Huge thanks to @penguinrandom for a great job on the jacket for my new book, Churchill's Pirates, which will be published on August 6th. I will be doing a series of talks around the UK, including at @WeHaveWaysPod festival on Friday 11 September. Hopefully see some of you there!

13 months since I first tapped out the opening sentence, and 214k words later, my most ambitious book yet is finished. TWILIGHT OF THE GODS: The Battle for Europe 1944-1945' covers the last 11 months of fighting on the continent, from the Fall of Rome on 4 June 1944 to V-E Day, 8/9 May 1945. It includes all three fronts - Western, Eastern and Italian (never been done before) - and provides an answer to the big questions: Why did the Germans keep fighting long after the war was clearly lost? How were the Red Army able to absorb such huge casualties and keep fighting? Were there opportunities missed to end the war earlier? And what, ultimately, played a bigger role in Germany's defeat: Soviet mass of Western (chiefly American) economic and military power? Publication slated for autumn 2027. Can't wait @WmCollinsBooks @ArabellaPike

BBC: “What advice did David Hockney give to you?” BBC Guest: “Enjoy life and fuck everyone.”

"The strategic myopia displayed by Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves is a condition shared by a parliamentary Labour Party that is the most unserious and most intellectually arid ever to attain power." A withering leader in today's Times.

I am so sick of hearing this useless government trot out these soft soap statements which are blatantly bollocks. What on earth will it take for them to take defence more seriously and give it the proper funding required?

Defence Investment Plan (yet another DIP update): - discussions between Treasury, MOD and No10 still “live” as of last night despite earlier claims that a long-running disagreement over a proposed ~£13bn additional uplift in funding was largely resolved (this figure is much less than the military say they need and is regarded - to put it mildly - as “not enough”) - Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton has written to the Prime Minister amid concerns that the funding boost proposed by the Treasury is not enough. I don’t know what the content of the letter was. But clearly this highly unusual move is a signal of the seriousness of the moment and the challenge that Sir Keir Starmer faces to get a credible and affordable Defence Investment Plan over the line. It is worth adding that it’s perfectly legitimate for a CDS to write to a PM but not the kind of action he would take regularly - expectations valiantly hanging in there for an announcement of a vast new defence drone testing centre to happen in Swindon on Friday. Various start-ups were as of yesterday still making plans to go (me too - was there last week, could make this a regular commute). The talk last night had been about this drone testing moment being something that could take place to coincide with some words from the PM announcing top line figures of the funding for defence and some of the key programmes in the DIP. But this clearly can’t happen until there is a firm agreement on the settlement - DIP then unveiled in full on Monday before the PM heads off to the G7 (though again this presumably can’t happen unless the money is green lit) (It is worth saying that this extraordinary display of confusion and paralysis at the heart of government over what is meant to be a strategic priority – the defence of the nation – has left officials inside the MoD, the military and defence industry slack-jawed)

While we still wait on Labour government defence spending plans (the Defence Investment Plan — DIP) to finance last year’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR), let’s keep in mind these salient points when it eventually appears: 1. The current £28 billion shortfall in defence spending over the next four years has nothing to do with implementing the SDR. The £28 billion is simply what’s needed to meet current defence commitments/plans. 2. So funding for SDR would have to be on top of the £28 billion — which would mean tens of billions more over the next five or so years into the early 2030s. 3. The extra money now being floated as what the government is likely to announce — £13.5 billion over four years — wouldn’t even cover half the shortfall never mind produce a penny for the SDR. It’s a pittance compared with what’s required. 4. We currently spend 2.4% GDP on defence (and even that is boosted by some statistical sleights of hand). The only current concrete plan is to go to 2.5/6% in the next financial year. Now the Treasury is saying it doesn’t even want to set 3% as a target before 2034/35 — by which time if Reeves-Starmer-Treasury have their way we will be a minor player in military matters. 5 This government is dishonest the best of times. I fear we’re about to discover that when it comes to the defence of the realm — its primary duty as a government — it is a serial liar.

