HMS Invincible

You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.

US, UK and France go to War* in Libya

Here

...would be quite nifty if we had some planes to do with. It is not entirely out of order to suggest that the British defence review must surely, by now, hold the speed record for becoming outdated.

*This is a declaration of war, a nation which does not control its airspace does not control the nation.

Defence Cuts and Libya

I have looked around everywhere for a post or article on this topic; the SDSR with regards to Libya. It seems that people are avoiding this topic like the plague, perhaps because it is monumentally obvious that if we are going to play any part in military action against Libya then we simply cannot go ahead with certain parts of the SDSR. It simply is not possible, why I will explain in a few minutes. First consider in full, again, the cuts as envisaged in the SDSR courtesy of Wikipedia.

British Army

• Challenger 2 tanks will be cut by 40%.
• The British Army presence in Germany will end by 2020.
• Overall personnel numbers will drop by 7,000 to 95,500.
• The number of Challenger 2 tanks will be cut by 40% to an estimated number of just over 200.
• The number of AS-90 heavy artillery will be cut by 35%to an estimated 87.

Royal Air Force

• The Harrier will be retired in order to maintain the Tornado as the RAF's main strike aircraft until the Typhoon matures. The latter and the F-35 Lightning II will constitute the RAF's fast jet fleet in the future.
• Personnel will be reduced by 5,000 to 33,000.
• Nimrod MRA4 project, after spending £3.2 billion and the first aircraft being completed, to be scrapped. RAF Kinloss, where the aircraft were to be based, will close.
• Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft procurement will go ahead, as will the Airbus A400M. These aircraft, along with the current C-17s, will form the future air transport fleet. The VC10 and TriStars are approaching the end of their service lives and the C-130 fleet will be retired 10 years earlier than planned.
• 12 Boeing Chinooks will be added to the current fleet, a cut to the original order for 22.
• The Harrier GR9 will be withdrawn during 2011.
• The RAF's future fast jet fleet will be based on the Typhoon and the F-35 Lightning II. The latter, which will also be flown by the Royal Navy, will be the more capable and cheaper F-35C version. The UK has originally planned to buy the F-35B, a Short Take Off and Vertical Landing aircraft. The F-35C has longer range, greater payload capability and the MOD envisages life cycle costs to be 25% cheaper than the F-35B.
• The Sentinel R1 will be retired once it is no longer required to support forces in Afghanistan.

Royal Navy

• The Royal Navy flagship aircraft carrier, HMS Ark Royal, will be decommissioned "almost immediately" rather than in 2014. The Joint Force Harrier aircraft will be retired. Both of these measures will save money for the purchase of the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers.
• One of the Albion class landing platform dock ships will be placed at extended readiness.
• Either HMS Ocean or HMS Illustrious to be decommissioned, whichever is least capable as a helicopter carrier.This was decided in December 2010, Liam Fox stated "HMS Ocean should be retained to provide our landing platform helicopter capability for the longer term. HMS Illustrious will be withdrawn from service in 2014".
• One of the Bay class landing ship dock vessels (later identified as RFA Largs Bay) would be decommissioned.
• Replacement of the UK's nuclear deterrent, based on the Vanguard class ballistic missile submarines, will be delayed by four years, deferring £500 million in spending. Changes to the size of the missile tubes will save £250 million.
• 7 Astute class submarines will be built as previously planned.
• The surface fleet of frigates and destroyers will be reduced to nineteen ships; the current thirteen Type 23 frigates, the three active Type 45 destroyers, and the three Type 45 destroyers currently under construction. The remaining Type 22 frigates and Type 42 destroyers are to be disposed of. "As soon as possible after 2020", the Type 23 frigates will be replaced by new Type 26 frigates.
• The strength of the RN will be reduced by 5,000 (to a total of about 30,000)

And that is it, few might wonder why we even bother having an armed force when there is no one in it, not our politicians of course they do not wonder any such sensible thoughts.

What is currently being planned to stop Gaddafi going all 15th century on his people, is to impose a no-fly zone. What is this? A no-fly zone is a territory over which aircraft are not permitted to fly. Such zones are usually set up in a military context, somewhat like a demilitarized zone in the sky.

