Hello from The National and welcome to the View from London – your weekly guide to the big stories from our London bureau
Claxon sounded
Richard Horne, the head of the UK's National Cyber Security Centre, has warned that a year of war has not deterred Iran from bringing AI into its online threat against the UK.
He told his annual report launch that Iran was among the countries “embracing AI as a capability … as a tool to discover new vulnerabilities”.
Mr Horne's view is that British companies and supply chains remain “wilfully blind” to threats from Iran, as well as Russia, China and others.
“There are so many vulnerabilities out there waiting to be exploited,” he said. “The most serious risk we face in the short term is just a huge rise in the volume of incidents.”
Vulnerabilities that have been tolerated for far too long mean AI can now discover and exploit flaws at a scale that was once unimaginable.
With supermarket fridges hacked from Finland to Belgium through temperature-control technology just this week, the scale of disruption is ever more worrying for European governments.
Wide impact
The UK's AI minister, Kanishka Narayan, said he is worried that worse is just ahead. "A cyber-breach incident is extremely likely in the UK, both in the public sector and private sector," he said.
The report by the NCSC had one small section on the humbling of Jaguar Land Rover in 2025 by a weeks-long ransomware attack. The direct cost to JLR was in the hundreds of millions but the overall economy took a blow to growth of a much greater magnitude.
It is remarkable how little has been said of the true impact of that incident.
Mr Horne endorsed the country's call on homes to keep a stock of necessities in case of a systemic breakdown. Amazon orders are going in for wind-up radios, power-packs and camping gas stoves, while cans of baked beans are being hoarded. This has now become a necessity, Mr Horne said, in a time when AI is showing malign actors where vulnerabilities lie.
Tourism matters
Mansoor Abulhoul, the UAE's ambassador to London, was able to report that the UK's interest in travel to his country remains grounded in the pace of developments on offer.
The UAE's different emirates offer "seven different experiences", he said at the World Travel Market launch day at London's Excel Centre.
But spare a thought for Syria's Tourism Minister Mazen Al Salhani, who is leading his country's return to the international travel scene.
Mr Al Salhani told our correspondent, Lemma Shehadi, about the potential a stable, open government could realise, as he toured the vast Expo. “There are around 3,000 places to be visited in Syria, historical places," he said. "So we have a plan and strategy to renovate most of them.”
The billionaire Wafic Said has plans to open a sister hotel in Damascus to his Beaumont Mayfair. Mr Al Salhani said a series of new luxury hotels is in the pipeline, including a resort above the capital that is connected to the city by cable cars.
The country’s famed archaeological sites – from the ruins of Palmyra to the crusade-era Crac des Chevaliers – will be restored.
“We are preparing the country to receive tourists and visitors,” he said. “We have a strategy. By 2030, Syria, you can see it in different way. In 2035, it would be one of the best destinations in the Mediterranean.”
Upmarket chains such as the InterContinental and St Regis also have plans to set up shop.
Conservation and recovery work for the country’s most attractive archaeological sites has already started.
Withstanding pressure
Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, has mapped out a pathway between his state and the UK that strengthens ties even as pressure on the links has risen in recent weeks.
It centres around the enforcement of British sanctions on West Bank settlements and an accompanying boost to links with the Palestinian economy.
Actively countering Israeli pressure on the Palestinian economy reduces the risk to the West Bank from efforts towards annexation and collapse.
Mr Zomlot told The National that Palestinian diplomats in the UK are working with British officials to ensure that the newly announced sanctions regime hits settlements effectively.
Palestinian trade and finance is restricted by the occupation, as almost all exports go through Israeli checkpoints and customs channels. Palestinian banks are required to correspond with a small number of Israeli banks to make overseas payments.
So the push to expel senior British diplomats and reduce the status of the UK consulate in Jerusalem can be overcome by forging direct transactional links with Palestine.
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