YouSaid · the spoken record

John Healey

lines on the record: 61
first: 2025-10-05
most recent: 2025-10-05
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“When you're in the middle of the Atlantic and you're hit by a Force 9 storm and the waves, you're being driven off course by waves that are bigger than the boat, you survive that, you sort of think, well, I'm going to survive anything.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We got driven off course, we were 43 days at sea, we were reported missing to the Lloyds. We ran out of gas, we ran out of fresh food. Yeah, we were in pretty bad shape when we got to the Azores, but we got there.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We got across, it was absolutely a trip of lifetime. It was coming back that was worse. I was on a 30 foot boat with one other, no engine. What happened on the way back? And that was, we had very bad weather.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'd worked with those people that were being turfed out under the Thatcher government into caring the community so called and there was not even an assessment of their needs before they were discharged. That legislation changed that. So look, job done. Perhaps it was 30 years before its time, you know, career break. I thought, I want to sail the Atlantic. The problem was I didn't really, I'd never sailed. I didn't research it properly. I got a one-way ticket to the Canary Islands and found I was there two months before any of the boats arrived to make the crossing.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I drafted and I organized a campaign to win a piece of legislation that included rights for people being discharged from the big mental hospitals we had in the 80s.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What's so important about the leadership he's offered on the international side with coalition of the willing, the new agreements that we've struck with the European Union, the trade deals that we've been able to land. This is, once again, Britain becoming democracy's most reliable ally. This is once again Britain being able to play a leading role in Europe because make no mistake, we have to settle the land war in Ukraine. We have to be able to deter increasing Russian aggression and we have to be able to strengthen that collective NATO-led deterrence in order to keep Britain safe.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, this is a man who's prime minister at a time of unprecedented threat, who recognizes just how deep the problems in this country are and how tough the job to fix them is. He is someone who has never done things the easy way. He won't walk around problems. And he knows that his task now is to lead a government that can restore that sense of confidence and trust in government, that can restore that sense of pride in the country. And if you want the biggest picture, I think this is at a period where he recognizes as I do that the future of Britain, the future of European security will be determined over the next three to four years. And that's why”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Earlier this month. So we've taken steps not just to say to the Israelis, but to demonstrate to the Israelis that there are consequences. And part of, and of course we've taken the step now to say that we will recognize Palestine, and that has brought other countries along with us. It has helped to shift arab opinion. So you've got Arab countries now like us condemning Hamas and confirming that Hamas can have no role in any future for Palestine. So we're doing what we can and what we can do is much stronger if we do it alongside allies. And so that's why you've seen Kir the whole time working with other European countries with Macron, with Mertz. You've seen him working with Albanese. You've seen him working also with Carni from Canada in recent weeks.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, we've suspended the export licenses on 30 items, which the IDF, there was a risk the IDF might use to breach international humanitarian law in Gaza. We've refused since then another 46 licenses. We've paused the... The military training places for IDF personnel in the UK. We did an issue any invitations to the Israeli government, to the big London International Defence Trade Fair that was...”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“100% the new offensive in Gaza. utterly out of order harsh agonizing to see its impact and we've condemned that we've Just called it out in public, but I've had the hard conversations in private with the Israeli Defense Ministers Kia has with the president of Israel. So we've been working to try and say this is got to stop.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They just do it by what you say and what you thought leadership. No, that's why we're increasing defense spending by a record amount since the end of the Cold War. That's why we're putting in place some very profound reforms within defense. And it's why we're stepping up the alliances that we're rebuilding our alliances in a way that we've lost sight of in Britain until 15 months ago. And that was what we said we would do. We said that Britain would again play a leading role in NATO. We said we would reset relations with key European allies, relations that were broken and sometimes willfully, willfully tested during that Brexit period.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so it doesn't require every country to be within NATO to be able to do all things. And that's, for me, the real importance. What's the special contribution and leadership that Britain can bring? So, part of that is about how well equipped and what our forces can do. But it's also that recovering that sense of leadership that Britain can offer. So for instance, on Ukraine, we are leading the coalition of the willing preparation for the point at which the fighting stops. We are leading the contact group of nations that is stepping up support for Ukraine. But we've also behind the scenes. We've also been setting up and leading funds, the International Fund for Ukraine. It's just top £2 billion, 10 countries. And the UK is procuring and delivering through what we call Task Force Kindred for the contributions for other countries. So we've been responsible for coordinating the biggest movement of munitions across Europe since the end of this Cold War. We've been responsible for procuring for Ukraine the contribution.