内容摘要："Any that don't should be immediately removed from the app and investigated, but ideally this should not happen if their checks and balances are rigorous and in place."

"Any that don't should be immediately removed from the app and investigated, but ideally this should not happen if their checks and balances are rigorous and in place."

UK Ministry of Defence funding took the company into hypersonic research with Rolls-Royce for an unmanned aircraft. But that was not enough to keep the business afloat.Rolls-Royce declines to go into details about Reaction's collapse, but Mr Varvill is more specific.

"Rolls-Royce said it had other priorities and the UK military has very little money."Aviation is a business with a very long gestation time for a product. It can take 20 years to develop an aircraft. This unforgiving journey is known as crossing the Valley of Death.Mr Varvill knew the business had to raise more funds towards the end of 2024 but big investors were reluctant to jump on board.

"The game was being played right to the very end, but to cross the Valley of Death in aerospace is very hard."What was the atmosphere like in those last days as the administrators moved in?

"It was pretty grim, we were all called into the lecture theatre and the managing director gave a speech about how the board 'had tried everything'. Then came the unpleasant experience of handing over passes and getting personal items. It was definitely a bad day at the office."

This bad day was too much for some. "A few people were in tears. A lot of them were shocked and upset because they'd hoped we could pull it off right up to the end."For French wines in general, things could be even worse.

"When President Trump raised import duties by 25% for one-and-a-half years of his first mandate, we lost about $600m [£450m] very quickly," says Jerome Bauer, president of the French National Wines and Spirits Confederation."But back then Champagne wasn't included, and neither were wines stronger than 14 degrees of alcohol. So you can see the scale of the threat today."

The solution Mr Bauer is backing is free trade. No tariffs. But you'd expect him to say that, given that France and Europe run a big trade surplus with the US when it comes to wines and spirits.More surprising, perhaps, is the opinion of his American competitors in California and Oregon who, you might think, would be cracking open something a bit special to celebrate.