As the British government drew up its annual budget in 2015, the sums came out wrong in a troubling way. Cuts across departments meant that spending on defence would come out just shy of 2% of GDP for the first time since the 1930s. That wouldn’t do: only a year earlier Britain had hosted NATO leaders as they formally agreed on the 2% figure, in response to Russia’s first crack at invading Ukraine. A clever way was soon found to spare politicians’ blushes. A few billion pounds of spending that had not in previous years been included in the defence budget was discreetly shuffled into it, in what was politely dubbed a “revised accounting strategy” (also known as “shifting the goalposts”). With the stroke of a pliable accountant’s pen, Britain’s defence budget now included pension payments to war widows and defence-ministry staff, as well as some intelligence spending and contributions to far-flung UN peacekeeping missions. The tactic helped nudge the all-important figure back above the desired threshold.