Welcome to a special edition of Coffee House Shots for Spectators' Daily podcast. A few months ago,

the government unveiled plans for an extraordinary new RAF combat aircraft, The Tempest.

Now, depending on which reports you believe, it will be able to fire bursts of particle beams

and have a cockpit so digitally advanced it can fit in a pilot's helmet. That, of course,

if it needs a pilot at all. So is this the future of British air defence? What's the thinking

that led to the inception of this project? can we really afford it and should we be attempting

one at a time where the future of defence spending is very highly fought over?

I'm Fraser Nelson, editor of the Spectator, and I'm delighted to be joined by the Defence

Analyst Douglas Barry, Air Vice Marshal Peter Rochelle, otherwise known as Rocky, who's the RTF's

chief of staff capability, and Sir Roger Carr, chairman of BAE Systems, which is kindly sponsoring

this podcast.

Now, Sir Roger, I'll come to you first.

BA.E is behind Tempest, along with the consortium of other companies.

We've got Rose Royce for the engines, MBDA, the European missile maker, and Leonardo of Italy

as censor specialists.

But why are the four of you together for this?

Because there are other competing aircraft.

Franco-German project was recently put together without Britain and Zvolvement. So is this

our response? Well, I don't know about a response. I mean, we have a history, of course,

of leading in this area. And the capability that this country has, together with its

partners that you've outlined, is probably second to none.

So there is an evolution here from the current aircraft, which is Typhoon, into the next generation, where we have the skills, the ability, and the support, importantly, of government, of trade unions,

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