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The government said that the armed forces had to move to ‘warfighting readiness’ and accepted the 62 recommendations of the Strategic Defence Review headed by the former defence secretary and head of Nato, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen. But the funding of the plans remained in doubt as the government insisted that a rise in defence spending to3 per cent by 2034 remained an ‘aspiration’; yet Nato was expected at this month’s summit to insist on a level of 3.5 per cent. The government committed £15 billion to its nuclear warhead programme; £1.5 billion to build six new munitions factories; an extra £1.5 billion for repairs to military housing; and the building of up to 12 conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarines. Power stations and airports would be defended by Home Guard volunteers. The Treasury sold its final shares in the NatWest Group, bought in the financial crisis of 2008. The US private equity company KKR pulled out of a£4 billion rescue deal for Thames Water.
Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, declared that he regretted a ‘clumsy’ comparison of advocates of withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights to members of the Nazi party. Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, visited Scotland for the first time in six years. The electors of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse voted for a new Member of the Scottish parliament. On one day 1,195 migrants arrived in England in small boats. John Healey, the Defence Secretary, pointed to the French police policy of not intervening with migrants in the water: ‘We saw the smugglers launching elsewhere and coming around like a taxi to pick them up.’
Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, released a video of himself challenging fare-dodgers on the London Underground to pay up. Paul Doyle, 53, a former Royal Marine and father of three, who was arrested after a car ploughed into crowds in Liverpool, faced trial on seven charges, including grievous bodily harm with intent and dangerous driving. A fourth man was arrested in connection with arson linked to Sir Keir Starmer’s properties in north London.
Abroad
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, said its military had killed Mohammed Sinwar, Hamas’s Gaza chief. Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said 31 people were killed by Israeli forces at a Rafah aid distribution centre run by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which called the reports ‘false and fabricated’. More disputed deaths followed. Eight people were wounded after a man threw petrol bombs at a gathering in support of the Israeli hostages, in Boulder, Colorado; Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, an Egyptian whose visa had expired, was arrested. Ukraine struck Russian aircraft in a drone attack on bases as far away as the Arctic and Irkutsk. Ukraine said 117 drones smuggled into Russia had hit 40 warplanes, accounting for a third of Russia’s strategic cruise missile carriers. The Kerch bridge to Crimea was closed for a time after explosions that Ukraine claimed. Russia attacked Ukraine with 472 drones and seven missiles in one day. In Poland, the socially conservative Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing Law and Justice party, narrowly won the presidential election.
The US Court of International Trade ruled an emergency law invoked by President Donald Trump did not give him authority to impose tariffs on imports; the power rested with Congress. But the tariffs could remain while the President appealed. The next day he announced a rise from 25 to 50 per cent for tariffs on steel and aluminium. Britain’s tariffs remained at 25 per cent. He also said a public farewell in the Oval Office to Elon Musk after his 130 days as a ‘special government employee’. A lorry overturned in Washington state and set free 14 million bees.
Pete Hegseth, the US Secretary of Defence, speaking in Singapore, said China posed an ‘imminent’ threat to Taiwan. A Royal Navy frigate, HMS Lancaster, arrested a vessel in the Arabian Sea carrying £30 million worth of illegal drugs. Gerry Adams won €100,000 damages in an Irish court over a BBC story about a British agent, whose murder, an anonymous contributor said, the former Sinn Féin leader had sanctioned. Geert Wilders withdrew his party, the biggest in the Dutch parliament, from the coalition government, bringing it down after less than a year. In Paris, Paris Saint-Germain fans celebrated a 5-0 victory in the Champions League final by setting fire to cars. Etna erupted. CSH
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