Sir Keir Starmer hails new British 'StormShroud' drones coming into operation
New British air systems are set to come into operation on Friday as Sir Keir Starmer vowed the government would "take bold action to stand up to Putin and ruthlessly protect UK and European security".
The autonomous StormShroud drones will be equipped with a signal jammer able to disrupt enemy signal radar from a long range to protect RAF crews it will fly alongside on frontline missions.
"Learnings from countering [Vladimir] Putin's illegal war in Ukraine" were used to develop the cutting-edge technology, according to Number 10.
The prime minister thanked staff who worked on the drones during a visit to defence contractor Leonardo UK in Bedfordshire on Friday.
"StormShroud is an incredibly forward-looking piece of kit and capability that will help us as we go forward," Sir Keir said.
The RAF will initially invest £19m into the cutting-edge drones, which utilise electronic warfare technology BriteStorm made by Leonardo UK.
It comes as Tekever, the company which manufactures the drones, announced a further £400m investment in the UK in a move the government hailed as supporting hundreds of new British jobs.
Speaking ahead of the Bedfordshire visit, Sir Keir said: "Investment in our defence is an investment in this country's future."
He added: "Putting money behind our armed forces and defence industry is safeguarding our economic and national security by putting money back in the pockets of hard-working British people and protecting them for generations to come.
"Together with our allies, this government is taking the bold action needed to stand up to Putin and ruthlessly protect UK and European security, which is vital for us to deliver our Plan for Change and improve lives of working people up and down the country."
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43 minutes ago
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Imperialism still overshadows our intellectual history
Peter Watson begins his survey of the history of ideas in Britain with the assertion that the national mindset (which at that time was the English mindset) changed significantly after the accession of Elizabeth I. His book – a guide to the nature of British intellectual curiosity since the mid-16th century – begins there, just as England had undergone a liberation from a dominant European authority: the shaking off of the influence of the Roman Catholic church and the advent of the Reformation, and the new opportunities that offered for the people. He describes how a culture based largely on poetry and on the court of Elizabeth then redirected the prevailing intellectual forces of the time. This affected not just literature (Marlowe, Shakespeare and Jonson) but also helped develop an interest in science that grew remarkably throughout the next few centuries. 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Spectator
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Has deporting illegals become illegal?
The circus around Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia – whose full name the New York Times likes to trot out as if citing an old-school English aristocrat – speaks volumes about the immigration battle roiling the US. Our friend Kilmar is what we fuddy-duddies insist on calling an illegal immigrant. The Salvadoran crossed clandestinely into the US in 2012. As for what he's done since, that depends on whom you ask. According to his GoFundMe page, Kilmar is a 'husband, union worker and father of a disabled five-year-old'. Left-wing media portray 'the Maryland man' – a tag akin to Axel Rudakubana's 'a Welshman' – as an industrious metalworker devoted to his family. His wife has rowed back on the temporary protective order she once requested, claiming she'd been over-cautious. 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In 2022, he was pulled over for speeding while driving eight other Hispanic men of uncertain immigration status in an SUV altered to add a third row of seats for extra passengers. The officers suspected human-trafficking; Kilmar's driving licence had expired; a run of his number plate through the database turned up a federal note on likely membership of MS-13. Yet when the patrolmen contacted the feds, ICE (of course) declined to pick him up. So Kilmar was (of course) released without charge. Even so, his claim that he was merely transporting construction workers between jobs did not, under investigation, hold up. Fast-forward to 2025 and why this otherwise obscure Salvadoran who is or is not a thug merits such a detailed lowdown. Meaning (of course) that this case has to do with Donald Trump – whose evil minions in March flew more than 230 purported criminals to a Salvadoran prison, including none other than Kilmar, whom ICE did finally pick up (no 'of course' there). 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Meanwhile, after slyly getting their jurisprudential ducks in a row, last week Trump and co finally got Kilmar flown back to the US, only to arrest him immediately for human-trafficking – with every intention of convicting the guy and then deporting him right back to El Salvador. What do we make of this farce? The American commentariat has focused on a potential showdown between Trump and the judiciary, claiming to fear a flat-out executive refusal to follow court orders but secretly rather hoping that Trump does defy the courts and thus reveals himself as an unconstitutional tyrant. I view this absurd tale through a different lens. All these trials and flights for a lone illegal alien are expensive. The amount of 'due process' the American justice system affords every single illegal makes deportation at any scale impossible. There isn't enough time and money and there aren't nearly enough judges to make any but a token gesture toward the mass deportation of illegals that Trump has promised. That amounts to a victory not just for Democrats but also for disorder. I'd assess the odds that Kilmar is a thug at about 90 per cent. But proving membership of unofficial allegiances in court is a bastard. If every individual deportation case must be adjudicated according to exacting evidentiary rules and appeal procedures, America's drastic, undemocratic demographic change will proceed inexorably. Only mass round-ups and swift group trials could effectively address the staggering ten million gate-crashers during the Biden administration alone. What are the chances of that? In New York at the weekend, ICE raids were impeded by LA-style crowds of righteously indignant protestors screaming: 'Let them go! Let them go!' The officers just doing their jobs looked beleaguered, tired, numb and pre-defeated. After all the ICE agents' thankless labours, what proportion of their detainees will still get to stay in the country in the end? I'll take another stab at 90 per cent.
