NUT vote against the Army!

But who cares? Did anyone ask this bunch if ignorant people, who could not teach their way out of a paper bag what they thought?

No.

So who cares?

I don't.

The NUT are an anachronism in much the same way as Arthur Scargill's NUM was. Useless and pointless, devoid of thought. Where they differ if course is that at one time the NUM had relevance, the NUT never have.

Iain Dale has this, the BBC going overboard on positive coverage of the NUM has this, this, and this.

Gordon Brown's tight fist kills 14

The report into the crash of a Nimrod surveillance aircraft is due next week. It covers the crash that claimed the lives of 14 RAF servicemen from RAF Kinloss.

The Sunday Times carries this damning article on how the faults were warned about, and how a 2004 report was produced at the governments request, saying that a replacement could not be delayed because of the specific faults in the aging aircraft, related to the 1982 Falklands war rapid fit of air to air refueling. The report was ignored for financial reasons, and no work around was looked for or implemented.

Other incidents and reports highlighted the problem, and again because Gordon Brown was too tight, they were not acted on.

You have paid with money to use the pool? They have paid with limbs!

There is a disgusting nasty piece of work, believed to be a 30 year old woman who has in my view no right to live in this country, who abused injured servicemen whilst in a pool, according to this article in the Daily Mail.

She claimed she paid money to use the pool.

They paid in limbs.

She makes me sick. She makes me angry. Very very very angry.

She should be named and shamed so that we all know who this disgusting nasty low life is, and can look her in the eye and tell her what we think of her small minded ignorance.

Army Supply chain Chaos caused soldiers death shocker!

Whilst I am deeply saddened to hear that the death of Fusilier Gordon Gentle was mostly due to an admin cock up it has to be noted that this was always the case.

The Ministry of Defence is a failing department, and was so when it was the Ministry of War (a title which is at least honest, you know where you are with a country that has a Ministry of war) since before the Crimean war. The whole lot is useless, and ought to be burnt down and restarted from scratch.


The BBC has this.

Support our Heroes!

Because the government certainly isn't.

The Armed services have a joint rehabilitation facility at Headley Court which helps severely injured personnel recover.

It now needs £5 million to improve facilities, and is asking for donations according to this article in the Daily Mail. General Sir Richard Dannatt is leading the appeal.

You can visit the appeal's website here or call 0845 673 1760 to make a donation.

MOD admits military overstretch

After Sir Richard Dannatt's memo talking of military overstretch was leaked last Sunday a government minister has admitted that the military is a bit stretched. Bob Ainsworth said that the view was both widely spread and known.

"I don't think it's any secret that with the amounts of people we have deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan that there are not huge resources around for contingencies and other things that might arise," he told the Commons defence committee.

That's nice. Any chance of the more resource for our military, and please don't send them into wars your not prepared to pay for.

For more, see yahoo news here.

Hat tip to Yokel for the link.

Army short of troops and equipment

The Daily Telegraph has been leaked a memo by Sir Richard Dannatt Chief of the General Staff to other senior defence chiefs.

The situation is that our military is severely overstretched and has not got any capacity to handle the unexpected.

To put this in perspective during the cold war, and at the time of the Falklands war we had something like 250,000 men in the army, now we have about 100,000.

What is more regiments are no longer moving with their equipment, for example the Parachute Regiment has had to leave most of its equipment in Afghanistan so that their replacements can use it. This has two knock on effects. Firstly it means that can't train with their own equipment out of theatre, to ready themselves for a return, and secondly the equipment gets worn out, because it is in constant use without the downtime for maintenance. There seems to be little or no budget to replace battlefield losses either.

Being engaged in a long war does involve a lot of expense, as well as extra equipment. Despite promises the forces in Afghanistan still do not have what they need to fight and do the job.

In short, the problem is we have peace time defence spending whilst we are fighting wars on two fronts. In short, it is nuts.

The BBC also has this.

Ministry of Defence Just not important

We have our forces engaged in very difficult fighting situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet apparently Gordon Brown does not think the Ministry of Defence needs its own dedicated minister.

