National security

As heavy cuts to the defence budget are announced Michael Codner, director of military sciences at RUSI and former navy commander, writes for Channel 4 News on the implications for Armed Forces.

The Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is to be scrapped along with its fleet of Harrier jets as the coalition prepares to announce cuts in the Strategic Defence and Security Review.

Survivors have told the inquest into the July 7 attacks that those injured in the Aldgate blast had to “wait an hour before an ambulance arrived” to take them to hospital.

David Cameron presents the Strategic Defence Review, cuts are expected to fall on the army in Germany, the Navy’s carrier fleet and RAF aircraft. Follow it as it happens on our live blog.

A former commander of British troops in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp, tells Channel 4 News the Strategic Defence and Security Review should have considered combining the Army, Royal Navy and RAF.

Terrorism and cyber-attacks are top of the list of national security threats in what ministers are calling “an age of uncertainty”.

Cheap petrol, expensive cocaine, rescue at sea, every computer you use today. They’re all in play in the Defence Review, writes Carl Dinnen.

It’s not what he would have wanted. When the Coalition Government announced a strategic defence and security review would be carried out, David Cameron would have been hoping for an easier ride.