Worse yet, had they & their predecessors started earlier, it could have been vastly cheaper, but the longer things are left the more the base & capacity to regenerate decay & the shorter the timeline you have to work to when you do need to do it, which always adds cost...

This is well worth a read.

Where can I see a hundred hours of this?

"Political poetry, and the ability to share a story, have been displaced by “delivery” and the rest of Whitehall jargon." This is well worth a read. telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06…

A decision based, in part, on a focus group of....119 people. Jeez. telegraph.co.uk/business/202…

Lieutenant Lily-Mae Fisher, 31, from Virginia Water, Surrey. Britain’s only serving female Royal Navy Commando. Killed in training on 3 June 2026 when a Merlin Mk4 from 846 Naval Air Squadron crashed at Sourton Down, Devon. The career arc was extraordinary. An MSc in Geology from Imperial College London in 2016. Junior international representative for England in lacrosse and pole vault. Two years as a geologist with British Petroleum before commissioning in 2019 into the Royal Navy. During a break in flying training she completed the 16 week All Arms Commando Course, earning the green beret as one of only seven women in British military history to do so, and becoming the UK’s only serving female Royal Navy Commando. She was killed on her final assessment of flying training. Her Pilot’s Wings were to be awarded in June 2026. She died alongside Lieutenant Commander Chris Gayson, 42, and Petty Officer Owen Green, 24.

😭 Absolute classic sketch from Harry Enfield & Paul Whitehouse’s BAFTA-winning BBC series. Harry and Paul do a brilliant parody of BBC Question Time: the clichéd audience questions, the sweaty nervous bloke in the jumper, the host’s withering put-downs, panelists waffling absolute nonsense… and all the timeless British political b*llocks in one perfect sketch. 😂 Still painfully accurate years later.

This is just so terribly sad. RIP.

Can't wait for the publication of my book, Stealing Hitler's Rocket next week! When I first heard about this extraordinary story of clandestine bravery with a cast of amazing characters, I just knew it had to be my next book. Thank you, @HoZ_Books, for making it look so handsome!

Commander of NATO’s Allied Rapid Reaction Corps Elviss: Russian soldiers don't scare me pound for pound against a Western army. What scares me is that they've been living this war for four years. Battle-hardened, battle-tested — that's the threat. 1/

They are fucking mad. thetimes.com/uk/politics/art…

Further to Blair. Literally every honest sensible person in all the main parties privately agrees with all these propositions: - welfare spending is too high and is throwing good people on the scrapheap - defence spending is too low - the triple lock is unsustainable - without cheap energy we cannot exploit the AI revolution - we should be investing in EVERY form of energy: renewables, nuclear and the North Sea - migration needs to be controlled to boost social cohesion and because the boats look like a huge failure of the state - any new relationship with the EU will be imposed on us until we are stronger and cannot involve the closeness some desire without freedom of movement - we are deeply embedded with America in ways which the public does not understand and cannot be told and however joyous it makes us feel to hate Trump, disengagement at the deep state level is not only wholly unrealistic but also undesirable - Whitehall needs a total overhaul so specific project expertise and political appointees can be brought in quickly Blair basically says all that. The one thing he doesn’t say and which the same group of people agree on is this and it’s something Blair left behind: - judges and quangos have too much power, are unaccountable and without redressing the balance in favour of parliament it is very difficult to do anything big fast - the bare minimum that needs to change in this regard is to reform judicial review and planning law so we can put building and economic growth ahead of newts and NIMBYs None of that above really ought to be up for discussion. It is all common sense but not one of our politicians will publicly say all of it Whatever you think of Blair, engage with what he’s saying not how he makes you feel. The bare minimum we should expect from any leader is that they have an analysis of the current situation and a plan to deal with it which is as coherent and realistic as his intervention. Pretty well every critique I’ve read so far has failed to meet this requirement. Over to Andy and Keir and Kemi and Nigel and Zack and all the others

My word. This is incredible. A real-life version of that scene from The Life of Brian: "Stan, you haven't got a womb! Where's the foetus going to gestate?! You going to keep it in a box?!"