Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, the gin makers in Hall 7 are some of the highest perfectionists in Birmingham, so we won't rush them as they serve you up for a fantastic array of alcohol we've got here.

Thank you for joining us of this spectator event sponsored by Palantir on how to, can Britain fight tomorrow's wars?

Except the fascinating thing about this is that tomorrow's wars are fast becoming today's wars.

For about, you know, when Liam Fox here was Defence Secretary,

he was very passionate about the way that technology is completely transforming

the way that we regard conflicts, the threats we can expect,

and how we should expect to retaliate.

I think when Putin invaded Ukraine, he imagined that technology wasn't that big a factor.

And what we've seen there has been described as a 20th century invasion facing a 21st century response.

We have a term, I think the spectator is the only

publication in Britain to employ a Ukrainian refugee. Svetlander Murnetch, she did a brilliant

journalist, award-winning journalist came here as a refugee. She writes a newsletter for us,

which if you don't get, you should, Spectator forward ukraine to sign up to it and she used a very

i learned so much from talking to her and because us journalists like us we write about these far away

countries of which we never visited all the time and it's actually great to sit next to somebody from

there who knows exactly these areas that we're

talking about.

And she talks nonstop about military technology.

So her, this is the matter between life or death.

She's got family over there.

This is the difference between they're having a future or they're not.

And the phrase she uses is that what we're seeing now is a combination of Ukrainian courage

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