Tech–Aviation–History–Books @AeroSociety AEROSPACE @airandspace @BBC_Future @HISTORY @spectator |WINNER Aerospace Media Awards2025|Author N-4 DOWN @marinerbooks
Oxford
Joined April 2011
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Mark Piesing retweeted
Today’s Guardian finds it "astonishing" that Russell Brand, convicted of one count of rape and three sexual assaults yesterday, was “embraced as a serious social commentator” when he returned to Britain in 2013. Embraced by whom, sorry?
The paper gives its own role in promoting brand Brand one single line, noting he had already written columns for it. Yesterday’s big Guardian piece on TV insiders said "Brand’s case has led to difficult questions for the BBC, Channel 4 and the production companies that worked with him." Hilarious...
On an unrelated note Russell Brand's 137 written contributions to the Guardian are still online - 17 of which are after 2013 and which concluded in February 2015.
Long after the Andrew Sachs voicemails, the paper ran his opinion on Thatcher the day after she died, ran a GQ awards column over a large chunk of the front page in September 2013, and ran his column blaming Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death on “extremely stupid drug laws.” Not to mention the fawning praise from Owen Jones and the entire Labour establishment, including the now-Prime Minister...
Today’s piece also sniffs that critics lavished praise on his memoir, quoting its tale of Brand trailing a classmate 200 miles to Wigan as an early warning sign.
That particular book was serialised in the Guardian.
In October 2014 the paper put on a ticketed Guardian Live event, with Owen Jones interviewing Brand. It was broadcast live from the Emmanuel Centre.
That day Jones penned a piece in the Guardian attacking the “all-too-smug, seen-it-all-before snottiness” aimed at Brand. Two months later George Monbiot named him a hero of 2014, calling him “the best thing that has happened to the left in years”.
Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian's editor from 1995 to 2015, claimed in Prospect Magazine in 2023: "I only met him once, when he was writing a popular football column for the Guardian, along with the occasional commentary piece." Funny, seeing as the football column was pre-2010 and there is a photo of them snugly on the sofa together at the Guardian’s morning conference in August 2013...
Mark Piesing retweeted
I have just watched @AppleTV incredible Tenzing.
What a story, cast and cinematography!
It was shot entirely in sub-zero temps on glaciers and in real crevasses across Nepal and New Zealand.
It looks great on TV but watch it in the cinema if you can.
Mark Piesing retweeted
The @BGPrize does it again!
I am in the middle of reading Edmund Richardson's Alexander: God, King, Man and it is breathtaking good book. It is an astonishing, sumptuous recreation of the life and world of Alexander Great. It's a must buy.
@BloomsburyBooks
🏆 The moment we’ve all been waiting for… Edmund Richardson has won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2026 with Alexander: God, King, Man.✨
Huge congratulations to Edmund and @BloomsburyBooks, and to all shortlisted authors for an extraordinary year of non-fiction.
Mark Piesing retweeted
You've got to love that Liz Truss was at Mar-a-largo the night that the midterm results came in..
Mark Piesing retweeted
"We're just cleaning it man"
Amid speculation that it could be returning to flight, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman teases to NSF that NASA is "just cleaning" their SR-71 Blackbird...
Mark Piesing retweeted
This is why I love the UK; we all agree when HM Government decided to jump over a cliff and commit suicide. The UK has, with Airbus UK in Stevenage all it takes to keep a key capability in the UK, ITAR-free, and also in EUROPE. Even if it does cost more now, it will pay in the future. UK has large medium satellites with Airbus and Surrey Space Technologies and micro satellites with Clyde Space in Glasgow. Alongside them, a plethora of companies are working on different subsystems. Write to your MP and stamp your feet; this is the time to do it. Made in the UK.
Despite a direction from me when Defence Secretary that the Skynet 6A , £2bn contract was too important to the UK space industry to offshore to Lockheed Martin it looks as if Wes is preparing to place the contract overseas. The damage it would do to Stevenage and the UK satellite industry would be irreversible and it was always assessed it could mean the end of the sector. Lockheed’s promises of factories in Newcastle were skin deep. The differences between types on offer were marginal. No.10 could, and should stop this. @AirbusDefence @wesstreeting @larisamlbrown @kevinbonavia @haynesdeborah
Mark Piesing retweeted
Your kids arent going to be working in the Space sector, your money isnt going to be spent in the UK, your security will be determined by the whims of the US president. RIP the UK space sector 1962-2026.
