Boris Johnson agrees £16bn rise in defence spending

Announcement comes after ministers resisted spending extra money on free school meals in holidaysBoris 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. Continue reading... https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/nov/18/boris-johnson-agrees-16bn-rise-in-defence-spending #defence_policy #politics #boris_johnson #uk_news #poverty #society #cyberwar #artificial_intelligence_(ai)