Right, so on Monday the Americans started moving aircraft out of RAF Mildenhall. By Tuesday, at least fifteen had gone. Barely a month since their bombers left RAF Fairford of course, all in the name of security concerns that they have with regards to Iran, that is despite the fact all we know still to this day, is that were made is some men were caught with some petrol. But there’s something else Washington has left right where it is, and for that we need to look at RAF Marham. Our own Ministry of Defence says American-owned F‑35 parts went from there to Israel fourteen times. Then Labour suspended some arms licences over Gaza. Guess which programme got an exemption? Well, we all know that one don’t we?

Imagine that a shipment starts in an RAF station in Norfolk, but it passes through Heathrow, goes to Israel via Israeli cargo planes, and ends up in Nevatim, where Israel bases its F-35s. Heathrow, for God's sake. The place you go to catch a flight to Malaga was a stop on the way from a British air base to an Israeli air force base.

Well, back in November 2024, the Ministry of Defence told MPs that no F‑35 parts had gone directly from Marham to Israel since the suspension of other certain arms export licences had come into effect that September, even though, as we know the government refused then, as it has ever since to suspend F-35 parts from that. Britain was still sending parts into the same spares pool Israel draws from. A minister gets to stand up in the Commons and announce an arms suspension, even though it never went far enough. Lovely.

But there the story takes its turn.