Military news

• Wood group swallows AMEC Foster Wheeler

  13-03-2017 12:05
  
  AMEC Foster Wheeler agrees to £2.2bn effective takeover by Wood Group in energy services contractor consolidation
  Wood and AMEC FW provide engineering services to the process industries, mining and energy Image: AMEC FWAberdeen-based Wood Group is to merge with AMEC Foster Wheeler in a deal which effectively sees AMEC FW taken over by the larger contractor. The deal creates a £5bn company that will provide services to the oil and gas, other energy, chemicals, and mining industries.
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• Runaway horses set to steal show at trooping the colour on Saturday

  14-06-2024 14:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Cameras expected to be trained on three Household Cavalry steeds that galloped through London in AprilThe bearskins, marching bands and palace balcony appearances that ensure trooping the colour is an annual crowd-puller will face competition when this year’s military spectacle takes place on Saturday.King Charles and Queen Camilla will be there, though in a small concession to his cancer treatment, Charles will review the King’s Birthday Parade from an Ascot landau carriage rather t
  
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• D-day deserter Rishi Sunak didn’t do his duty, so why should gen Z be expected to do theirs? | Martha Gill

  09-06-2024 10:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Postwar generations grew up in comfort on gilded tales of heroic conflict. What hypocrisy to push for national service for the youngRishi Sunak is in an unfortunate position. Anything he does that even slightly cuts convention will now be read as a terrible blunder. Once a narrative like this picks up steam it is hard to stop. The press wants to add to the story arc. A delighted Labour will help it along. And perhaps even some of his own camp, looking for a scapegoat in the coming election defea
  
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• D-day deserter Rishi Sunak didn’t do his duty, so why should gen Z be expected to do theirs?

  09-06-2024 10:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Postwar generations grew up in comfort on gilded tales of heroic conflict. What hypocrisy to push for national service for the youngRishi Sunak is in an unfortunate position. Anything he does that even slightly cuts convention will now be read as a terrible blunder. Once a narrative like this picks up steam it is hard to stop. The press wants to add to the story arc. A delighted Labour will help it along. And perhaps even some of his own camp, looking for a scapegoat in the coming election defea
  
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• ‘I think Sunak’s walked out of Number 10’: Tory garrison town reacts to D-Day gaffe

  09-06-2024 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  For some in Aldershot, long a Conservative bastion, the prime minister’s early exit from France is the final strawQueen Victoria and Prince Albert idle past in a vintage car, followed by a samba band, a Keralan dance troupe and army cadets on the march, watched intently by Gurkha veterans with ribboned chests.It’s Aldershot’s Victoria Day parade, an annual celebration of the Hampshire town’s links to Queen Victoria, who established it as the home of the British army in th
  
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• ‘I think Sunak’s walked out of No 10’: Tory garrison town reacts to D-Day gaffe

  09-06-2024 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  For some in Aldershot, long a Conservative bastion, the prime minister’s early exit from France is the final strawQueen Victoria and Prince Albert idle past in a vintage car, followed by a samba band, a Keralan dance troupe and army cadets on the march, watched intently by Gurkha veterans with ribboned chests.It’s Aldershot’s Victoria Day parade, an annual celebration of the Hampshire town’s links to Queen Victoria, who established it as the home of the British army in th
  
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• Princess of Wales sends apology to Irish guards for missing parade

  08-06-2024 12:57 via theguardian.com
  
  Catherine says she hopes ‘to represent you all once again very soon’ as colonel of the regiment The Princess of Wales has written to the Irish guards to apologise for being unable to take the salute and wish them luck for a trooping the colour event.The colonel’s review parade rehearsal for trooping the colour was taking place in central London on Saturday. Continue reading...
  
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• ‘You can’t fight your way to peace’: from a 20-year-old Israeli to a 99-year-old Briton, eight conscientious objectors on why they refused to serve in the army

  08-06-2024 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Military service for 18-year-olds is a key Tory election pledge in the UK. But in countries with conscription, opting out comes at a heavy cost – ostracisation, fines and time in prison Peter Hathorn, 63, Cape Town, South Africa Continue reading...
  
