Last week Britain’s prime minister Boris Johnson toured a sparkling aircraft factory in the north of England, elbow bumping its young and diverse apprentices to highlight his investment in a futuristic fighter jet for UK forces.
Johnson said staff at the BAE Systems site in Warton, Lancashire, were “helping make our country safe” and forging Britain as “a science superpower”.
Although his trip to Warton was widely reported, no British journalist mentioned the factory’s role in building a Thatcher-era aircraft which Saudi Arabia still uses to bomb Yemen, its southern neighbour.
That conflict in the Middle East, which started in 2015, has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Much of Yemen’s infrastructure has been destroyed and millions of people, including children, are on the brink of starvation.