UK 'increasingly vulnerable' to threat of missile and drone attacks after decades of cuts

Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, called the UK's current array of air defences "woefully inadequate". "We always hear this argument from the Ministry of Defence that gaps in our own capability are acceptable because we're part of an alliance," Mr Watling said. "It's a little bit like if you were going round to a 'bring your own booze' party and you said: 'Well, there's other people coming, so I'm not going to bring any alcohol'. If everyone adopts that approach, then there is simply nothing to drink. And when we look across NATO, there is an overall shortage [in air defences]."