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• BBC election debate: Penny Mordaunt says Sunak’s D-day snub was ‘very wrong’ in seven-party clash – as it happened

  07-06-2024 23:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Mordaunt, for the Tories, faced Labour’s Angela Rayner, Reform’s Nigel Farage and candidates from Lib Dems, SNP, Greens and Plaid CymruSign up for Election Edition, our UK general election newsletterI think it would be fair to say that children’s minister David Johnston is not having a vintage media round today.First he was ambushed by Rishi Sunak issuing his D-day absence apology while the minister was literally out defending Sunak by repeatedly pointing out that he had been i
  
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• British paratroopers landing in France for D-day event told to show passports

  06-06-2024 18:57 via theguardian.com
  
  French officials asked to see papers of 400 soldiers after drop in Normandy for 80th anniversary of WWII assaultEyebrows were raised at the Ministry of Defence when French immigration and customs insisted on checking the paperwork of 400 British paratroopers immediately after they dropped into fields near Saneville, Normandy on Wednesday.Some felt the French were trying to make a point in the response to the UK’s decision to leave the EU and, while immigration checks for British troops on
  
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• British paratroopers dropping in French field for D-day event asked for passports

  06-06-2024 18:57 via theguardian.com
  
  French officials insist on checking paperwork of 400 troops landing in Normandy for 80th anniversary commemorationEyebrows were raised at the Ministry of Defence when French immigration and customs insisted on checking the paperwork of 400 British paratroopers immediately after they dropped into fields near Saneville, Normandy on Wednesday.Some felt the French were trying to make a point in response to the UK’s decision to leave the EU and, while immigration checks for British troops on ex
  
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• UK politics: IFS attacks Tory pledge not to reform ‘absurd’ council tax system – as it happened

  06-06-2024 18:47 via theguardian.com
  
  Thinktank says at least half of houses are in the ‘wrong band’ with those in the north of England and Midlands paying too muchAnneliese Dodds, the Labour party chair, has said the revelation that the Tories are still taking money from Frank Hester shows Rishi Sunak has “no integrity”. In a statement she said:Rishi Sunak has proven he is a man with no integrity.He is too weak to return the money donated by a man who has made violent, misogynist, and racist remarks which be
  
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• IFS attacks Tory pledge not to reform ‘absurd’ council tax system – UK politics live

  06-06-2024 17:56 via theguardian.com
  
  Thinktank says at least half of houses are in the ‘wrong band’ with those in the north of England and Midlands paying too muchAnneliese Dodds, the Labour party chair, has said the revelation that the Tories are still taking money from Frank Hester shows Rishi Sunak has “no integrity”. In a statement she said:Rishi Sunak has proven he is a man with no integrity.He is too weak to return the money donated by a man who has made violent, misogynist, and racist remarks which be
  
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• IFS attacks ‘absurd’ Tory pledge not to reform council tax – UK politics live

  06-06-2024 17:43 via theguardian.com
  Thinktank says at least half of houses are in the ‘wrong band’ with those in the north of England and Midlands paying too muchAnneliese Dodds, the Labour party chair, has said the revelation that the Tories are still taking money from Frank Hester shows Rishi Sunak has “no integrity”. In a statement she said:Rishi Sunak has proven he is a man with no integrity.He is too weak to return the money donated by a man who has made violent, misogynist, and racist remarks which be
  
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• D-day 80th anniversary – in pictures

  06-06-2024 10:58 via theguardian.com
  
  Commemorations for the official anniversary of the D-day invasion of mainland Europe during the second world war by British, Canadian and other Commonwealth troops alongside the US and the Free FrenchD-day 80th anniversary – live updates Continue reading...
  
