David Cameron was berated as he arrived for the Tory party conference in Manchester on Saturday. Protesters gathered outside the Midlands hotel waiting to chide the PM over the Government's austerity measures.
Cameron refused to speak to reporters as he arrived in the city centre, but would have heard the demonstrators outside the secure zone surrounding the hotel and Manchester Central conference centre.
On Saturday evening, the PM promised to double the number of British drones in operation against members of the Islamic state, while “beefing up” the SAS. Speaking to The Sunday telegraph, Cameron said investment in unmanned aircraft and the special forces was essential to counter the terrorist threat, while revealing the Ministry of Defence had put in an order for 20 Protector drones for operations above Syria and Iraq.
"One of the biggest threats we have to respond to is that terrorist threat and that means a lot of things in terms of obviously domestic security and our intelligence services,” he said. “But it also means making sure that we have the military equipment and resources we need –- so seeing an enhancement of our Special Forces and particularly on the issue of surveillance aircraft."
"We have at the moment a drone fleet of 10 Reapers and what we are going to be doing is actually replacing that with twice as many with a new updated piece of equipment -- called Protector -- which will be more than doubling of our fleet to keep us safe and to give us the intelligence and information and potentially give us the capacity to hit people who are potentially planning to hit us," he added.
Cameron said more Jihadists fighting for the Islamic State would be placed on the country’s “kill list” but only as a “last resort.”
Anti-Tory protesters have scheduled a march on Sunday, the day of the conference opening. Fledgling Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is expected in Manchester on Monday, and will take the stump to address the gathered masses in opposition to Tory reforms.
The main issue likely to vex conference attendees is the ongoing debate over Europe. Cabinet minister have already been speaking out on the EU, with Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond warning that Britain will reject any deal from Brussels without "substantial" reforms.
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Hammond said the British public would blow a "raspberry" to the Government if a renegotiated deal did not include genuine change.
Those sentiments were echoed by Sajid Javid, who suggested Cameron would be willing to push for a Brexit should insufficient reforms be granted.
Likewise Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, who said mass migration and Greek debt have hit the EU like an "an out-of-control bulldozer," making reform more agreeable to the EU hierarchy.
Earlier, Cameron lambasted the Russian military intervention in Syria and called President Bashar Assad a "butcher."The strongly worded comments accused Moscow of propping up the despot.