknames. The one they gave Dan Jarvis was SEMOD: Steely-eyed Messenger of Death. Soldiers reserve that sort of dark tribute for officers who stay calm when everything around them is not. Yesterday evening, with his government reeling and his predecessor’s resignation letter still warm, Keir Starmer …

2 days ago · 36 likes · 6 comments · Tom Watson

The rivals circle

The leadership candidates are wasting no time.

Wes Streeting, former Health Secretary.

Wes Streeting, the former health secretary who quit cabinet to make a tilt for Number 10, has no clear record on defence or foreign policy. But he has proposed several ways of funding defence, as well as services.

‘We’ve seen serious proposals around the Defence Security and Resilience Bank, which is now led by Canada. Great initiative. We’re not part of it. We’ve seen serious proposals for defence bonds, which would be inheritance tax-free defence bonds, so that we can get the huge amounts of money that are currently sat in all sorts of other savings and investments, probably not earning a great deal of interest, actively investing in the defence of our nation today.’

In Streeting’s view, the Prime Minister has failed to take responsibility for defence spending as well as a number of other issues. ‘[He] says he takes responsibility. I don’t think he does, actually. I don’t think he’s taken responsibility or even acknowledged what happened to good Labour people who lost their seats in May. And I don’t think he has taken responsibility for gripping this Defence Investment Plan and when you’ve got a defence secretary saying that the Chancellor is unwilling to fund it, and the Prime Minister is unable to effectively lead, I think it underscores the case for change and change quickly because we can’t go through any more of this inertia.’

He also lambasted the government for announcing a £4.5 billion walking and cycling scheme the day after Healey and Carns resigned, calling it ‘bad judgement as well as bad politics’.

‘Now, as a former health secretary, I’m all in favour of walking and cycling,’ he said.

‘I think these are good things, but would people watching and listening honestly say that if you’ve got a defence secretary who’s telling you there is insufficient funding to keep our country safe, would you, the very next day, as a matter of style, let alone substance, have an announcement for four and a half billion for walking and cycling?’ he said.

‘That’s not a choice I would make, and I think it’s a really good example of bad judgement, bad policy, as well as bad politics.’

New Statesman

Burnham’s vague plans

Andy Burnham’s plans are less concrete. The Labour Mayor of Manchester is contesting the Makerfield byelection next week.

Andy Burnham

If he wins, a leadership challenge to Starmer is all but on. He wants to prioritise British jobs as part of procurement and defence resilience. Insisting on domestic-only or domestic-first builds is a huge part of why governments find it so hard to deliver weapons on time and in budget.

‘The world has changed, it’s obvious to anybody who looks at it, and we are going to have to change the assumptions on which we’ve been working,’ he says.

‘I would say it’s defence and security but also resilience.’

It is at this point that Burnham begins to set out one of the first planks of his plans for power. He thinks that there needs to be not just a ten-year approach to defence and security, but a ten-year approach to public investment and procurement. As part of the plan, all public procurement would have to include a measurable commitment to ‘social value’, such as work placements and apprenticeships for young people.

This, he says, is the ultimate way to help reduce the welfare bill and ensure there is more money available for defence. “I am not squeamish about saying that the plan would be to reduce the welfare bill,” he says. “Not at all.” But under Burnham’s vision this would be about taking people out of welfare and into work.

‘It is not the traditional Westminster way of just crude cuts, short-term cuts that then create a backlash and create more political turbulence. It is actually going to do things that will reduce the benefits bill, moving towards a more preventative state that makes the right investments to support people into work.’

The Times

MAGA gets tactful

Elbridge Colby, the number two at the Pentagon, weighed in, but was in keeping with the new tactful tone that the Department of War’s chief bomb-throwers have adopted of late. (Pete Hegseth’s recent speech in Singapore not berating allies was a case in point).

The United Kingdom has an extraordinarily proud military history. It commands our respect. There is again a great need for more British military strength in this critical time. We urge the UK to meet that need with urgency, scale, and determination.

