Two former senior defence figures, General Sir Richard Barrons and former NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson, have delivered a stark warning to a parliamentary committee that Britain has lost crucial time in preparing for a possible war with Russia. The pair, who authored last year's Strategic Defence Review, told MPs that "the world is on fire" and that Britain's allies are "dismayed" by its failure to ready itself, describing the UK as comfortably within range of Russian ballistic missiles while its defences are near non-existent. Their intervention matters because it directly challenges the government's handling of defence policy at a moment of heightened tension.

The former top brass criticised ministers for wasting a year arguing over cuts rather than urgently producing the promised Defence Investment Plan to follow the Strategic Defence Review. They highlighted a proposed "Iron Dome" system to shield Britain's major cities from Russian aerial attack, costed at a basic £80 billion, against which Labour allegedly offered just £1 billion. The warning comes as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer heads to a NATO summit with what critics, including Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, characterise as an unfunded and inadequate defence plan.