内容摘要：Bludfest, a festival founded by singer-songwriter Yungblud in 2024, will take place at the National Bowl, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, on 21 June.

Bludfest, a festival founded by singer-songwriter Yungblud in 2024, will take place at the National Bowl, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, on 21 June.

So, as the world becomes more dangerous, what can the government do to reverse the decline - and restore the UK to military readiness?Politicians from all sides, along with military chiefs, admit Britain's armed forces have been "hollowed out". It's true for the Royal Navy and the RAF - and perhaps most acutely, in the British army.

In 2010 the regular Army was nearly 110,000 strong. Now, it is struggling to meet its target of 73,000 soldiers - not enough to fill Cardiff's Principality Stadium.Earlier this year defence minister and former Royal Marine, Al Carns, told a conference at the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank, that the entire British Army could be "expended" within six to 12 months if it fought a war on a similar scale to the Ukraine conflict.Last summer the head of the army, General Sir Roly Walker, said the Army needed to be ready to fight a war by 2027 - an admission it isn't ready to fight one in its current state. He said the Army needs to leverage technology, such as drones, new software, and artificial intelligence.

But Justin Crump, an Army Reserve Officer who heads the risk and intelligence company Sibylline, argues that boosts to technology won't make up for the lack of military hardware. "We have big gaps and they're not going to get filled overnight," he says.The government is also promising to streamline the bureaucratic process of ordering new kit - trying to learn the painful lessons of past mistakes. By the time they eventually arrive, the delivery of hundreds of new Ajax armoured vehicles will have taken more than a decade.

Speak to any government minister about security, they'll no doubt talk about Nato. It's the cornerstone of the UK's security, the government says, and one that has only become more important since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

According to its Nato commitments, the UK is supposed to be able to field tens of thousands of troops at short notice to defend any Nato territory – with a war-fighting division made up of tanks, artillery, and heavy armour.Pattern maker Mar Marcote has been with the business 42 years and still uses a magnifying glass to examine each item of clothing before it finally goes into production.

"When you finish the item and see that it looks good, and then sometimes sells out, it's marvellous," she says.Zara is a business that has changed the way we shop.

In the old days, retailers released just two main collections a year, Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter. For decades, most chains have outsourced manufacturing to lower-cost factories in the far east with the clothes arriving up to six months later.Zara went against conventional wisdom by sourcing a lot of its clothes closer to home and changing products much more frequently. That meant it could respond much faster to the latest trends and drop new items into stores every week.