£250,000 for hurt feelings, £57,000 for losing a leg?

Apparently according to this article in the Telegraph a paratrooper who was a man called Ian Hamilton who changed to a woman called Jan Hamilton has been given £250,000 in an out of court settlement by the MOD for "hurt feelings" after being required to turn up in "male uniform" to a medical.

Ah diddums.

Hurt feelings?

Paratroopers in Iraq and Afghanistan get a lot more than hurt feelings, they get injuries of all sorts, followed by the MOD doing its level best to hand out as little money as possible, despite a clear responsibility to do so yet it has caved in over "hurt feelings".

Has the world gone mad?

MOD data loss: Three questions need to be asked

The MOD has lost a laptop with the records of 600,000 recruits on it. This is ridiculous. Three questions need to be asked.

1. What sort of cretin allows someone to put such data on any laptop?
2. What sort of cretin leaves said laptop in a car overnight?
3. When are the two separate cretins going to be sacked?

This data loss includes bank details of some as well. There is a very lax attitude to data protection about. People need to be punished or else no one will take it seriously.

There is no need nor justification for that information ever leaving the building in the first place, and if the person who's laptop it was really needed access from outside of the building there are several secure ways to allow it.

There is never any need to leave laptops, or any other valuables in a car. You can always take them with you.

The BBC has 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.

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.