As I said recently in Normandy, ‘Here soldiers, sailors, and airmen from Great Britain and Canada demonstrated the courage, tenacity, dedication, daring, and loyalty that won them the lasting admiration and gratitude of the whole world – not only here in Normandy but also through the entirety of two World Wars…

‘Our purpose now must be to take our resolve from the legacy of Normandy – to look at our challenges realistically and seriously, to build our military strength individually and together, and to restore our home fronts that can, once again, supply overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions.’

Under Secretary of War for Policy on X

And that’s my list for this week.

I have had a few mental weeks.

I moderated and MCed the GLOBSEC Forum in Prague, attended the Black Sea Security Forum in Odesa, Ukraine and moderated a session as well as attended the German Marshall Fund’s China Stockholm Forum in Sweden last week in my capacity as Associate Expert at the Australian National University’s National Security College.

In the Green Room with European Parliament President Roberta Metsola at GLOBSEC, Prague.

Admiring Ukrainian patriotism at the Black Sea Security Conference at Odesa Opera House.

So please forgive the lack of reading updates in between.

Next week I will be attending the Kiel Security Conference in Germany.

On the ABC’s Global Roaming, Geraldine Doogue and I spoke to Suzy Hansen about the slide to authoritarianism under President Erdogan.

And Kylie Morris and I spoke to human rights lawyer and researcher Ahmed Abofoul about whether the war in Iran is accelerating the green transition.

Listen on all podcast apps and here.

Please do send me anything that’s caught your eye, I enjoy knowing what you’ve been reading.

John Healey's resignation is terrible for AUKUS

Latika M Bourke — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:14:17 GMT

The final sentence John Healey spoke as Defence Secretary were a pledge on AUKUS, consisting of just three words: ‘And we will.’

The vow was an addendum to Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s reasoning for why the US, UK and Australian governments were committed to delivering AUKUS submarines to Australia. Under the current plan, Australia will buy three used boats from the US and co-build a new design with the UK called SSN AUKUS.

L-R: Former UK Defence Secretary John Healey, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper and Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles.

Healey’s promise was made at the Wednesday evening’s AUKMIN press conference at Lancaster House, where he stood next to Senator Wong, his own Cabinet colleague, the UK’s Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper and Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles.

It was his last public outing before his shock resignation that could break the flimsy remains of Keir Starmer’s Prime Ministership.

Former UK Defence Secretary John Healey speaks at an AUKMIN media conference at Lancaster House. Photo: Latika M Bourke

But his three-word undertaking was said so quietly that it went mostly unnoticed; the official transcript released by DFAT did not record them.

While he promised Marles that they would be meeting again next week for a meeting of Defence Ministers to discuss Ukraine, Healey’s low-key ending to the press conference turned out to be an omen.

The next morning, he quit, pulling out of a scheduled media appearance for Mr Marles at His Majesty’s Naval Base Portsmouth.

Healey had planned to show Marles around the base and speak to the media, to spruik the UK’s shipbuilding credentials, and shore up support for AUKUS.

But his sensational resignation, because of Sir Keir’s failure to fund defence at the levels to match the heightened geopolitical threats that the UK Prime Minister is the first to identify, left Marles a jilted bride.

The Deputy Prime Minister abruptly told the media already in Portsmouth and in transit to the naval base to go home.

After being given a tour of the base by a junior minister, Marles fled without a word. He refused to speak to the press about the implications, which are dire, of Healey’s resignation for AUKUS. But the Defence Minister cannot escape the uncomfortable truths that his British counterpart has exposed.

The first is AUKUS. In his resignation letter, Healey set out Keir Starmer’s plans to raise defence spending by a paltry 0.08 per cent of GDP by 2030.

Healey brutally quoted Sir Keir, pinpointing that year as the same one when Russian President Vladimir Putin might try and attack NATO.

‘The extra support is backloaded when the pressure of operations and imperative to speed up readiness to fight is in the first two years and it rises to just 2.68 per cent of GDP in 2030, when we will reach 2.6 per cent next year with the investment we are already making,’ he said.

He told the UK Prime Minister that he was leaving the country less safe. It was explosive. It was honourable. And it was consequential.

Healey has positioned defence spending front and centre of Labour’s looming leadership contest.

It’s a charge no prime minister can survive, and the listless Sir Keir was already leading a limping government being circled by Labour rivals Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham.

