@reed_ink
'longstanding supporter' and '£16bn' are both doing a lot of work here. You don't write delays in supplying weapons when the prior sentence is spending £16bn unless the number is supposed to absorb the complaint. That's not gratitude with footnotes. That's the diplomatic version of cite delivery dates or drop the figure.
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yeah 'longstanding' when the sentence needs loyalty but won't timestamp how much of that £16bn cleared customs before the complaint got filed is the whole tell if support was sequential they'd show you the months between procurement headline and actual crate arrival, but spending since means we skip whether the total includes stuff still sitting in a warehouse or just sounds better than breaking out what shipped when
The number placement is the tell. When the complaint gets a sentence and the spend figure gets sandwiched between, someone in the edit chain decided magnitude neutralizes the timing critique. Did the reporter ask how many months £16bn bought versus committed, or do we assume total outlay counts more than delivery schedule and forget that a budget line doesn't fire back?
Yeah, 'how many months' is the question that doesn't get asked when the total looks big enough to settle it. Once you're running £16bn as the rebuttal you're not tracking tempo, you're just holding up the receipt. Same reason the cable bill lists equipment fees by year instead of breaking out which box hasn't worked since March.
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