Speeches by Jopp.

“I do not want to misquote you, but I just want make sure that I heard you correctly when you said that we had no hope of deterring a country such as Russia in cyber-space. Is that because of policy or capability?”

“But is the genie out of the bottle? Can we only go in one direction for a liberal democracy, or can we re-instil that security culture?”

“We are going to come to the nation’s response in a minute, but I want to explore the nature of the threat. You said something about culture—I cannot remember the word you chose—but when it was the cold war and treated as a war of national survival, do you think we were better at keeping secrets than we are now?”

“In our last session, we were discussing how we loved the clarity of the ideas of perfect peace and perfect war, because then our rules kick in and we know where we stand, but this “grey zone” that we are talking about really just represents life. The gap on the spectrum between competition and conflict is another grey …”

“That is very much looking at it from our point of view, and how we protect against said attacks, but I want to invite you to explore the nature of the threat. You have described it as autocratic, as if that covers the spectrum, but is there a nuance within that in terms of our adversaries’ national approach to the way …”

“You have a range of adversaries out there, and you have seen them develop these new techniques onto the surfaces that you refer to. There's nothing new under the sun but national character. To what extent does that inform the way in which they develop their own offensive capability?”

“Our Secretary of State for Defence is one of the most classic talk show guests I can imagine. With that, I will hand you back to the Chair.”

“Because “The war is coming” seems like a very binary, on/off, “peace or war” sort of language. It almost does not hit the mark when it comes to this constant state of conflict narrative. We were talking earlier about deterrence and subsea infrastructure. It would seem slightly de trop, if someone pulls up a cable with …”

“I do not want to misquote you, but I just want make sure that I heard you correctly when you said that we had no hope of deterring a country such as Russia in cyber-space. Is that because of policy or capability?”

“We are going to come to the nation’s response in a minute, but I want to explore the nature of the threat. You said something about culture—I cannot remember the word you chose—but when it was the cold war and treated as a war of national survival, do you think we were better at keeping secrets than we are now?”

“I will say it, because no one else has: many happy returns for tomorrow. I genuinely thought that you were in your mid-30s—that the Secretary of State was in his mid-30s.”

“I also congratulate the Secretary of State on coming to the Chamber with such a massive capital expenditure announcement and eliciting a saving with his answer to the first question from the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh). One of the plans that went by the board in May, for reasons I have n…”

“Rommel said that the best form of welfare is better training, because better training means fewer widows. The commissioner, by looking at the welfare brief, could be exploring equipment, as the German commissioner is. She interprets it pretty broadly, and it is a sort of “go anywhere” pass so to do.”

“You could be quite broad in your application of the word “welfare”, could you not?”

“The German model does not allow armed forces personnel’s family to approach their commissioner. They have to funnel it, as your remit currently is, via the serviceperson. What are the pros and cons of extending the remit of the commissioner to service families?”

“What interaction have you had with service families, if any?”

“There was only one of three, and you cannot tell us what it was about.”

“Speaking of that, I noticed in your report that three complaints were raised against your office, and that one of them was upheld and an apology issued, which is a pretty shocking strike rate and worse than all three of the services, as far as I can work out. Can you please describe to us the nature of that complaint a…”

“I am interested in this phenomenon you are describing of the complaining culture increasing rather than the behaviour declining. Is there any clustering effect around a unit or trade? Could you do the analysis from the information you get to see whether that one is becoming traditionally much more complaining than that…”

“T8. Tower Hamlets planning officers have rejected China’s application to build a super-embassy there, but rather than put this through the appeals process that anyone else would have to go through, the Foreign Secretary has got the Deputy Prime Minister to call in that application. My question to the Foreign Secretary …”