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is a big challenge you had Ben Wallace on your program a few months ago. I've got a lot of time for him and a lot of respect and the strength of the UK response and leadership on Ukraine in large part was down to Ben Wallace. The cross-party support was absolute from Kir Starmer and me from day one and we have that from the Conservatives now and it's a really important part of it. But he also said, look, you know, in 14 years we hollowed out and underfunded the forces. There is a huge challenge now to make our forces more fit for war fighting because that's the way that we tur the increasing Russian aggression and other adversaries. But we don't do it alone.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“10 times further into Russia and to be able to react ten times faster so we can work the Estonians together and I think we learn that we learn that we're stronger together we stand together and that's the philosophy of NATO”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For those countries on that eastern flank, they have an acute and immediate and understandable sense of threat, but they are also, and I think we learn from this as well, that they want to work with allies like us. We've made a big commitment to Estonia, for instance. have hardwired about a thousand of our UK troops into that Estonian defence and planning. We're part of developing some extraordinary new technology that we're putting in the hands of the Estonian, the UK fighters, that, for instance, to come back to your previous discussion, we've developed to put on contract and delivered into the hands of our forces there within six months. And it is already allowing the sort of black rats, the fourth light infantry brigade that's out there to be able to see.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think we can learn from Sweden as well as Finland, that sense that society is stronger and more secure if it's resilient in basic ways, that we're all more attuned to cyber threats, that we recognize and support more strongly the role that the forces play”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And we have to be ready to call out and explain to people just what a threat and just what Russia is doing. That's why, for instance, recently when we had one of their spy ships in our waters and made sure that we didn't just keep that quiet and did what we needed to shadow them, make sure they got up to no harm while they were in our waters. But actually we exposed it. So people can see some of what they're doing. I mean, I was shocked when I became Defence Minister by the... Scale just how many, for instance, cyber attacks that we can trace to states, including from Russia, that we face day in, day out.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And part of the big strategic defense review that we published in June set that out. It's also an observation from Ukraine. It isn't just a country as stronger, it forces better ready to sustain a fight. If the industry and the innovation base in the country can support them, but it's also that you require that as they do in Ukraine, requires the whole society to do that. Finland's on the Russian border. We're somewhat remote. We've been used to years in which we've been able to help ourselves to the post-Cold War peace dividend to be able to sort of outsource any sense of defending the country to the armed forces. But we have to take our homeland defense more seriously. And this is part of the NATO plans. We have to make our forces more ready to fight because that's the way that you deter aggression in the future.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Finance teams down to four. We've got a single invest budget now instead of multiple areas in defence making their own investment decisions and you've got a military strategic headquarters for the first time with the chief of the defense staff commanding the service chiefs. So you get a stronger strategic center. You're able to make the decisions quicker. And look, we can do it. We've proved that we can do it to support Ukraine. We've got this extraordinary task force that has demonstrated its capacity, not just at scale, to procure and develop what Ukraine needs, but can do it quickly.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Isn't just a defence problem, it's a government problem as well, but part of the purpose of the reform that I'm driving that's the deepest reform of defence for over 50 years that nobody sees or reads about, doesn't get in on the front pages, no photo opportunities, but unless we do this, we won't be able to put the most innovative new tech in the hands of our frontline warfighters. We won't be able to get on contract with new ships or planes within two years instead of six. We won't be able to harness an upgrade, the new radar systems or weapons systems as we need to. That's why I've set target times for getting on contract. It's why I've done a deep reform of defense. So we now, for instance, we've got 17 organizations down to four lead areas. We've got...”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We have a defense system that has been used to working too slowly. That has overcomplicated every decision, that has not had people who are clearly identified as responsible, ready to get a grip and answering for whether or not things are done.