Should the next prime minister increase defence spending to meet the Moscow test?

Yes swept the chamber, 18 votes to 3, an 86% share and a 72-point margin that puts this among the more one-sided calls on the platform this year. On a question about deterring Russia, there was little appetite here for equivocation.

The age data undercuts the usual assumption that defence hawkishness rises with the pension. The 16-24, 35-44 and 65+ cohorts all voted unanimously or near-unanimously yes, while the softest support came from the 25-34 bracket, where two of six voters dissented. This was not a generational culture war so much as a broad consensus with a dent in the middle.

The sharper fracture was gender. Men backed increased spending almost unanimously, 12 of 13, while women split more evenly, 4 yes to 2 no on just six votes. That gap echoes a familiar pattern in British defence polling, where men have long shown more comfort with hard-power spending than women, even as both sides converge on threat perception from Moscow.

For a next prime minister weighing Radakin's warning against a tight fiscal picture, the platform's verdict offers little political cover for inaction — the argument, at least here, is already won.