Des Browne, the buffoon who should have been sacked after allowing the Iranian hostages to sell their stories not only stays at defence, but has been made minister for Scotland as well!

Labour sources insist that Scotland is a part time job after devolution. Well that may well be so, but the Ministry of Defence most certainly is not.

What are are troops supposed to think now they have a part timer in charge?

Gordon Brown has made a drastic blunder here.

Defence Chiefs backing Browne

Apparently the defence chiefs are backing Des Browne, according to this article on the BBC's website.

He has done some good for the military such as get them pay rises for example.

Seems to me that is missing the point. The Admirals, Generals and Air Chiefs don't fight wars, it is the sailors soldiers, and air crew who do. It seems that many of them are deeply unhappy about the whole Iran hostage thing, and have no confidence in Des Browne. So unless the defence chiefs fancy getting in the front line themselves, perhaps they should consult more widely.

I was listening the the Today program on BBC Radio 4 this morning and caught an interview between two people, one of whom was Lewes Page, author of Lions, Donkeys and Dinosaurs, and formerly of the Royal Navy . He thought that Des Browne resigning would be pointless, but did say that Admirals could as the Navy has more than a few.

One of the curious things about our armed forces is that we still have roughly the same number of chiefs as we did in the Second World War. Clearly this costs a lot of money, because these people not only have salaries, but they also have staff. In short in needs looking at.

For more on the Iran Hostage crisis see here.

Captured Sailors given exceptional permission to sell their stories

Having heard this news some hours ago I am still having trouble coming to terms with this story. It seems that The MOD, in a daring bid to make the Home Office look well managed and competent has given permission to the captured Sailors and Marines (also Naval personnel) so sell their stories to the media.

According to the Sunday Telegraph Faye Turney, the only woman amongst the group has already sold her story for a "life changing sum" to ITN and a tabloid newspaper. There will be a broadcast interview tomorrow with Trevor MacDonald.

The Sunday Times reports the fury at this deal. The BBC has this.

Is there any one in the MOD with a brain cell? Captured without a fight gets a life changing sum, dead on active duty gets a pension for a widow maybe.

What sort of a message is that sending out?

Then there are Colonel Bob Stewart's observations. Even at the press conference there were inconsistencies between the stories. If examined over a period of time and in detail the press will find stories in any ambiguity and inconsistency.

This story should be yesterdays fish and chip paper already and it is clearly madness to allow it to run and run. It was not after all our finest hour.

Budget bombshell, Defence spending has been cut!

Many thanks to Elliot who in my previous article provided this link to a very useful piece of work that he has done on the defence spending promise.

If you recall from the budget, Joseph Stalin Gordon Brown announced a £400 Million increase in defence spending. Well according to Elliot if you actually look at the numbers last years numbers for defence were £40.8 billion total, this years budget for defence was going to be £40.4 billion, so add the extra £400 million and you get last years numbers, a real terms decrease in spending of £800 million.

So let us get this straight. Our boys are fighting on two fronts in a major way and deployed over the world and yet they get this kick in the teeth.

Of course the Sun are just too daft to spot this cut or else they would be up in arms. However they just have this daft sycophantic editorial here.

Defence spending on 70 year low

Well at least the headline in this article in today's daily Telegraph claims that is the case.

This is measured as a proportion of GDP. We are compared to several other nations in the article including the United States of America.

Frankly I think we can exclude them as a comparison.

However we are spending less than France.

At this point you have to think about the number of "hot" wars we are in compared to France. The answer is two to nil.

We also have vast ongoing commitments in the Falklands, Sierra Leone, and Kosovo.

We need to think carefully. If we are not prepared to spend the money needed then we have to live in a world where the USA acts on it's own. I find that scary.

Mind you, the MOD needs to be fixed. It has not been fit for purpose since the Crimean war. It leaks money and wastes paper on an epic scale.

Sack 'em all I say, and start again.

Many thanks to ChrisD on politicalbetting.com for the link to the Telegraph article.