PEACE campaigners have accused Liz Truss of “spitting in the faces” of people struggling to make ends meet after it was revealed her military spending pledge could cost the public £157 billion. 

The Foreign Secretary has committed to increasing the defence budget to 3 per cent of GNP by the end of the decade as part of her bid to become Tory leader. 

New analysis of the pledge by think tank the Royal United Services Institute, published today, shows that this would mean spending £157bn, which would amount to the biggest rise in military spending since the cold war arms race of the early 1950s and add 5p in the pound to income tax.