Today is Holocaust Memorial Day, 81 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

We remember the 6 million Jewish men, women & children murdered by the Nazis. As survivors grow fewer - and antisemitism rises again - remembrance is a duty for us all.

#HolocaustMemorialDay
zurl.co/Mtgcd

Congratulations to the Red Arrows on another world first for the Royal Air Force

Today’s #TroopingTheColour flypast used #SAF & biofuel smoke - the first time anywhere both have been combined.

Smart, serious decarbonisation - just getting on with the job, as they always do 👏 👏 🇬🇧

80 years since VE Day. We give thanks for our freedom - and for those who secured it.

And a reminder, then as now: freedom is never guaranteed.

#VEDay80 #WW2 #NeverForget

Labour’s Net Zero policy is cracking — politically & economically.
Blair warns it’s “doomed to fail.”
Spain just blacked out.

I’ve pulled it all together here.
The reckoning is real.

⬇️ zurl.co/06ari

It’s great to see Tempest held up in a positive article as a symbol of what Britain still does brilliantly: ambition, innovation, and leading on the world stage.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04...

Look beyond the headlines on defence spending.

Increased to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 - but look out for Treasury tricks and big questions over where the money goes.

A start? Yes. Enough? No.

Full breakdown: zurl.co/iHgZA

Should Britain bring back tactical nuclear weapons? The case is in the Telegraph, arguing it could fill NATO’s deterrence gap if US B61 bombs were withdrawn. But does it truly deter, or escalate? A massive investment in high-tech conventional force might be the real answer. zurl.co/AWKAS

Flight taxes won’t save the planet - just price ordinary people out of travel & damage the economy:

🔹 Aviation = £70bn to UK economy
🔹 65% of Gen Z flew in 2023 - more than boomers
🔹 Net Zero needs innovation

Any war on aviation is a disaster waiting to happen.

Read more zurl.co/EYKZF

This might be a wise political move to show the US that we mean business, but unless there is a massive contribution, very quickly, to defence funding – it's just the PM doing what Governments always do: ask the military to do ever more with ever less & never fund it.

zurl.co/x8Oyt

NATO says Europe must spend “considerably” more than 3% of GDP. The US wants 5%. Yet the UK barely manages 2.3%—and that includes pensions & nukes.

If the US pulls back, Europe isn’t ready. Time to stop pretending 2.5% is enough.

Read more: zurl.co/Cenqk

Europe needs to rebuild its industrial base, invest in skills, and foster a public understanding that defence is the foundation of our economy and way of life.

Above all, we must not do what our enemies want: fracture NATO and drift apart from the US.

Read my latest:

substack.com/home/post/p-...

Europe has spent decades assuming the US would always underwrite its security, but that assumption has crumbled.

Defence spending must rise, but money alone won’t fix the problem.

The era of comfortable complacency is over. Europe’s moment of reckoning has arrived.

US Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth’s comments on European defence yesterday should have been no surprise. This moment has been years in the making.

It’s never a good sign when PMs press reset in the hope that it will magically rescue things. It never does. To be doing so so early…

A very Happy Christmas to everyone across defence, the civil aviation & maritime sectors who are keeping the world defended, its people connected and supplied today & surrounding days.

Thank you for all you are doing for us. #HappyChristmas