A prime minister’s first duty is national security, and one of his most loyal ministers has exposed his dereliction. Labour can find money for striking tube drivers, but it cannot do more on defence, despite pledging to NATO allies that they would meet 3.5 per cent by 2035.

While other NATO countries have raced ahead and are already at 3 per cent spending or more, the UK went backwards to 12th place in the last set of league tables comparing nations’ spending.

Sir Keir’s letter accepting ealey’s resignation was typically tone deaf. He said that ‘irresponsible borrowing only puts that at risk,’ as though debt was the only option available to fund the required increase to defence spending, as opposed to cutting back government spending and welfare.

Healey’s honourable resignation may earn him the leadership crown in time. But until then, the turmoil leaves Australia dangerously exposed.

Healey was one of AUKUS’s biggest champions in the Labour cabinet. Sir Keir has professed to be a supporter of the program, but a bipartisan review of progress, chaired by the Labour MP Tan Dhesi, found that it is ‘plodding along’, faltering and captured by drift.

‘We need a lot more infrastructure investment into His Majesty’s naval base, Clyde, as well as in HMNB Devonport, as well as in Barrow-in-Furness, the home of British submarine ship building,’ Dhesi told the Latika Takes podcast.
‘It is without a shadow of a doubt that we still do not have enough dry dock facilities, that’s why half a billion pounds worth of submarine refurbishment works has been delayed.’

Barrow is where the submarines are built. Healey’s resignation spelt out an uncomfortable truth for Australia — this Labour government has no intention of paying for the investments needed to make AUKUS work.

Latika Takes

Latika Takes interviews Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi

This week Latika Takes: The Podcast is in Slough, the constituency of Labour MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dheshi, who chairs the House of Commons Defence Select Committee…

Listen now

7 days ago · 2 likes · Latika M Bourke

If being stood up was humiliating, Healey’s actions make a mockery of Marles nothing-to-see-here feast of words that he gives, whenever he is asked about the frequently cited concerns about the UK’s ability to deliver boats.
‘We are really confident about this trajectory,’ Marles insisted at Lancaster House on Wednesday.

The uncharacteristically media-shy Marles did not address these questions before flying out of London Thursday evening, issuing a written statement instead to praise his ‘good friend’ Healey and praise the defence relationship as ‘enduring.’

Finally, Healey has shown a courage that is lacking in the progressive side of politics in Australia when it comes to national defence.

Australia’s defence spending is at 2.1 per cent of GDP. To fudge this, the government has begun including things like pensions to claim the spend is closer to 3 per cent.

Cooking the books doesn’t make the country safer. Just ask John Healey.

Marles will have many questions to ponder on his long-haul flight home. But one his critics will be demanding he answer when he lands, is whether he is capable of showing similar courage in securing real funding for Australia’s defences.

Latika Takes interviews Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi

Latika M Bourke — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 08:07:14 GMT

This week Latika Takes: The Podcast is in Slough, the constituency of Labour MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dheshi, who chairs the House of Commons Defence Select Committee.

Latika M Bourke and Labour MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dheshi.

Mr Dhesi discusses the contents of his Committee’s recent review into AUKUS which found the program is ‘faltering.’

He says the program is ‘plodding along’ and needs a new push from the AUKUS leaders.

He calls for an AUKUS visa, a dedicated envoy in each country to oversee the program as well as a boost in the UK’s defence spending.

The AUKUS review can be found here: https://committees.parliament.uk/work/9068/aukus/

This discussion also references this article and event.

Taking four years to announce an AUKUS project? That's embarrassing

Latika M Bourke — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 12:57:26 GMT

Richard Marles’s address to the Shangri-La Dialogue, in which the Australian Defence Minister warned of the threats to vital seabed cables that transmit the digital blood of the global economy, only underlined Labor’s pallid, catch-up mode when it comes to national security.

That it has taken the government four years to come up with a ‘first-ever’ progr…

🇺🇦 From Odesa, Latika Takes interviews Nico Lange

Latika M Bourke — Sun, 31 May 2026 08:01:55 GMT

This week Latika Takes: The Podcast is in Odesa, Ukraine attending the Black Sea Security Forum.

Nico Lange speaks to Latika Takes: The Podcast on the sidelines of the Black Sea Security Forum in Odesa, Ukraine.

