GB News Chief Political Correspondent Katherine Forster has hit back at the Prime Minister after dodging a People’s Channel grilling over his £15billion Defence Investment Plan.
Speaking following the announcement, Katherine declared the snub by Sir Keir Starmer “very disappointing” as he took several questions from other news outlets.
Detailing his boost to bolster Britain’s defences, Sir Keir heralded a “new record” for Government spending.
He said: “We are already delivering the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the 1980s, £270billion over the spending review period.
“And I can announce today that under the Defence Investment Plan we are increasing this by an extra £15billion, setting a new record of spending almost £300billion over the next four years to back our Armed Forces and to strengthen our national security.
“Now it’s true to say there’s been a huge focus on the numbers here… Before we came into office, so two years ago, this country spent £54billion a year on defence. We are taking this to almost £80billion a year by 2029.”
Following his speech, Sir Keir took several questions from representatives of Sky News, BBC, Channel 5 and BFBS Forces News – but denied GB News the opportunity to grill him on his plan.
Offering her reaction to the Prime Minister’s snub, Katherine suggested that her previous Government grilling may have “come back to bite her”.
Britain’s Newsroom host Andrew Pierce told Katherine: “Snubbed by the Prime Minister! Snubbed Katherine, it’s outrageous!”
Katherine responded: “Very disappointing for GB News not to get a question.
“I think I gave somebody at No10 quite a hard time on defence spending back in Armenia that possibly might be coming back to bite me now.”
The Chief Political Correspondent expressed her surprise at the length of delay in hearing Sir Keir’s Defence Investment Plan, having attended the launch of the Strategic Defence Review more than “a year ago”.
She said: “When I went to the launch of the Strategic Defence Review, which was in Glasgow last June, little did I think that it would be over a year since the publication of this Defence Investment Plan, the blueprint of where the money is going to be coming from to fund defence over the next few years.
“Because it was supposed to be published last Autumn, then the Ministry of Defence found a massive £28billion black hole, and now, of course, there’s been a massive row over recent weeks.”
Katherine observed that the Prime Minister, Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis attempted to put on a “united front” as they unveiled the long-awaited defence plan.
She told GB News: “I felt that the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and Dan Jarvis, the Defence Secretary were all trying to present a united front, saying ‘look, this is a great deal, we’re doing what is necessary, we are leading in Europe’.
“The Prime Minister was adamant that he’s passing on a better country than that he inherited from the Tories, and was very keen to stress that defence spending is up considerably, the biggest uplift since the end of the Cold War.”
Analysing the Government’s promised £5billion for drones and advanced technologies, Katherine questioned whether cutting other Government budgets will “be enough” to protect our national security.
She concluded: “We know that warfare has changed, the Ukraine war has really shown us that. But also saying that there’s difficult trade offs, there’s going to be some capital road and energy projects that were slated to happen that are not going to go ahead – is it enough?
“We’ve pledged to get to five per cent by 2035, and we haven’t even laid out how we’re going to get to three per cent. But other countries in Europe are already surging ahead, Germany will be at 3.7 per cent, Sweden be at 3.5 per cent. So are we really leading or are we being left behind?”
