YouSaid · the spoken record

Ben Wallace

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114
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2025-01-06
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2025-01-06
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  1. “I'm not that young. I think there were some great leaders in our time. And, you know, I think, I'm afraid to say the jury is out on both Kia. We'll see what Kemi delivers. And I think let's just go back to being. Valuing experience in life, whether you're an experienced broadcaster or an experienced, we're too busy to throw people away and focus on the glamour. So the bald, overweight man sitting here on the program.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “She didn't really think about the people in the OBR and all those things, and you didn't think about the process. I will take it back to the new labor sort of. Trilateral power of the man sitting opposite me, Alistair Campbell did comms, Peter Mandelson put the fix in, John Prescott knocked heads together of ministers. That three... Helped drive New Labour deliver because cabinet committees, you know, prime ministers don't really like attending them most of the time, but you need someone.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Matters, right? It really matters. Don't fall in love with the media narrative, oh, a high fly, aren't they brilliant? No, no, I'm afraid sometimes the unglamorous hardworking, the ministers of state carry governments. They are the hard workers. I mean, they are really, they know how to govern, they attend those boring committees, they attend, they try and triangulate and get their way. So learn how to govern and if not train people how to govern. There's nothing wrong with people learning their trade, right? And I think those are governance is a skill. And the way you govern in politics is people, process, and policy. And if you can't get that triangulation right, then you ultimately won't deliver. So Liz Truss could stand up and make a policy.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “So, the do's and don'ts are, first of all, it's an old army question, which the test of leadership is, be very clear in what your mission is and what everybody's role is in it. And those are old tests in the army, which is when you turn up and you go to the trenches and you said to the young guardsman, what is your higher commander's plan and your role in it? If you can't answer it, the leaders failed. No one's asking the guy in the trench to storm the Bastille, but you're asking them, you know, what's the boss's boss's idea? Because then they can all contribute. And if you can't answer that, and too many leaders in politics don't communicate that either to their own troops or to the country. My plan is this, and your plan in it, your role in it is that. I think that's the most important thing for any leader, and it's also a very good test. to find out people have no idea what it is to be conservative or to be part of the new labor movement. What's the point? I mean, they'll all just flake away. So that, I think, is the most point. The other one is that experience.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Visualized through the next four years. So Chemi's challenge is can she visualize the four years? Keir Starmer's challenge is to think about what's he actually going to do in year three and four. Another one was he doing now. And Rachel Rees' challenge is if you don't grow the economy in year three or four, or if the tax income is low and you have lost growth, you're done, right? That would be my view. And Kir should think about moving her in the O3 to bring someone in. Because I think that is ultimately what we'll do for them and do for us.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “They're going to sell off some of the public forest estate, but we were going to guarantee all the rights away, and people will still be able to do it. And there was this big thing, and David Cameron did a U-turn, and it was the first experience of new MPs getting letters and campaigns against it. And Ken went, this is just such rubbish. He said to me, if in four years time, you're going to do it. If in four years' time, Mr. James is still walking through that forest with his dog, he won't give a toss about that debate four years earlier. And you have to put things in perspective in politics. And you have to think.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Well, no, no, look, I know it's a four year journey, right? So it is all to play for. I think she could do it. I think she has the qualities to do it. She's the qualities to be the prime minister. But I also know I've been in opposition. I remember being a Liz Truss' cabinet as the only member who'd been in opposition. It is a hard slog opposition and also weak as a long-term policy. If there was an election tomorrow morning, I think she'd have a good chance, right? Because Kiased Armour and his team are very unpopular, right? And people are worried. But I'm also not naive enough to think that what happens this week is going to be solidified into people. Here's a lesson from Ken Clark. Very early on in the Cameron administration, we had this privatize the forests debates, right? Which was where I can't remember what the policy was. It was so sort of, it was pretty minor, which was going to be something like the National Forestry, whatever they call it.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Alistair, I'm not going to take that from the Labour Parties, but the life, I mean, I was watching Louise Haig's videos of everyone should resign for wrongdoing. We never did. I think everyone, I mean, usually the lib dams are the first out of the trap for a residence. That's true.