Portrait of the week: air strikes, train strikes and missile strikes

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Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, the Foreign Secretary, said that the ‘red lights on the global dashboard are very much flashing’. He was speaking after Britain joined American air strikes on Houthi positions in Yemen. The Houthis, backed by Iran and allied with Hamas in Gaza, had been attacking merchant ships in the Red Sea. Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, told the Commons it was ‘a necessary and a proportionate response to a direct threat to UK vessels’. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, supported Britain’s action, but said that future military interventions – especially sustained ones – should be brought before parliament. Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary, announced that 20,000 British service personnel would be deployed in Europe in Nato’s Exercise Steadfast Defender 24. Rishi Sunak returned from a visit to Kyiv, where he announced £2.5 billion of military aid to Ukraine over the coming year.

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