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• ‘Eternal debt’: 200 surviving veterans are focus of this year’s D-day

  05-06-2024 23:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Memorials in England and Normandy were curated in the knowledge that it may well be the last opportunity to thank the former soldiers in personAt the dying of the day, as dark descended across the beaches of Normandy, where the blood of so many thousands was spilled 80 years ago, each of the headstones of the 4,600 men lying in the Bayeux war cemetery was aglow.King Charles, in his first significant pronouncement since his cancer diagnosis in February, had spoken earlier in Portsmouth of the &ld
  
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• Stories of D-day veterans: ‘They feared they had lost the war’

  05-06-2024 19:39 via theguardian.com
  
  Five people share what they know of their relatives’ experiences in June 1944 and their lives afterwardsOn 6 June 1944, allied troops took part in Operation Overlord, a combined naval, air and land assault on the beaches of Normandy, which led to the liberation of Europe and the end of the second world war.Ahead of the 80th anniversary of D-day, five people share their relatives’ experiences of the largest seaborne invasion in history. Continue reading...
  
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• Foreign Office ‘quiet diplomacy’ futile in overseas arrest cases, says expert

  05-06-2024 19:10 via theguardian.com
  
  Academic tortured in UAE tells families of Britons arrested in controversial circumstances abroad to go public promptlyFamilies of Britons arrested in controversial circumstances abroad should raise concerns promptly in public because Foreign Office “quiet diplomacy” is not effective, an expert has warned after the arrest of a former British Royal Marine in Dubai.Matthew Hedges, a British academic who was detained and tortured in the United Arab Emirates in 2018, said the case of Mat
  
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• ‘Courage and solidarity’: King Charles pays tribute to veterans of D-day

  05-06-2024 15:02 via theguardian.com
  
  Royals, politicians and military leaders begin two days of events to mark 80th anniversary of Normandy landingsThe king has paid tribute to D-day veterans at a commemorative event in Portsmouth marking the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings.Charles said their “stories of courage, resilience and solidarity” move, inspire and “remind us of what we owe to that great wartime generation – now, tragically, dwindling to so few”. Continue reading...
  
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• ‘It is gradually dying away’: D-day veteran keeps story alive 80 years on

  05-06-2024 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Ken Cooke was 18 and more worried about wet socks than bullets when he landed in Normandy on 6 June 1944The first ship Ken Cooke ever saw was the one that took him from Southampton to the beaches of Normandy in the early hours of 6 June 1944. He was 18 and an infantryman in the 7th battalion of the Green Howards, known as the Yorkshire regiment, with six weeks’ basic training under his belt. “You could walk across the harbour without getting your feet wet, you know, that many ships,&
  
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• King Charles and Rishi Sunak to join veterans for 80th anniversary of D-day

  05-06-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Two days of events will be held in England and France, as one veteran remembers: ‘We lost a hell of a lot of good men’Rishi Sunak’s election campaigning and King Charles’s convalescence from cancer will be put on hold for 48 hours, as the two men join veterans to mark the 80th anniversary of D-day on the south coast of England and in Normandy.Two days of events at the ports where allied troops embarked for their perilous journey, and on the French beaches from where they
  
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• King Charles and Rishi Sunak join veterans for 80th anniversary of D-day

  05-06-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Two days of events will be held in England and France, as one veteran remembers: ‘We lost a hell of a lot of good men’Rishi Sunak’s election campaigning and King Charles’s convalescence from cancer will be put on hold for 48 hours, as the two men join veterans to mark the 80th anniversary of D-day on the south coast of England and in Normandy.Two days of events at the ports where allied troops embarked for their perilous journey, and on the French beaches from where they
  
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• Ex-Royal Marines reservist held in Dubai on spying charges

  04-06-2024 22:59 via theguardian.com
  
  Former lance corporal Matt Croucher was arrested seven months ago, accused of ‘illegally accessing telecommunications’A former Royal Marines reservist awarded the highest medal for gallantry has reportedly been held in Dubai since November after being accused of spying.The former lance corporal Matt Croucher, 40, was awarded the George Cross, which ranks alongside the Victoria Cross as the highest decoration for acts of bravery, in 2008 after risking his life and saving others by thr
  