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Recognizing that, I think he's recognizing really the determination of the Ukrainians and the relative weakness of Putin. You look at the fact that 40% of his government spending now is going on the military. What's needed now is to turn the screw on Putin economically, to continue to make sure that Ukraine has the military support to keep fighting, which is why that we've stepped in as the UK and I convene and chair, co-chair with the Germans, the Ukraine contact group, which is 50 nations supporting the Ukraine, standing with Ukraine. But we've also got to prepare for that point of peace because peace is possible. And that's why we've also stepped in and Kir's been an important force in this alongside the French to prepare for the coalition of the willing so that we can help secure that peace for the long term when we can get an end.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was three and a half years ago. And that isn't just the huge courage of their military, it's the determination of their civilian population. I visited a drone factory, which had been bombed five times this year. Those workers still come to work every morning because they know the drones they're making are what their fathers, their sons, their uncles need on the front line to fight back Putin. So I think Trump”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Two massive questions So on Ukraine. It's too easy to say, look, Putin's winning. Yes, he's making some, gaining some ground. But at the rate that he's been winning Ukraine territory this year, it would take him another four years to take the whole of the Donbass. And this is a war in the end, which he thought he'd win in a week, three and a half years on. He's lost more than a million men. He's lost more than 10,000 tanks and armoured vehicles. He has produced a NATO which is now bigger. It's now more unified. And it's got a big commitment to being better resourced over the next 10 years. So this is Putin likes to talk as if he's strong, but he's actually weaker than he was before. NATO's stronger than it was before. And Ukraine, having been out there two or three weeks ago, is just as determined and defiant as”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“AUCUS program, perhaps developing it in areas where it isn't being developed and driven at the moment And it will reinforce that three nation commitment that straddles the security of the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific and demonstrates exactly why you can't divide the security of one from the other.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't. The discussions I've had, the knowledge of the program, the work that we're doing on elements of AUKUS directly with the US, as well as with Australia, give me the confidence that this is a hardwired and recognised, not just as a program to develop some world-beating leading military capabilities. It's a big strategic link up between three natural allies. The other reason I'm not really concerned is that we came into government and we did a review of AUCUS. I commissioned that. The Prime Minister reported to me and the Prime Minister. Your government in the US, of course they want to take stock of it. I'm looking to report the confirmation of that as a way of sort of rebooting AUCUS for the future. And then you'll have essentially three recently elected new governments looking for a fresh commitment.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With Italy and with Japan. We're doing some really important work on submarines with the US, with Australia. So with the really big projects, you have to collaborate. But gone are the days when you'll have a British government signing contracts with American firms and not concerned to make sure that the jobs, the economic benefit and some of the innovation and the intellectual property is here in the UK because One lesson that we have to take from Ukraine is that when a country is under threat or forced to fight then its forces are only as strong as the industry that stands behind them.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's what we're doing. So because of the commitment that not just we're making to increasing defence spending, but other European countries are, there's a desire in the US. Of course there is to see their industry and their firms do well. But there's also a recognition. And you will hear Pete Hagseff arguing this. You will actually hear the senior military and you'll hear Trump say this as well is that we have to build up the European industry base, not just the strength of our forces. There are things that we can do. So the link up we talked about, the £10 billion deal that we've struck with Norway to build five new warships for them. Part of that will be stepping up the Norwegian contribution to that. We'll build together and we'll build better. We're doing the same with the next generation of new combat aircraft.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're already seeing that. There's been an increase in our first year of defence contracts into the UK as opposed to the US. And I've been arguing that for four or five years now, that we should direct and look to direct British taxpayers' money first to British jobs, British businesses and British innovation. Are you European?”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, there are always options in government. Never easy choices and decisions, and that particularly for a Labour Party in government with a sort of record of the previous Labour government on Millennium Development Goals, on writing off the debt of most impoverished countries. The setting of the aid target and raising it really hard to do. But that was a switch that recognized essentially that hard power is more important than soft power, that you can't deal with Putin's drones with international aid projects. And in order to make that commitment of increasing funding by 2027, we had to make that decision. That's what we've chosen to do.