Despite a direction from me when Defence Secretary that the Skynet 6A , £2bn contract was too important to the UK space industry to offshore to Lockheed Martin it looks as if Wes is preparing to place the contract overseas. The damage it would do to Stevenage and the UK satellite industry would be irreversible and it was always assessed it could mean the end of the sector. Lockheed’s promises of factories in Newcastle were skin deep. The differences between types on offer were marginal. No.10 could, and should stop this. @AirbusDefence @wesstreeting @larisamlbrown @kevinbonavia @haynesdeborah
Mark Piesing retweeted
When UK ministers talk about how they are spending £298bn over four years on their defence investment plan it sounds impressive.
But this is just the annual budget - including for recurring costs like canteen food, boots and light bulbs - lumped together from 2026-30.
We have analysed the numbers in the small print of the investment plan (DIP).
It shows that military chiefs are banking on tens of billions of additional pounds from 2030 and beyond.
Or else their own numbers do not add up.
Check out our rather rough and ready maths - and thank you to @FTusa284 for sharing your views! ⬇️
news.sky.com/video/is-there-…
Mark Piesing retweeted
The US is trying to pressure Lithuania to let Belarusian potash be shipped through their ports.
The response? "We say very clearly 'fuck no.' If Americans are not able to learn from history then we have to stand the ground."
Thank you Lithuania for your steadfast support.💙💛
Mark Piesing retweeted
For those who felt positive this morning with regards defence telegraph.co.uk/politics/202…
Mark Piesing retweeted
The more I learn (from those involved) about what initiated this wholly unnecessary, clumsy, long and deeply damaging investigation into the UK COBRA-directed SAS Syrian detention operation in 2022, the more disturbed I become…
Seemingly initiated by @GenGJenkinsRM in his last three weeks of his time as DSF, he (alone) overruled the considered and well-advised judgement of the infinitely more experienced and better-informed SAS chain of command, as a self-serving “PR exercise” designed to demonstrate to a Panorama-triggered Whitehall that he and his staff will take media-generated, but unproven, accusations of war-crimes seriously.
On the face of it, this seems to be a particular egregious, Sulla-like example of a senior commander regarding loyalty to the troops as entirely transactional, and one that is quite willing to sacrifice their subordinates wellbeing when political expediency or personal ambition demands it.
If this impression is correct, then who else endorsed and supported it, and what message does that send to those involved in high-risk special operations today?
In 2022, five SAS soldiers shot dead two teenagers during an operation to detain an Islamic State target in Syria.
The Sunday Times has now revealed that the soldiers faced a three-year murder investigation before being cleared, which former SAS commander Richard Williams argues looks more like a public relations excercise than military judgement.
Watch in full | youtu.be/ye2pv3DTybQ @ShippersUnbound @williams_rje
Mark Piesing retweeted
25 years ago, @LockheedMartin was awarded the development contract for the F-35.
Next month is the 25th anniversary of the first Harry Potter movie, which was 2001's second greatest work of fantasy and imagination.
Mark Piesing retweeted
Any soldier with operational experience will tell you that dismounted close combat is a nasty, brutal, squalid business and judgement is best left to those who were there. I know BRS personally, not well, but enough to say he’s a soldier not a killer.
Former SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has denied murdering civilians or breaking the rules of engagement during his deployment in Afghanistan.
“I didn’t bloody murder anyone,” the Victoria Cross recipient told 2GB's Ben Fordham in a wide-ranging interview aired on Thursday morning.
Roberts-Smith, 47, was arrested in April and charged with murdering or ordering the murders of five unarmed detainees in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012.
“I wouldn’t change a single thing. I would do it all exactly the same way because I know that I did the right thing,” he said.
The former soldier maintains his innocence as the criminal case against him continues.
Read more:
canberradaily.com.au/didnt-b…
Mark Piesing retweeted
The glacial slowness of DE&S is at fault here. They simply can't get on with it.
