There’s a first time for everything. In his Commons statement on the integrated defence, security and foreign policy review, Boris Johnson opened by saying that its aim was to make the UK stronger, safer and more prosperous. If true, that would probably be the only occasion the prime minister has achieved those aims. Normally the one thing you can rely on him to achieve is to make things worse. By neglect if not on purpose. Just think of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic over the last year. Still, there’s nothing Boris likes more than his own grandiosity so there was plenty of opportunity to talk up “Global Britain”. What was missing was the detail on how this was going to be achieved now that we had had a slight falling out with our Nato allies in the EU. The UK would become a tech superpower and everything would just somehow fall into place. Our one aircraft carrier would spend more time in the Pacific and no country was too far or too near not to be considered a potential enemy. Russia was our main adversary and we were giving the Chinese a yellow card. If they didn’t improve their record on human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims, then we would get very cross indeed. China must be terrified. And don’t get him started on the French. Keir Starmer replied by drawing a line between himself and his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn. He did believe in defence and he did believe in nuclear deterrence. He just couldn’t see why the government was increasing its nuclear warheads from 180 up to 260. Couldn’t we flatten enough cities with our current capability? And why was there no mention in Johnson’s speech of the cuts to the number of military personnel as outlined in the report itself. He also agreed with the threat posed by Russia but wondered if it wouldn’t have been a better idea to have started by implementing the measures outlined in the Russia report, rather than start again from scratch. “Labour is all over the place,” Johnson declared, yet again accusing others of faults he fails to recognise in himself. Something many MPs from both sides of the chamber were quick to pick him up on. The China hawks, such as Tobias Ellwood, Tom Tugendhat and Julian Lewis, all damned the prime minister with faint praise. The UK was too needy, they said. So desperate for trade deals that it was prepared to overlook any signs of oppressive authoritarianism. Hong Kong’s freedoms were being eroded on a daily basis and Boris was happy to sit back and say nothing. Liberal Democrat Layla Moran and the now independent Margaret Ferrier, who ost the SNP whip after ignoring coronavirus regulations, both tried where Starmer had failed in seeking clarification of why the extra nukes were needed and why we weren’t in breach of the nuclear proliferation treaty. This time Johnson was rather more forthcoming. If just as incoherent. It was like this. We were just going to say we were going to knock up an extra 80 more warheads and then, when we failed to deliver them, could claim to have cut our arsenal by 40%. Better still, we would be able to reallocate the money we hadn’t spent as savings in the defence budget. Or something like this. Other MPs were more concerned about the vagueness of the promise to reinstate the 0.7% overseas aid budget at some unspecified time in the future when we could afford it. Conservative Andrew Mitchell even warned the prime minister that he would be in breach of not just the manifesto but the law itself if he failed to reinstate the commitment in next year’s spending commitments. Boris merely looked disdainful. There would be no vote. MPs were in danger of talking Britain down, he said. The UK already gave more than most other countries as it was, so everyone should focus on our generosity rather than the cuts to spending. Besides, it was good for some of the poorer countries to learn to look after themselves rather than become reliant on our largesse. The UK economy had taken a big hit this year – though not so big that we couldn’t afford not to pretend to increase our nuclear stockpile – and we would get back to the 0.7% aid budget at some point in the future. Definitely, maybe. Get back to him in 10 years or so. After that the session rather petered out. Mostly because MPs couldn’t quite believe that was all Johnson had to say. It had been much ado about not very much. Long on posture, grandstanding and ambition, short of any grounding in reality. No explanation of what benefits we would get from more nukes and just a vague promise to maintain army numbers with a Dad’s army of reservists. It made about as much sense as the statement that followed by the junior housing minister, Eddie Hughes, on levelling up. The government would be levelling up across the whole country, he said grandly. Someone should let him know that rather implies maintaining the status quo.