内容摘要：It will take years for Europe's military industrial base to crank up to speed to match anywhere near the scale of weaponry that Russia is churning out.

It will take years for Europe's military industrial base to crank up to speed to match anywhere near the scale of weaponry that Russia is churning out.

"He knew he was small, but if a big soldier came in and started being jingoistic he would challenge them and get thrown out on his backside," he said."He didn't fly off the handle a lot - there are a couple of times when things went a bit wrong - but by and large he was passive and talked his way out of problems."

The poet's fans were his worst enemies in some ways, he said."In America his favourite whisky was a bourbon called Old Grandad."People would turn up at his hotel room with a bottle and want him to drink it in front of them.

"When people were feeding him lots of whisky he could get irascible."I think he liked to be the centre of attention, in a pub he would tell great stories and people would buy him drinks, but I don't think he was known for a temper in any way.

"[His wife] Caitlin had the temper and she would give him a right hiding."

Actress and writer Ruth Jones has been awarded this year's Hay Festival medal for drama.The government funded last year's above inflation pay increase for public sector workers by increasing employers' National Insurance contributions and

in November that she did not want to increase taxes again this Parliament.As for borrowing, she has left herself only £9.9bn of "headroom", or leeway, against hitting her chosen fiscal rules in 2029-30 and taking on additional debt to pay for higher public sector pay would risk being on course to breach her rules.

But analysts also warn that it will be far from easy to pay for higher pay through increased public sector productivity."If the pay recommendations come in higher than what departments have planned for, that will create a budgeting challenge," says Ben Zaranko of the IFS.