The feeble response to the Gatwick drone will encourage others to cause havoc

Gatwick Airport has been brought to its knees by a bunch of drones – not so much the flying variety as the type who sit in offices or stand around in hi-viz vests and make decisions by the book, with no imagination nor initiative of their own. How can a little airborne gizmo bring the country’s second busiest airport to a complete halt for 36 hours, defeating the efforts of police, airport security and the uncommonly useless Chris Grayling? Surely, there was a way to obliterate the wretched thing – whether by a twelve-bore, laser or a net suspended beneath a helicopter

If it wasn’t Vladimir Putin playing with an early Christmas present from his Kremlin office, he, and many other foreign powers, terror groups and protest movements will have been taking a very keen interest. We are supposed to be one of the great world powers in aviation, and developer of advanced military technology, a developer of nuclear missiles.