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Chemi I worked with. And I think. Know this better than most is that when you're in the political bubble, the swirl of rumors and they go around in circles. My experience with Kemi is she was instinctively strong on her economics. She was direct and was a competent secretary of state, a good secretary of state. That was my experience of her. She's done the right things at first. She hasn't jumped in with a policy a day. Some of the other candidates were like announcing a policy a day. And she knows that it's a four-year... Cycle five years”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “But the challenge for anybody is if you think the solution is to use military force to stop its nuclear program, you have to be 120% sure you can. I mean, if you do it and it doesn't work, What do you do then? And it's going to be really interesting in Trump because in his mantra is no boots on the ground, but if Iran was what they wanted to do, that would not, you couldn't, Israel can't do it on its own.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Which they've had on and off. I think that's the truth of their program. It's been on and off. It's been on. It's been off. It's been on. So I think you're going to have definitely the direction of a nuclear-armed Iran, whether it's this year, next year, or the next three years, which Israel has always said is unacceptable, as have the other neighbors. I mean, you know, many Gulf Arab states do not want a nuclear armed Iran because Iran will do what Russia does and start having spheres influences under its umbrella. But is it possible, right? I mean, Iran, it doesn't matter what solution is going to happen in the Middle East between Israel. I don't think Iran is going to stop with its ambitions now.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Well, you can slightly put it another way that if you were Iran right now, Your proxies have been smacked all over the place You know that your own military is a bit of a joke insofar as you've talked to yourself for years about how good it is, but it isn't really very good. And you fear that Israel's coming for you one way or the other, whether that's true or not is separate. I think you'll see an acceleration.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Bulldozing of so much of that small strip of land. And in doing so, I think lost the moral high ground. And in doing so, we will see, because I had done this as a security minister, the radicalization of young men across the globe. So they are right to defend themselves, but I want to see a political solution alongside it. If you ever want an advert, why should never have a portion representation? It's a Knesset, right? Which has always produced almost a governance of Israel that is very, very hard to make any progress on politics, political solutions. So we are now held to ransom by tiny little parties in Knesset who don't want a two-state solution in any way at all. And I don't see them producing any solution.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “the mass, but what you should do is recognise Israel holds all the cards. It controls the air, sea and land, it's got time on its side, it could have taken out the initial people who prosecuted that. It could have done it over 10 years or one year. It didn't have to do this.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “think you know we all everything we have we have to be guided by international law and and you have a right to self-defense but that self-defense has to be proportional and I can see Netanyahu's point of view which is you know I'm going to finish this well I was looking at some quotes from the Israeli Prime Minister in 2001 when I think it was Islamic jihad kicked off and he said we're going to annihilate them well no one ever did you know I mean it's very hard to annihilate a terrorist belief you can damage the military and no doubt and Hamas had been very badly damaged but I think what worries me about the Israeli guards I think is where's the political solution is there I don't hear any political solution and you're only going to bring stability in the long term through a political solution now I actually took the view you shouldn't have a ceasefire”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “But ultimately, I used to feel that Germany were holding back, were trying to play a game that was too clever by half on Putin.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “He's good. He's okay. He's okay. But I had the previous one, Christine LeBret, before, of course, yeah. But also, it was Olaf Schultz. It wasn't, to be fair to Morris. I mean, Boris is perfectly good for storage. I mean, he could be in the running to be, he might remain defense secretary in a grand coalition of the Germans.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Back of the queue when it comes to defence, you have to wait till they build their ships. So I think there were some, yes. And I think Biden was always iconic. He didn't want to upset the French and Germans. That was a long-running theme in them. Look, to be fair, Olaf Schultz and I do not get on. I've been very publicly critical of him, not when I was serving, but I have since. But during my tenure, he blamed me for the tanks. I embarrassed him because I put challenger tanks into Ukraine and it made him have to do that in the end. So didn't always get on with the SPD German defense team.