The last three and a half years have been a wild ride but it’s time to bring back the experts and #MakePoliticsBoringAgain. My piece for City AM this morning.

“Monica Grenfell, a writer and health journalist… and the author of bestselling books, including Geezers: On Camp with the SAS.” Golly I wonder what the admin girl’s motivations for piping up with something controversial may be… 🤔

So am I meant to hire all of the 200+ qualified applicants for the latest role at my firm so no one’s feelings get hurt? Feels expensive…

It is beyond surreal that the government can say this only a week after telling the country that social security is more important than national security. If they genuinely think there is a risk of war, it is criminally negligent not to raise defence spending.

Amazingly it is not a joke that Ukraine’s number of disabled claimants has increased by less than Britain’s in the period since the Ukraine War began.

‘Hybrid war’ is increasingly just our word for events which are clearly acts of war that we just don’t want to deter or respond to.

Using the national emergency alert system to ask people to not have a barbecue seems… OTT?

The Telegraph’s obsession with making this whole debacle about one customer of a company when by their own admission the supplier works with a huge range of UK defence industry and registered as NDAA approved is beginning to feel a little bit suspect…

Today at @Cambridge_Aero we're announcing a $300M Series C funding round to accelerate our mission to protect Allied skies. Thank you to lead investor @dfjgrowth and for the continued support of our backers @Accel, @eladgil, GFC, Lakestar, @Lux_Capital, Never Lift, Ora Global, @sparkcapital

I've spent some time with these guys, stand by to be impressed. If they get it right and we adopt this as a capability it has some significant implications for force development. It will remove alot of the doubt and could make it much less risky for capability leads to reform

One of the most exciting new UK defence companies has just emerged from stealth with a $30m seed. One of the founders spent 13 years in senior leadership positions at the British Army and then spent five years as a Senior Director at @anduriltech in Europe. The other founder has already founded or co-founded a bunch of amazing businesses, including Cambridge Aerospace and Iconic. Today they've launched Agon with a $30m seed. The company will help arms companies train their weapons to counter enemy systems by finding vulnerabilities in their AI models. The money has been raised across two rounds, and investors include @lakestarvc, @201vc_, XYZ, Lux Capital and @northzoneVC. @davidhelgason is the Chairman and Klaus Hommels has joined the board of Directors. The UK is finally starting to take defence investing seriously, and every week we're seeing more and more companies emerge that are looking to tackle some of the most serious risks that we have. Amazing news - congrats Tristam Constant and Junaid Hussain

Autonomous weapons will be able to fight in a new virtual battlefield where the artificial intelligence-backed systems that power them can practise defeating ever-evolving Russian and Iranian drones. Agon, the company behind the defence tech, launches today thetimes.com/article/71b2310…

Great to talk to Rupert Pearce about the K3 SCOUT, and show him the very boat which was was successfully airdropped from an A400M.

Want to say this is great. Terrified of being called out by @bumsnorkler

Our investment in Defence will support good jobs across our nation while making us safer. Great to open Cambridge Aerospace’s new facility today, and meet some of the people doing critical work for our Armed Forces and our national security.

Ok but this is actually a banging video

Couldn’t agree more with @GraemeDownieMP 👍👍 As he said, whether it’s cyber attacks, poisonings, subsea cables, an arson attack on the PM’s house, none of this is ‘sub threshold' or 'grey' activity anymore. Russian hackers shut down the biggest carmaker in Britain for five weeks, costing billions in damage, a massive hit on the economy and thousands of jobs exposed. There was no ransom demand. They just wanted to see if they could do it. And now they have the answer.… I know I probably sound like a broken record here… but we can't separate defending our country from defending the things that keep it running. Factories, businesses, the grid, water, the NHS. It's all the same fight and we're just not ready for it. If we keep treating them as separate problems, we’ll keep getting hit. It’s as simple as that. I’ve seen the same problem happening in defence procurement. We see the threat coming, we’re underprepared, we’re too slow to move when we need to, the bill arrives, it gets bigger every time… and the cycle continues. Same problem in cyber. Same problem in energy. Same problem in supply chains. I could go on……. Labour has one more chance to turn things around. We must focus on building a country that can take a hit and keep standing. National resilience. Whoever leads our party next has to make that the job.

Cyber attacks, poisonings, subsea cables, a planned arson attack on the Prime Minister's car. This is not "sub threshold" or "grey" activity. These Russian attacks directly impact ordinary British people every day. We should tell them that and protect them. (2/2)

For months, I have called for the UK government to make more information about this attack public, including in the Chamber just last week, so the British people can see we are already in a conflict with Russia...... (1/2)

Also, I’m sorry but I bloody love bombs and budgets. And drones. And boats. And tanks. And fiscal responsibility. Must just be a crap woman.

Armed Forces Week offers an opportunity to recognise the diverse and specialised work across our armed forces. Yesterday I met, Royal Navy operators working with the UK‑built Kraken unmanned surface vehicle, as well as the Army’s EOD team and their Harris bomb-disposal robot.