After seeing Norway's Defence Industries expressing all their concern about whether the UK will actually order the things it promised to in return for Type 26, let's take a look at what UK's defence industry representatives told the Defence Committee 4 days ago.
It's ugly.
Kevin Craven, CEO of ADS, notes that equipment spending cratered rather than going up: "In terms of orders, what is probably interesting to note is that the
equipment spend to the year ending March 2026 was £5 billion less than in the previous year".
The DiP was "reasonably granular around the
first four years of what, in old money, was the defence equipment plan, but thereafter less so. Even in those first four years, it was not clear whether around a third of the £298 billion announced is unfunded or not
articulated in the right way."
Julian David, CEO of TechUK, goes on to note "Last time we were here, we reported on our survey of members, and 73% said that the market has declined since the report; that was in May. Funding delays and reductions have hit 87% of respondents, and 93% of them are now reassessing investment or recruitment of people to focus in this sector."
Stephen Philipson, CEO of MakeUK, with one of my favorite quotes: "The point that we get from many companies is that you cannot invest on press releases. We need detail and funding, and we need to make that
work."
Another huge quote from him is also: "(the DiP) It is nothing like an equipment plan. This is not investable as it stands at the moment. It gives you a thematic direction of travel in many areas, a lot of which is
welcome and is great news, and attracts a lot of new companies into the market, but the questions are then around where the contracts, the programme and the procurement are. We do not have that yet, and that
is the problem."
It's as devastating as it could possibly be, behind the niceties and the ongoing attempt to say the DiP is "welcome".
committees.parliament.uk/ora…
Mark Piesing retweeted
So let’s get this right: the most elite British troops, SAS commandos operating against terrorists, can be placed under criminal investigation for missions undertaken at the behest of their government and for the safety of their country; but actual, known ISIS terrorists can’t be deported from the UK because of their ‘human rights’?
We are literally prosecuting our most elite commandos while protecting known terrorists. It’s terrorists’ rights over British citizens’ rights.
For shame.
EXCLUSIVE: The commanding officer of the SAS was placed under criminal investigation and referred to prosecutors over anti-ISIS mission in Syria.
Unprecedented move concerned police request for classified evidence, but effort to charge him collapsed thetimes.com/uk/defence/arti…
Mark Piesing retweeted
Is deeply odd this profusion of people mocking the idea that people having basic supplies - food, water, some cash, wind-up radio - is somehow silly, a joke or weird. In countries such as Finland and Sweden this is absolutely standard, part of their “total defence” doctrine.
'You're so wrong!'
Should we prepare for potential food shortages and power cuts, or is it the Government’s job to protect us?
@IainDale, @Martha_Gill and @CarolineFlint debate.
Mark Piesing retweeted
Can the UK honestly promise NATO a Strategic Reserve Company, let alone a Corps?
The collapse of UK military power is genuinely fascinating. A country of 70mn - with the world’s 5th biggest economy - collectively opted to just give up on meaningfully defending itself.
1/7
Two years late, minimum...
NATO SACEUR Commander asserted last week that NATO is "ready to fight tonight". The UK would likely be unable to fight past a few weeks.
Our tank fleet reduced by one third.
Two years late for initial batch of 8 CR3. IOC for 2027 now wholly unrealistic. No new date when.
Gvt silence on the delay.
UK armoured battlegroup in Estonia soon replaced by a Mobile Anti-Armour Force (light mech inf).
Questions now need to be asked - given the length of CR3 delays - whether the UK can fulfil its NATO commitments to provide a Strategic Reserve Corps.
Mark Piesing retweeted
Islamist terrorists tried to murder Salman Rushdie and everyone associated with The Satanic Verses. Who precisely is threatening to murder Sally Rooney and the staff at Faber & Faber? Yvette Cooper?
If you ever sought out the novels of Sally Rooney in bookshops – when that was still possible – you’d know they sit in the fiction stacks adjacent to the novels of another SR whose books have been withdrawn in dastardly political circumstances. Until last week, “Rooney” and “Rushdie” had little in common beyond being shelfmates; now they have more than just a physical proximity.
@tanjil_rashid_: This is censorship by other means newstatesman.com/comment/202…
