Downing Street says “no decision has been taken” to send HMS Prince of Wales to the the Mediterranean in response to the Iran conflict, despite two days’ worth of headlines claiming the vessel had been placed on advanced readiness to sail from Portsmouth. It is one of Britain’s two aircraft carriers, both of which Trump declared he ‘didn’t need’ over the weekend…
Number 10 is now pushing back on claims the ship is being deployed to the Middle East, insisting HMS Prince of Wales had always been on high readiness and “we have been bolstering our presence in the Middle East since January” with the likes of typhoons and F-35s. In other words: don’t expect it to sail east any time soon…
Speaking to Adam Boulton on Times Radio about kicking the Golders Green suspect, Heidi Alexander said:
“I thought that if I was in the shoes of that police officer, then if I’m honest, given the situation, and the fact that he had a backpack on his back, and they were worried about whether that might go off, I could, if I was a police officer, frankly, I could see myself having taken similar action.”