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• Ex-Royal Marine reservist with George Cross held in Dubai on spy charge

  04-06-2024 22:59 via theguardian.com
  
  Former lance corporal Matt Croucher was arrested seven months ago accused of ‘illegally accessing telecommunications’A former Royal Marine reservist awarded the highest medal for gallantry has reportedly been held in Dubai since November after being accused of spying.The former lance corporal Matt Croucher, 40, was awarded the George Cross, which ranks alongside the Victoria Cross as the highest decoration for acts of bravery, in 2008 after risking his life and saving others by throw
  
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• Ex-Royal Marine reservist held in Dubai on spying charges

  04-06-2024 22:59 via theguardian.com
  
  Former lance corporal Matt Croucher was arrested seven months ago accused of ‘illegally accessing telecommunications’A former Royal Marine reservist awarded the highest medal for gallantry has reportedly been held in Dubai since November after being accused of spying.The former lance corporal Matt Croucher, 40, was awarded the George Cross, which ranks alongside the Victoria Cross as the highest decoration for acts of bravery, in 2008 after risking his life and saving others by throw
  
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• Three of the horses that bolted across London expected to troop the colour

  04-06-2024 20:22 via theguardian.com
  
  Trojan, Tennyson and Vanquish back on duty and army says ‘against all expectations’ should be at king’s birthday paradeThree military horses that sustained injuries after bolting through central London will probably take part in trooping the colour next week after making a recovery, the army has said.The incident in April resulted in four service personnel being thrown from their horses and five of the animals getting loose, colliding with vehicles including a double-decker bus
  
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• ‘People were ready to move on’: D-day left little mark on key port of Southampton

  04-06-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  ‘Disparate’ 80th anniversary efforts reflect those around UK, where only in recent times have calls for memorials increasedOf the British and Canadian troops who took part in D-day on 6 June 1944, two-thirds set off for the beaches of Normandy from Southampton’s docks.The town on England’s south coast was sealed off by the allies, with permits required in and out, and the civic centre – the first in the country, completed in 1939 in brilliant white Portland stone &n
  
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• Rayner hasn’t ‘changed mind’ on nuclear weapons but backs Labour policy

  03-06-2024 20:40 via theguardian.com
  
  Deputy leader has voted against renewing Trident but says she supports ‘triple lock’ commitment to programme in near termAngela Rayner has said she has not changed her mind about nuclear weapons even though she supports Labour’s policy to keep and renew them.The deputy Labour leader voted against the renewal of Trident in 2016 but said on Monday that she supported Labour’s “triple lock” – a commitment to maintain the UK’s nuclear deterrent round th
  
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• Angela Rayner says she supports Labour policy on nuclear weapons

  03-06-2024 20:40 via theguardian.com
  
  Deputy leader previously voted against renewing Trident but backs ‘triple lock’ commitment to programme in near termAngela Rayner has said she has not changed her mind about nuclear weapons even though she supports Labour’s policy to keep and renew them.The deputy Labour leader voted against the renewal of Trident in 2016 but said on Monday that she supported Labour’s “triple lock” – a commitment to maintain the UK’s nuclear deterrent round the clo
  
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• WWII aircraft grounded for D-day anniversary after fatal Spitfire crash

  31-05-2024 18:06 via theguardian.com
  
  RAF says Battle of Britain flight will not take place because of safety concerns arising from death of pilot Sqn Ldr Mark LongNo second world war aircraft will participate in tribute flypasts marking the 80th anniversary of D-day next week after the crash of a Spitfire in Lincolnshire last week that killed its pilot.The RAF said the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (BBMF) would continue to be grounded in its entirety because specialist crash investigators had not yet been unable to establish th
  
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