New Delhi, July 3 -- LONDON - Andy Burnham has not taken office yet. He does not have a cabinet, a budget, or a first day at 10 Downing Street. What he does have, as of this week, is a £4.7 billion hole in the only defence investment plan his government is committed to funding.

Keir Starmer, in the final weeks of his prime ministership, published a long-delayed defence investment plan on Tuesday. It committed an additional £15 billion to Britain's armed forces over four years - an increase framed as a historic shift in the country's readiness against a potential Russian attack on NATO by 2030. Within hours, the accompanying budget documents revealed that nearly a third of that commitment had not yet been identified. The money w...