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LBC presenter Nick Ferrari and his listeners were shocked by a disastrous interview with Defence Secretary John Healey. Mr Healey stumbled over his words as denied it is a "national embarrassment" that British Royal Navy Officers will need to serve on a German warship because the United Kingdom does "not have one available" for a mission it was due to lead. The UK was set to lead a long-planned NATO mission, but will now need to make use of a foreign ship after it emerged that no British was ready to be deployed.

When challenged by the radio presenter and Sunday Express Columnist Nick Ferarri, Mr Healey went on to be questioned about how many Frigates the Royal Navy even had. He appeared "not to have the numbers to hand", the presenter later said - after Mr Healey sounded frustrated and struggled to immediately confirm that number.

"Fills you with confidence, doesn't it?" Mr Ferrari stated after Mr Healey went off air. The Defence Secretary did eventually suggest that the Royal Navy had 17 Frigates and Destroyers, he was then asked "well, where are they all?" by the presenter. "Every nation with every piece of its military kit has some in operation, some on deployment, some in states of readiness, some being repaired" which he said was part of the "regular rhythm" of military planning.

Mr Ferrarri asked where the rest of Britain's fleet was after suggesting the only ship the United Kingdom had ready for deployment was the HMS Dragon. A lack of available combat-ready warships has now reportedly led to officers from the Royal Navy needing to borrow a German warship to lead a NATO operation around Cyprus.

The Defence Secretary was speaking to LBC after it was confirmed that UK forces would now be granted permission to board 'Shadow Fleet', a network of Russian-linked Oil tankers. But he faced robust questioning from Mr Ferrari about wider defence issues, focused around the long-delayed departure of the HMS Dragon to the Middle East, which left British territory on Cyprus without Naval defences.

When asked why the Ministry of Defence did not make another ship available for a pre-planned Nato mission, Mr Healey said: "I have to make decisions based on what we've got.

"We were preparing Dragon in order to play that flagship role, the way that Iran hit back in an indiscriminate, widespread way, meant I needed to reinforce the defences that we'd already had before the conflict broke out, put into the Middle East."

Listeners reacted with shock, after Nick Ferrarri branded it "another Diane Abbot moment" referencing the now-infamous interview where Ms Abbot, then Labour Shadow Home Secretary, appeared to now know how much police officers cost. She had been asked repeatedly about the cost of a Labour policy to recruit more police, and struggled to explain the numbers in a now-viral moment.

One listener, Trevor, branded the response "stumbling" and said it was "unspending and underinvesting" that had led to the challenges facing the Navy, stating that the "peace dividend" had been "squandered by every government since". The listener said there was "hardly any army, hardly any navy" and that Mr Ferrari had left the defence secretary "defenceless".