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Intelligence, the defense, the cyber, the special forces operations that our two countries do together in a way that no other countries do. But the Americans are right. They're right to challenge the UK. The right to challenge the European nations to step up, to fund more, to do more within NATO. And look, I've been arguing for nearly five years that the European countries in NATO have to do more of the heavy lifting. And that's why we have a NATO first policy now at the heart of our defence plans. That and the fact that in this era of increasing threats, our strategic strength and security lies with closer allies.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I do, Key Starmer does, certainly reliable, perhaps less predictable. But when Keir Steimer first went to the White House, President Trump said to him very clearly, Commitment to NATO is total, and certainly in the many discussions and meetings I've had with my opposite number, Pete Hegseth, I know the value that he places in the...”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The country more secure, but it can bring a dividend and it will bring a dividend in the jobs, the support for business, the rebuilding of our British industry and innovation base right across the UK.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Challenge to step up on European security, step up on defence spending. And so we will hit 2.5, 2.6% of GDP on defence by 2027. That's three years earlier than anyone expected, and certainly the Tory plans will, we've got an ambition of 3% in the next parliament, and we've been central to that NATO commitment in June at the Hague summit of 5% on national security as a whole by 2035, recognizing, quite simply, we are in a new era of threat. There has to be a new era for defence. And politically and for the sense of fairness for the country, we have to demonstrate that we can spend not just more, but we can spend better, that it will be good value for money, and not just give people a sense that this is going to make”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The economic investment. The second thing was that we worked really closely on the strategic defense review that Keir Starmer launched within three weeks of the election back in July, not keeping the Treasury at arm's length, but hardwiring a senior Treasury person right at the heart of that review. We worked closely together on being able to prepare the ground for KEAR in February to make that historic commitment in many ways, the commitment to the largest increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War. Very soon after Trump was elected, an act that his Defence Secretary, Pete Hagseth, said to me when I phoned him to let him know we were doing it as a great act of leadership. It was the first European country at that time demonstrating that we were ready to meet the US.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of course, money is an issue, but the Treasury isn't. So Rachel and I in opposition worked very closely on developing a defense industrial strategy, on the recognition and case for investment in defence, driving economic growth, recognizing, for instance, that 70% of defence jobs are outside London and the South East, recognizing that defence jobs are on average paid at least 10,000 to 15,000 pounds a year more than the average manufacturing jobs and that defence with the military offers over 20,000 apprenticeships, new apprenticeships every year. So a recognition from the Treasury which we didn't have before about the importance of place around the UK and you'll see that as not just as a characteristic of how I approach defence but racial approaches and this government approaches.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was the deepest, quickest recession for a couple of centuries. But by early 2010, the economy was growing strongly, the fundamentals were there for your government to take over.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Actually, what Gordon was dealing with there was less domestic and demonstrating what actually even Obama said at the time needed Gordon to do, which was to coordinate an international response to the global financial collapse and recession that many of the Western countries were driven into. So I think Alistair, to some extent, that dominated the large part of the two, three years that was Gordon's premiership up to 2010. And we ran out of time to get to demonstrate to the people how we had help pull the country through. We'd helped pull the international intervention in place so that what could have been an even worse recession, I think we lost 4% of our productive capacity.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was conscious almost immediately of government being hit by some really big things. So I was the Floods Recovery Ministry asked me to do that. We're hit by immediately the 2007 floods. Soon after that, we had the queues outside North.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Never recovered. So, anyway, focus, direction, great, great sense of mission. When you look back and the fact that it was Britain that led the way to the write-off of debt for the most impoverished countries. When you look at that national minimum wage, that in that 97 election, the conservatives, the business were all threatening a million job losses as a result of this. It's become a part of the labor market now. And it's absolutely the flaw that we promised as a Labour Party 90 years before we actually legislated for it. But they were different characters for the most part complementary. But when you've got forceful characters like that, of course, there were tensions at times. And I think that was a strength of the government by and large rather than the weakness.