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “So when he said no we saw a vacancy, and we thought yes will put me in. I hadn't gone into defense to be the Secretary General of NATO. And yeah, definitely elements of the French and German establishment did not want me to be the Secretary of NATO and they wanted an EU person, I think, within those systems, though, it's quite interesting. So within the French system, I had supporters because I'm not, you know, I'm quite happy to stand up to the United States and I have done in my own time. And I fundamentally believe that we cannot just go spend our life buying completely American equipment. We need to invest in our own, I would say that coming from Langshu. We need to invest in our own defense capabilities and things. And if we're entirely dependent on the United States for our defense, there'll be no industry. Thousands of people will not have their job and we'll get what we're given. And by the way, that means does...”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “It's possible. Possible. I mean, just on the SecGens, I can tell you that the background of this was Mark Rutter was what everyone had thought, and we were all happy. Dutch Prime Minister, the Dutch Prime Minister, Biden personally asked him at least twice, and he said no.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “And all these. I don't agree with it. It's all pie in the sky if your security is paid for by Canada, America, Britain and Turkey. I mean, it's pie in the sky and Putin knows it.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “I think. Some will, unfortunately the smaller powers will, Poland is definitely, I mean, Poland is going to be Poland is going to replace Britain within the EU as its role it plays. I think it's the fifth biggest economy already. It's highly productive economy, spending, I think, towards 4% of GDP. It's going to become Europe's security voice, European Union security voice, not the continent of Europe, and one of its big power bases. And it's going to be very interesting to see how France and Germany accept that. So they will. The Scandinavians are already in a better position. Their forces are better being ready. They're not massive, but they're good at it. I think the question will be, would France and Germany? That's going to be a big question. Would Italy? And would Spain? And if you really want to get going, remember, I think it's shocking. I think 78% or maybe 82%, somewhere around that of all of NATO spending is by countries outside the EU. So I understand Macron's call for an EU arm.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Until that happens, no one's, the public don't buy the smoke and mirrors of, you know, we're going to cut bureaucracy, magic.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Our whole effort, my whole effort, was to change the culture of where defence sat in the public sector choice of spending. Ultimately, we can argue about 2.5, 3%, whatever. But ultimately, both governments had got out of the habit of talking about defence as core. It had been a stick-on discretionary spend. The Treasury would dollop some underspend from another department into you. But no one was really prepared to say, look, we're going to spend less on roads this year because we're going to spend more on transport. We're going to spend less on BNHS, whatever you want to choose from. That was never going to happen. And even when I felt very pleased that I got Rishi over the line and put a date on 2.5, that was going to be funded out of cutting civil servants. If we really want to be honest about defense spending and how much heavy lifting we're going to have to do, someone's going to have to be brave, whether it's Keir Starmer or Kemmy Badnot and stand up and say, you know what? Next year.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Everyone is worried about our own stocks. I mean, you know, we've spent stocks or gifted stocks to Ukraine. Everyone has, and that inevitably comes from your own stocks.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “And that's, you know, I've been in a hollow armed forces under both labour and conservatives. I've been in those hollowed forces. So I think Trump is probably, I suspect, going to require more of a subscription to be a member of NATO. What that is, 2.5 or 3%, I don't know, and what time he'll put on it. When it comes to Ukraine, it's quite interesting. I've been reading some of the comments by his picks, first draft picks, you know, his picks for government. Some of them are quite contradictory. I think it's a national security advisor who said Putin views a ceasefire as an opportunity to reload, right? And some of them have been quite harsh on Putin.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “On one level, Trump has a legitimate cry to say You've been warned. Since 2014, By Obama as well, that you need to pick up the pace. You know, people forget the Americans are on the hook for 300,000 plus personnel to come to our aid. If I was a Secretary of State carrying that liability, I'd be a little bit. Thank you very much. And we have been, you know, go back to really 1991 onwards, we have been corporate raiding the defense budget to pay for our other, I wouldn't call them luxuries, but to pay for our social policies. And maybe that's a decision that people, all the governments, both labour and conservative government. And I get misquoted constantly by John Healey, who have a lot of respect for my successor, or one of my successors. But, you know, both labour and conservatives in their time have reached for the defence budget when it suited them.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “In his modern arsenal. I mean, you know, when you're resorting to firing Iranian drones and sort of ballistic missiles and human wave attacks, that is not the battle they were configured for. But yeah, he evokes nuclear. He's done it 30, 40 times. He evokes it.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Forget the news. I mean, they've got a drunk media lurking around game show hosts. Putin knows that like for like NATO versus a unified NATO versus Russia in conventional methods is done. Russia loses in conventional. And in fact, it's definitely going to lose now because he has got no army left, really, right? So he is a vote.