YOUR Ukip correspondent Philip Griffiths, whose every outpouring no matter how ridiculous seems to find its way into your paper, tells us we need to spend more on 'the defence of the realm'.

To coin a phrase made infamous in the 1980s by then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, it is 'the enemy within' that the British population needs to defend itself against, rather than some imaginary threat from abroad.

Bankers, speculators, and spivs brought this country to the brink of bankruptcy in 2008.

At a time when vital public services like the NHS, social care, education, and housing are being starved of cash in the name of misnamed 'austerity', which is a euphemism for making the working class and poor pay for the bankers' and capitalist crisis.

Griffiths wants to spend even more public money on his toy soldiers and war games.

Let Griffiths and his fellow sabre-rattlers don the khaki and put their bodies and lives where their mouths are.

James Roberts, Wallasey