Conflict between countries will dominate next 20 years, says former top UK government official
|
Version 0 of 1. Simon Case urges ministers to develop new means of launching UK’s nuclear deterrent and says the west needs to ‘get our skates on and be ready’ The next 20 years will be dominated by conflict between nations, the former head of the civil service has said. Simon Case, who stood down as cabinet secretary in December, made the warning in his first major interview since leaving the job. Speaking to the Times newspaper, he urged ministers to develop new means of launching Britain’s nuclear deterrent, which is kept aboard constantly patrolling submarines. Land or jet-fired missiles should be considered, he said, in a move the government should announce as part of the coming strategic defence review, an overarching examination of the UK’s defence capability. “In my view you wouldn’t rely on a single system for anything. That’s true in many walks of life, let alone nuclear deterrence,” he told the paper. Case, the civil service chief under four prime ministers, described himself as a “pessimist” amid the rising global turmoil. “As I look out on my children’s lives, the next 10 and probably 20 years is going to be dominated by this inter-state conflict,” he said. “It feels to me that we across the western alliance need to get our skates on and be ready.” Speaking on a new podcast launched by the Times, titled The General and The Journalist, case this week said the UK should be hiking its defence spending to 3% as soon as possible. Keir Starmer’s government has promised to raise defence spending to 2.5% of the UK’s economic output by 2027, with a commitment to raise it further to 3% in the next parliament. Case retired because of a rare health condition at the end of 2024. He served as cabinet secretary under Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Starmer, and also previously served in senior civil service roles under then-prime ministers David Cameron and Theresa May. |