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Because there are parts of our systems, as in our government, who believe that escalation. Who believe his rhetoric on escalation and are.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “First of all, you don't have these ridiculous debates about Storm Shadow, not Storm Shadow. I mean, let's not forget over these last nearly three years, over these last years, we had rows about anti-aircraft missiles. We had rise about tanks. We had rise about not even storm shadows, planes. You know, every single time you go around a circle.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Yeah, no, I found that terribly frustrating. And, you know, he's a bully. I mean, that's how I view it, right? And for a bully to be successful, all he has to do is intimidate and people to fear him. And Putin is a bully, and he needs to be stood up to.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “It wasn't just that I need people to train. And if you don't give us people to train, you can keep buying all the stuff you like. But people will lose their”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Well, no, that was a misquote. I'd said we're not Amazon, we're a partnership. Because I had offered training in Britain.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “I'd say a quarter of a million plus. I mean, they were losing 1,500 a day recently. Fighting over empty shell of a village. He doesn't care, right? I mean, there's a reason he's had to now rely on North Koreans. I mean, he doesn't care. And this is the big test for the West is just as we see in the Middle East. It's about resolve. The problem is, what are we going to do in a world where the dictators have no regard for their own population at all? And they believe that's the way you win”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “To repel that. But the other thing is. At great cost. I mean, No other, maybe apart from President Xi, no other nation would survive losing seven hundred thousand of its own citizens, dead or injured.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Can be found anywhere. I mean, these cheap drones flying everywhere, whether they're dropping anything or just watching. So in armored warfare, you have to assemble. You have to concentrate your force to then punch through the barrier. And the problem is, if you're in your assembly point, somebody with a 200 pound drone has spotted you, suddenly the artillery comes in and you don't get to congregate or muster in the way you're supposed to. So if you can't concentrate your forces to punch through, it becomes harder. And then you get stuck in a minefield. And then the Russian artillery is vast. So it was a very difficult time. There were some successes, Herschon, if you remember, we got to the north side of the strait looking opposite into Crimea and indeed since then people have crossed over. There were some successes, but obviously Russia managed.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “Capability at the right moment. And also we'd all underestimated the use of Russian landmines. I mean, the Russians have millions of these things and they were just throwing them out the back of their carts. Literally, so the minefields were deep. They weren't just shallow. They were putting mines on top of mines. So you clear the first mine and the second one goes off. And at the same time, cheap drones, which is the real new phenomena of this battlefield is...”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “I think two things. First of all, We probably were all trying to impose how we do things on them. And Soviet armies didn't quite have the same type of combat engineer. So we always have in our system, combat engineers are the men and women that clear minefields and breach obstacles. And the Russians had been building this obstacle, massive sort of like an obstacle sort of motorway, really, through the territory they already held. And to puncture through that landmines drones, everything else is a very big call and very hard. And I don't think Ukraine actually had.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “He hasn't. Well, when we had the call up, everyone was called up. We all were trained and then we had conscription in the Second World War. They don't quite have conscription. And Zelensky took a view that he was wanting to preserve the sort of 18 to 28 year olds who were younger. And it's not a mass conscription. I would have said, and I've written it, I think they should have done is mobilized, asked Europe to train them, right? Because that's not a hard ask. If you ask them to train people, that's not difficult. And then they go back to their houses, they put their helmets under the bed, they put their uniforms in the cupboard, they go back to work, and you can then call them up. And that hasn't happened.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “Because hanging it around the world. So the prescription is, you know, we've had two years, right? So we could have been ramping up our production, sending more equipment to Ukraine. There are issues in Ukraine. I've written before that one question I've always had for Zelensky is why didn't you mobilize your people? In 1939, we mobilized men and in 1941 the Women at War Act, we mobilized women. And if you are against an enemy that wants to annihilate you, as Adolf Hitler did, then why haven't we mobilized? And I think in the war, we spent something like 56, 60% of GDP on our defense. I mean, and we didn't think, oh yeah, but what's going to happen afterwards? We just had to survive. And I think there are some questions around.