Badenoch pledges defence boost funded by welfare cuts as borrowing costs surge

Kemi Badenoch has announced a Conservative plan to increase defence spending, funded by cuts to welfare, as the new government faces rising debt costs on its first day at Prime Minister's Questions.

GB News reports the Tories are proposing to slash welfare spending to fund a defence boost, with the party pledging billions for the armed forces. The Guardian describes the plan as "stuck in the Tory comfort zone" - the familiar trade-off of cutting social security to fund other priorities. The Mirror, meanwhile, reports that borrowing costs are surging, a headache for Andy Burnham as he faced his first PMQs.

The split reveals the live tension in British fiscal policy: defence spending commands cross-party support in principle, but the bill must land somewhere. Badenoch's answer is welfare - Labour's traditional red line, and a pot the Conservatives have raided before. Whether the sums close depends on whose forecast of welfare demand you believe, and whether the cuts survive contact with the public when they arrive as named benefits withdrawn from named people.

The timing is awkward for Burnham. Bond markets are already moving against the government, and the opposition is handing him a policy that splits his base: back the defence increase and own the welfare cuts, or oppose it and be called weak on security.

What to watch: whether Labour engages the detail or dismisses the proposal as uncosted. The bond market will not wait for the argument to resolve.