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, that's one thing I don't have from Keir Starmer, the 5 a.m. emails in block caps. But an extraordinary sense of focus and determination. I remember being with him as his PPS when Michael Portillo was appointed by William Hager's shadow chancellor. Gordon was up at four in the morning, and by five thirty we'd all got an email three pages of an outline political critique that by mid morning the government had put out and it branded Portillo as part of the problem, not the solution. And by the following day, when there was Treasury questions, Gordon was branding Portillo as responsible and piloting 22 tax rises. And Portillo never recovered. And very soon afterward he gave up the ghost and went off to do TV.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What I admired about him was absolute, and I've tried to borrow from this in a sense a very clear sense of direction. A focus that borders on the obsessive. Some people think that Donald Trump has invented the cats in his tweets, but actually it was Gordon Brown in his 5 a.m. emails. All cats. Two fingers at the keyboard, all caps.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Times, but what a powerful creative tension that was and what a extraordinary combination of two really able intellects and able politicians that captured a mood of the time and were at the heart of a government for”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Passenger safety, or worse still potential CSE problems, or a grandfather who lost his daughter 10 years ago and his wife last year and is struggling with looking after and caring full-time for two grandkids. You know, that is a very powerful motivation to continue to serve whatever people want me to do that and whatever I can do that sort of job and I can make a contribution at national level. I'll do it.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm talking with you today. I don't normally talk about myself like this. Yesterday I spent over three hours doing my advice surgery at home. I do it every couple of weeks. And when you are dealing with the problems that we're discussing at the top level and you're also able to deal with a retired teacher that is struggling to get her full pension paid or a retired taxi driver that desperately wants to see the regulation tighter so that we can guard against any”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a different question. And actually in my early years, I mean, when I was a trade unionist before I was a Labour Party, sort of active. And when I first met Jackie, she was responsible for the Labour Party's conference organizing, the introduction of commercial exhibitions, which was the first party ever to do it. And then for a number of years, I mean, I was known in Labour Circles, John Smith's Kinnock's office in the early days of Tony's office, Alistair as Mr. Jackie Bate. But no, and the reason is that your focus is solely on the national. For me, the heart of the job I do and the reason that I have this extraordinary privilege of being in parliament is I'm elected by nearly 80,000 people in a part of Rather than a bit of Doncaster. And as long as I feel I can do a job for them, then I will continue. And look.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I believe in labor. I believe in good government. I'm the only one who's served in every shadow cabinet through the 14 years of opposition. And my single purpose was to help get a Labour government elected.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I don't think you can. Level that accusation against Keir Starmer and this government. And I think you've seen particularly how seriously he's bending the efforts of all parts of government, not just the Home Office, to deal with illegal immigration and small boats now as a reflection of that. And I think you will see in the run-up to the budget a similar whole government now bending its efforts to get economic growth going in this country after 15 years where we've frankly had sluggish and flat growth. And it isn't just the mission of the Treasury. It isn't just the business of the business and trade department, all government departments need to do that. And you've seen in defence very clearly me setting out to say, look, we're a government making a record investment in defence investment, in defence spending. We have to demonstrate a dividend to the country.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Certainly, part of the first. It's only a slice of the second. What I mean by that is. This certainly demonstrates the challenge that we've still got. So people aren't seeing what we do, they're not recognizing what we're doing. These, after all, in the ends are things that you would not have a Tory government doing. And if we are not talking about those, if we're not talking about what we're doing, what we're delivering, and why no one else will. So for me, it's time to put an end to talking about ourselves. Talking to ourselves because our job is to do the job we were elected to do. And if we're not demonstrating and talking about that, as I say, nobody else is going to do that for us. On the Biden question. I think the weakness of the Biden-Harris, it's all about delivery, was that it failed to capture the sentiment of a lot of America”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Deal, you've got a defense industrial strategy that will take growth to all parts of the country. And you've got the confirmation that we haven't just in the first year of a Labour government delivered an extra 2 million NHS appointments, but nearly 5 million. And that's even before you get to demonstrating with the Trump state visit that we uniquely can... Bring $150 billion of new tech investment into this country directly from the states.”
2025-10-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 156. Defence Secretary, John Healey: Is Britain Ready For War? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source