Camilla Tominey took no prisoners as she laid into Shadow Defence Secretary James Cartlidge over the Conservatives’ lasting legacy on the military.

On Remembrance Sunday, the GB News star led a discussion on defence spending on the People’s Channel after it was revealed that Labour could miss its goal to increase defense spending by 2.6 per cent by 2027.

The Opposition has consistently urged Labour to splash more cash on the military as global tensions become increasingly tentative.

During the Tories’ 14-year-long reign, however, defence spending dropped by more than a fifth (22 per cent).

Additionally, Camilla reminded Mr Cartlidge that the Conservatives were handed an army with 108,000 which was reduced to 72,510 by 2024.

“That’s the smallest army since the Napoleonic era. I mean, that’s simply not good enough when it comes to supporting our defences by the last Tory Government, is it?” Camilla exclaimed.

“I’m very proud of what we did,” the Shadow Defence Secretary retorted, claiming that he felt “proud” of the Conservatives’ record of standing by Ukraine since the Russian invasion in 2022.

He added: “In terms of spending, it’s absolutely true to say in 1985, when Gorbachev became president of the USSR, we were spending five per cent GDP on defence. It fell every year under successive Governments.”

In 1996, three per cent of GDP was spend on defence, while this figure dropped to 2.5 per cent when the Tories set up shop in Downing Street.

He said: “We came to power with a note that there’s no money left, and we had to make some very, very difficult decisions. We had to to save the country from going bankrupt, quite frankly.

“But by doing that, we were able to step in when we had the pandemic and when we had the problems with energy prices after the invasion of Ukraine. And defense spending did start rising in 2019.

“But the fact is, at that time, let’s be honest, no one was screaming out saying to spend more on defense because Russia, in some years from now on invade Ukraine. You have to adjust to the world as it is.”

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He further explained that the Russian invasion “has changed things fundamentally” which must be considered and adapted to by Government.

Now, the Tories have pledged to spend three per cent of GDP during the course of the current Parliament due to the “very serious threat”.

Mr Cartlidge turned his attention to shred Labour’s upcoming Strategic Defence Review, which is a “root-and-branch” assessment of the UK’s defence.

The document will aim to set out the principal threats and how to handle them going into the next decade.

He commented: “We think that’s far too far away because the principle, which I think your viewers will understand is very straightforward.

“If you’re worried about threat, the best thing to do is to deter it, to make it less likely to to translate into an actual attack on our allies or even in on this country, so that’s incredibly important.”

Getting such investment in defence will require “very difficult” decisions in other areas of Government, he said, explaining how the Tories would take a sledgehammer to welfare spending.

He added: “We’ve got to get the benefit bill down and use it to fund defence, but also supporting the productive sector of our economy through tax cuts and so on.

“Because Labour’s lost control of public spending and welfare, they cannot afford to deliver the highest spending. That’s the concern we all have today.”

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