Al Carns

He is a man of his word and he has made it clear that he will deliver on the commitments that led him to leave government in the first place.

Until the country was spending what it needed to spend on defence, I would keep making that case from the backbenches.

To take another role now, in another department, would suggest that it has.

The argument I resigned over has not yet been settled.

I said so publicly and I still stand by every word.

John resigned for the same reasons I did. He is a man of his word and he has made it clear that he will deliver on the commitments that led him to leave government in the first place.

I resigned in June because I did not believe the defence funding on the table was adequate for the threats this country faces. I said so publicly and I still stand by every word.

If we’re still using oil and gas [which we are], importing it instead of producing it at home doesn’t change the climate impact. It does change who gets the jobs, who gets the tax revenues to fund our public services and who controls our…

The economic trajectory of Manchester's in a positive way

Internal blood letting was not in the party's best interests

We need to get on board

The time right now is not for a contest.

If we can do that at the local, the regional level, and the national level, I think that's hitting the right place.

Andy's done a good job with Manchester, he's done a great job during Covid, he's seen the Manchester Arena attack and dealt with that very effectively, and the economic trajectory of Manchester's in a positive way.

So, my view would be we need to get on board.

I think the premise of the question is welfare over warfare - a pound off a nurse to give it to a soldier? And I just don't agree with that premise.

Is it the healthiest nation in Europe, is it adding a trillion pounds onto our GDP, is national security important, how do we get the next generation to have a better deal than the last generation et cetera, et cetera.

We need to see a vision, we need to see the plan because unfortunately a vision without a plan is a dream.

What I would say is I'm not ready to make a decision on this in any way, shape or form.

A decision is often based on multiple factors. I just need to see and buy into that vision and that policy and then we’ll see where we go from there.

We have the ideas, we have the talent, but we need the courage and leadership to deliver them. That's what comes next.

The Labour Party now has an important job to do. The country is watching to see if we can get our act together and focus on the work we were elected to do. That's where my focus is now.

The reality is we are spending too much time preparing for last year’s war, not tomorrow’s.

We have neither the political capital nor the resources to spare for this unjust journey.