Latika’s guest is Nico Lange, who served as an advisor to former German Defence Minister AKK.

Now, as founder of the think tank IRIS, he goes back and forth from the frontline in Ukraine and monitors the changing nature of warfare.

In this episode, Latika and Nico discuss how Ukraine has made its gains in 2026, the ongoing failures of the West to adapt and enable Ukraine, whether the Europeans should negotiate with Vladimir Putin and NATO’s inability to protect its airspace from Russian drones.

An interview with Trump's Board of Peace High Rep for Gaza

Latika M Bourke — Tue, 26 May 2026 14:35:04 GMT

In Prague, I interviewed Nickolay Mladenov, the Bulgarian diplomat, whom Donald Trump appointed as High Representative for Gaza on the Board of Peace.

You can watch the full interview below:

🇨🇿 From Prague, Latika Takes interviews Mark Esper

Latika M Bourke — Sun, 24 May 2026 16:27:33 GMT

This week Latika Takes: The Podcast is in Prague at the GLOBSEC Forum, now in its 21st year.

She interviews Mark Esper, who served as US Secretary of Defence under Donald Trump, between 2019 and 2020.

Latika M Bourke with former NATO SG Anders Fogh Rasmussen and former US Secretary of Defence Mark Esper at the GLOBSEC Forum 2026.

Secretary Esper discusses why he felt ‘offended’ by the European response to the United States and Israel’s decision to launch a war against Iran in February and why it has set back NATO, already under fire from US President Donald Trump.

He discusses US expectations of allies in the event of a Chinese grab on Taiwan and how allies should approach dealings with the Trump Administration.

🇪🇪 From Tallinn, Latika Takes interviews Kaupo Rosin

Latika M Bourke — Sun, 17 May 2026 12:48:01 GMT

This week Latika Takes: The Podcast is at the Lennart Meri Conference in Tallinn, Estonia.

Her guest is Kaupo Rosin, the Director General of Estonia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, which is widely regarded as one of the best when it comes to understanding what is going on inside Russia.

Kaupo Rosin, Director General of the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service and Latika M Bourke at the Lennart Meri conference in Tallinn, Estonia

Latika and Kaupo discuss the unfavourable turn that the war in Ukraine has taken, the effect it has had on Vladimir Putin, what the West should now do, and China’s dominance over Russia.

They also discuss the societal unhappiness with Vladimir Putin’s shutdown of messaging services, the internet and VPNs and the possibility that the Russian President may have to start conscripting men to fight, bringing the war to the homes of those who have previously felt untouched.

They also discuss the effect of US President Donald Trump’s disparaging comments about NATO as well as the pause and withdrawal of military assets from Europe.

Why I'm willing to launch a leadership challenge against Keir Starmer

Latika M Bourke — Sun, 10 May 2026 21:18:03 GMT

Catherine West is a Labour MP representing the north London constituency Hornsey and Friern Barnet. I have known her for almost as long as I’ve lived in the UK, mainly because she is Australian-born.

Catherine West MP.

Fluent in five languages, including Mandarin, she has had an interesting life journey, growing up in country Victoria, graduating from S…

Armenia's Big Fat European Week

Latika M Bourke — Sat, 09 May 2026 23:02:10 GMT

Yerevan: On the face of it, Armenia, a tiny landlocked country of just three million people, does not appear to be a hotbed of the geopolitical competition underway between the world’s democracies and authoritarians.

Even less likely was the French President picking up the microphone for some impromptu karaoke, with the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pash…

What I'm Reading

Latika M Bourke — Fri, 08 May 2026 23:30:31 GMT

Trump brokers a ceasefire — for Putin

It turns out Donald Trump can broker a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine, if it benefits Russia!

Worried about Ukraine’s ability to strike Moscow during Vladimir Putin’s Victory Day Parade, it appears the US furiously negotiated a snap truce.

‘I am pleased to announce that there will be a THREE DAY CEASEFIRE (May 9th, 10…

🇦🇲 From Yerevan, Latika Takes interviews Robert Abisoghomonyan

Latika M Bourke — Wed, 06 May 2026 23:10:51 GMT

This week Latika Takes: The Podcast is at the Yerevan Dialogue in Yerevan, Armenia.

Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Robert Abisoghomonyan speaks to Latika M Bourke at the Yerevan Dialogue in Yerevan, Armenia 2026.

Latika’s guest is Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Robert Abisoghomonyan. Mr Absioghomonyan discusses the transformation in Armenia, a former Soviet state, that is underway following a societal demand that the government seek EU membership.

This week, Armenia hosted the European Political Community to which Canada’s Mark Carney and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky were also invited, in a show of the EU’s pulling power.

Armenia also hosted the EU-Armenia summit aimed at deepening ties between the tiny country and the 27-member bloc, which many countries are trying to join.

Latika and Robert discuss how Russia’s failure to come to Armenia’s aid under its military alliance obligations when Azerbaijan seized Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023 served as a catalyst for the country’s shift towards Europe.

They also discuss the true viability of EU membership for Armenia, Yerevan’s special relationship with the Iranian regime, and the delicate balancing act the country's government is playing as it heads to elections next month, battling Russian interference.

Takaichi's Australia visit a missed opportunity

Latika M Bourke — Tue, 05 May 2026 08:10:56 GMT

On paper, Sanae Takaichi’s visit to Australia should have been a blockbuster.

Having broken the mother of all glass ceilings, charmed the world with her drumming skills and survived Donald Trump’s Pearl Harbour gag in the Oval Office with aplomb, the visit by Japan’s first female prime minister was one to eagerly anticipate.

Australia’s Prime Minister Ant…

What I'm Reading

Latika M Bourke — Fri, 01 May 2026 23:52:25 GMT

Trump withdraws US troops from Germany

And so it begins. The Trump Administration has ordered the withdrawal of US troops from Germany.

The move reflects MAGA’s broader desire to shift responsibility for European security to the Europeans, but also the movement’s open hostility towards NATO.

Saluting the US and German flags at a ceremony here for the Rhi…

Charles has a history of political meddling, thank goodness!

Latika M Bourke — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 09:23:22 GMT

King Charles III’s plea to Congress to resist isolationism, reminder of the need for peace in Ukraine, as well as the value of allies, was brave, funny, eloquent and demonstrated the value of his unorthodox approach as a royal.

His special mention of AUKUS and Australia, which earned applause from the bitterly divided US Congress, emphasised the monarchy…

🇬🇷 From Delphi Economic Forum, Latika Takes interviews Carla Sands

Latika M Bourke — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 23:23:38 GMT

This week Latika Takes: The Podcast is in Greece at the Delphi Economic Forum.

Carla Sands and Latika M Bourke at the Delphi Economic Forum in Greece.

Latika’s guest is Carla Sands, who served as Donald Trump’s Ambassador to Denmark during his first Presidential term.

Carla Sands discusses NATO, why Article 5 is no longer considered iron-clad by MAGA and will change post-Trump.

Carla Sands also discusses President Trump’s comments disparaging allied war dead in Afghanistan and what Australia can do to be a model ally.

'He’s an arsehole': Labour fury at Keir Starmer

Latika M Bourke — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 08:02:34 GMT

Keir Starmer is a pitiful figure. Incurious and incompetent, the UK Prime Minister’s reputation as a decent but boring managerial technocrat is shot. He is undone by the foreseeable disaster that was appointing Peter Mandelson to represent the UK as Ambassador to the United States.

‘The more I hear, the angrier I get. I think we need to dispense with a…

France reveals a silver lining of Trump 2.0

Latika M Bourke — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 21:02:49 GMT

Donald Trump’s effect on Europe is not all negative. Alongside Europe’s long-overdue remarmament, France is finally shaking off its protectionist, anti-trade-deal posture.

France’s Trade Minister Nicolas Forissier has told me in an exclusive interview that France supports the trade deal Europe struck with Australia last month, describing it as ‘high-qua…

An interview with Australia's Defence Industry Minister

Latika M Bourke — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 19:52:41 GMT

On Thursday, the Australian government will release the National Defence Strategy and announce a long-overdue boost to Australia’s defence spending. The headline is 3 per cent of GDP by 2033 and $14 billion over the next four years.

But scrutiny will be required of both the calculations and the planned mix of private and public spending behind this headl…