Thought for the day

.Andrew Neil Consider the Joint Expeditionary Force. In 2014, the UK was the only member who met 2% of GDP. Now all other members are ahead with UK 9th in % defence spend in a framework it supposedly leads. The only reason the UK isn't 10th is that Iceland doesnt have a military.

Keir Starmer commits to deploying British boots on the ground in Ukraine with a military he doesn’t really have because he’s starving it of funds. Defence spending in 2024/25 was £60.2billion In real terms (2024/25 prices) it will be £62billion this year. In 2026/27 it will be

🇬🇧 The UK will develop a new tactical ballistic missile for Ukraine. 🚀 A Project Nightfall missile will have a range of 500 km and will carry a 200 kg warhead. ow.ly/3aIG50XVgQq

A very alarming session. Some real basics missing from a country supposedly on a pre-war footing. No national plan for defence. No plan to mobilise health service. No plan to regenerate contact with the Strategic Reserve - which is criminally wasteful and an incredible lacuna.

Meanwhile in the real world, the UK has spread 100 million of investment in 6 SKY SABRE launchers over 3 years and can't find 1-2 billion to rebuild the Army's artillery or get the New Medium Helicopter to move. Contact with reality is being entirely lost in hysteria.

Starmer to speak to nation at 09:15. For God's sake rearm our country by raising defence spending man. bbc.co.uk/news/live/cx2k…

10 year old me would stare at shit like this for literal hours

Well, not really any "Euro" systems in the market. The only candidate, EuroPULS, was of course Israeli in origin and got thrown out of the contest last year, supposedly over readiness & delivery timelines. Another capability Europe needs to "fix" ASAP. breakingdefense.com/2026/01/norway…

2 RESOURCES: The economic fallout of Brexit has damaged the British economy. As Defence is funded as a % of GDP, their single most significant political act effectively defunded Defence by between 4-8 %. Whether they knew it or just screwed up, the damage to defence is real.

Coworker that banters United saw me and said nothing for the third week now.

‘It is well worth exploring whether there might be a genuinely ominous backstory.’ Andrew Marr puts forward the possibility of a ‘Russian connection’ to Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal activity.

Unless people understand the reality of what we face and how ready we are, we won’t have the permission to shift spending or to prepare properly for even greater threats ahead.

This is extremely alarming. Four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Europe, our allies are still in denial.

An honour to host Luke Pollard MP, UK Minister of State for Defence Readiness and Industry, at World Defense Show معرض الدفاع العالمي for a close-up look at our Uncrewed Turret capability - showcasing its multi-role, platform-agnostic design, AI-enabled functionality, and advanced sensor suite.

We must all confront the new reality: the threats we face as a continent demand a step change in our collective defence and security. The UK and Germany are stepping up to meet this challenge – together. General Carsten Breuer and I writing in the @Guardian👇 theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Turret that Lockheed Martin UK presented in Saudi Arabia at WDS is fully uncrewed companion to "optionally crewed" and larger turret seen on AJAX IFV at DSEI last year. It's an ITAR free, clean sheet design but building on same experience. 30x173 mm here, but 40 CTA possible.

The moment has come to stop calling it "student loans:" it's not a loan, it is not repaid in full, and there are no fixed T&C. It's a graduate tax that applies only to young workers. And it allows governments to increase taxes on a single generation while protecting the others.

I’m on Plan 2 student loans with both a BA and a Master’s so I’ll be paying this graduate tax for most of my working life not because I’m wealthy but because I worked hard and tried to better myself. The system is outdated, punitive and quietly traps earners in decades of