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Well, the prescription of what we could do is all there. It's been laid out for two years. Europe needs to stand up. It needs to put its money where its mouth is. The one thing Obama and Trump has agreed on since 2014, I think it was, is 2%. So it's bizarre, but it is the one thing I think they actually agree on. And Europe has talked round and around in circles about it.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “Yeah, yeah. And then they just lied to me. No, we're not going to do it. And I thought his lie was so straight. And there is a thing called Vranyu in Russian, which is it's like a. Like an abuse, which is you know I'm lying. I know you know I'm lying I'm still going to lie to you because I'm powerful. I mean it's a bullying tactic and you know I knew I knew that somewhere else in that building was a room clearly making the plans for what was going to happen a few days later and you could tell”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “Was I realized then that their planning assumptions were entirely wrong? Shorigu said to me, well, my mother's Ukrainian, they're going to welcome us. So you haven't been to Ukraine recently, I have, you know, and they're going to fight. And Shoyu gave away, he said as I was leaving that basically his army was invincible. I mean, he'd said, you know, we used to be much further down the pecking order. Now we're like in the top. So there was hubris misjunction. And those assumptions are what lead to failures in military plans. Because if you make your plan, as we saw around, well, they're all welcome you in Kiev and all the girls will want to marry you and everything else, which is what they all thought the conscripts, basically.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “If you remember, Liz Truss had then gone. I'd originally invited Shoygu to come. And so remarkably, I then got invited. So I went. I took my chief defense staff and a team. And it was, you know, quite respectful. We laid a wreath at the Kremlin for the unknown soldier. We had a parade there. And then we went and it was a classic type of conference room in the ministry. And there were Shoygu, Garazimov, who was undisputed at that stage leader of the Russian military. Obviously, some of the GIU people and other general. And I brought my chief defense staff and my commander field army, which is an unusual post to bring, but I brought him because he's the guy who would have to deal with any, you know, it was like saying we're not, we have our own capabilities here. And we had a meeting and it was actually, I mean, there was a plus and a minus the meeting.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “If Sweden is worried, you should listen. This is a historical neutral country. It knows its neighbor. It's a mainstream EU country. It's not a sort of traditional Eastern European type. I said, you should listen. And they...”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “Not until January or December, I think December or January. And it should have been, it could have been three months earlier. So we got them in in January. And then, you know, the drum beats the war. And there were still people. I mean, I remember going to Germany and I took with me pictures of the mobile crematoriums the Russians deployed. I mean, you can imagine what that is like. I mean, that's the type of attitude they have to their own forces. Because we know in 2014 they hid all the deaths. They covered them up, cremated them and buried them in fields and things. I said, look, they are going to do it. And the Germans were like, it's not logical. Why would they do it? And it isn't logical. I mean, who would sacrifice nearly 700,000 of your troops and most of your army? But people were not convinced. I went to Moscow. To be fair, the Scandinavians were convinced, you know, and I used to use Sweden and Finland as a proper market to the EU. I used to say to the rest of Europe, France and Germany especially, look.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “Foreign Office said it would be escalatory to me to attend the celebration of Ukrainian independence Some of the spooks, some of the national security institution. And to be fair, this is where Boris was very good. I wrote to Boris and I said, look, Boris, we need to get some of this stuff in here. We're not talking about the higher levels. We need to give them hope and deterrence. And he said, go to America, see if the Americans are okay. Went to the Americans, they were fine, came back in September. Got passed by the relevant National Security Committees. And then nothing happened, and it kept getting put back on the agenda by the system. So the weather.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “Okay, so going back to all this thing, I had come to the conclusion in the summer before that they're going to do this and we needed to put some weapons into Ukraine to allow the Ukrainians to defend themselves. And we're talking about those short range anti-tank missiles, 300 meters, right? They're not going to hit Moscow or anyone else. Institutions didn't want to do it. Senior members, that's escalatory. I remember I was asked to go to the celebration of Ukraine independence on its 20 or 30 year point.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “No, I saw a lot. I mean, I would know whether they were any good at it. I mean, you know, I think we have a lot more to answer for our Remain campaign and how we dealt with it. I mean, our Remain campaign was, you know.”

    2025-01-06 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 115. Ben Wallace: Britain's mistake in Ukraine, Trump vs. NATO, and visiting Iran with Jeremy Corbyn · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source