Defensive Choices: The Competing Spending Priorities Ahead of the Budget

 Six weeks until the budget and the lobbying for Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's attention is well underway. But with the UK launching air strikes on Yemen, are the asks for electioneering tax cuts ignoring the big geopolitical risks on the horizon? Former Chair of the Defence Select Committee Tobias Ellwood met the Chancellor last week to push for 2.5% of Britain's GDP should be spent on the armed forces. He makes the case on the podcast that Britain should be thinking far more seriously about a coming 'World at War'.

The economy was supposed to be the Prime Minister's main priority after passing the Rwanda bill, but our government editor Stuart Biggs explains why a defeat in the House of Lords is likely to keep the immigration debate spiralling.

Plus: The Chancellor meets bank executives behind closed doors today, reportedly to ask why their valuations are so low. We hear from City of London's Policy Chairman Chris Hayward, who's fresh from meeting the financial elite in Davos, about what they might be discussing. Hosted by Stephen Carroll and Caroline Hepker. 

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