Boris Johnson agrees £16bn rise in defence spending

[Baff]

Yes.
Timely and useful.

Not to mention patronage for Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Red Wall.

[Borg Refinery]

Boris Johnson has agreed a four-year £16.5bn surge in defence spending at a time when Britain's public finances have been stretched by the pandemic and a day after it emerged that billions of pounds could be cut from the foreign aid budget.

Experts said the windfall represents the largest real-terms increase in the defence budget since Margaret Thatcher's premiership and will be partly spent on a National Cyber Force of hackers and a new Space Command designed to protect orbiting satellites and launch its own rockets.

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It comes weeks after ministers resisted spending extra money to fund free school meals in the holidays, and days after it emerged that the overseas aid budget is set to be cut by billions, from 0.7% of of gross national income to 0.5%, triggering criticism from senior Tories.

Johnson said he had taken the decision to boost spending on the armed forces "in the teeth of the pandemic" because "the defence of the realm must come first". The prime minister is also keen to show new US president-elect Joe Biden that the UK wants a strong military capability after Brexit.

Hackers HQ and Space Command: how UK defence budget could be spent
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Insiders said the defence funding, which will be detailed by Johnson when he speaks to the House of Commons on Thursday, had been put together at breakneck speed as Downing Street seeks to reassert control after last week's No 10 meltdown, which led to the departure of chief aide Dominic Cummings and his ally Lee Cain.

It will see £16.5bn extra being spent on defence over and above a commitment to increase the existing £41.5bn budget by 0.5 percentage points above inflation. Taken together, the increase amounts to £21.5bn until March 2025, and defence sources said it would mean the UK remained Europe's biggest defence spender.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/nov/18/boris-johnson-agrees-16bn-rise-in-defence-spending

That should prove useful to defeat those pesky French fishermen come Brexit.