Now the Geography of Libya is somewhat arduous if we are to contemplate using post-SDSR resources to corner Gaddafi. As you will see from the map on the left, Libya is not exactly surrounded by tea-loving cricket monkeys; Tunisia, Algeria, Niger, Chad, Sudan and Egypt are not our best international allies bluntly put. In the north there is water, a lot of water, so much water in fact that you need a ship. A big ship, something on the scale of an aircraft carrier. Why? Well, the americans have a lot of bases dotted around that region which can accommodate fighters jets of our pedigree, and they also have the tech needed to service them. Moreover the closest ally which uses the Typhoon is Italy, though they might not be over-joyed by the prospect of lending their bases to pesky Brits they would probably relent if leaned upon a bit. But that is a big 'if' and the italians have not been known to favour big expeditionary military missions since about two millennia ago - crossing the Rubicon and all of that. They are more embroiled in their Prime Minister's latest shenanigans. Hence were we to take part in the no-fly zone operation it would almost, without question, be with the help of the Americans. But then one must ask, why should we take part at all when they US Marines boast more fighters jets than our Navy and Airforce combined? Wont we just be in the way of a properly equipped fighting force? Chances are that this would be the case since we have no means of fielding any heavy equipment of our own except for choppers.

We still have a lot of craft which can accommodate choppers, and substantial numbers of them as well; that said a chopper is peanuts compared to a fighter jet and it is like comparing apples and oranges if you are to analyse a no-fly zone whilst only keeping choppers as your option. They are useful for close support but certainly not for patrolling an area four times the size of the UK.

The current UK flag-ship is HMS Albion, a grand lady indeed, but she cannot carry aeroplanes only choppers.

We have sold, scrapped or decommissioned the following Invincible class carriers; HMS Ark Royal and HMS Invincible. What remains is HMS Illustrious due for decommissioning in 2014 after HMS Ocean has undergone extensive refits.

Lets make this abundantly clear to those of you who do not yet realise the significance of an aircraft carrier. It is a floating bit of sovereign space. It is a tiny floating UK which can blow stuff up very quickly should circumstances so require it. Circumstances are not requiring it yet in Libya but if every armed conflict to date is anything to go by, they will. There is a difference between being belligerent and pragmatic and knowing your history and ignoring it. We are terribly good at forgetting our history in the UK and as a result tend to repeat an awful lot of mistakes which could have been avoided if people in command where not being so optimistic about the prospects.

They know that they need Illustrious more than ever, they know that they can halt the sale of HMS Invincible to a Turkish scrapyard and re-install the Rolls-Royce engines at the blink of an eye. But they wont for the simple reason that they will look weak and incompetent for having completed botched the SDSR. If any of them are reading this let me make this very clear; you already look like amateurs for thinking that no aircraft carriers would be needed during an entire decade. It took four months -four months- for your defence review to become obsolete. To save some face, or at the very least, listen to the people in the know, you can reverse some of these decisions. There is waste in the MoD, yes no one denies this, but there is also a time when you have admit and consent that you were wrong. Own up to your shortcomings and move on. These assets are gravely needed for a no-fly zone cannot be established without them, it simply is not possible since no one, down there, likes us enough to lend us their airbases and we would just be in the way of the americans as said.

What is more; the Typhoon cannot fly off aircraft carriers, it is not a carrier jet like the French Mirrage 2000. The Harrier GR9 can, but like everything else useful, it is being scrapped to save money. The Harrier and the Carriers are perhaps our most valuable asset right now, one cannot topple Gaddafi with nuclear submarines nor with Cyber Commands no matter how intriguing the prospect of that might sound.

The Government knows what they have to do in order to remain a significant player in the world, but they wont since they will loose face if they do. We have had so many politicians like that who were afraid to do the right thing, and as a result history only remembers them for their failure to do the right thing. Not for all the good they also did. What will the Coalition be? A Chamberlain or a Churchill?

Update:

Word is catching on...

Since the Libyan crisis began, the Coalition has faced repeated criticism over the decision last year to decommission HMS Ark Royal and the Royal Navy’s Harrier jets, leaving Britain without a functioning aircraft carrier. Dr Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, insisted that such criticism was a “red herring” because the base in Cyprus meant Britain could still operate jets over Libya if required. And would it, pray, still be a "red herring" if this had happened in Zambia instead, where are no conveniently placed RAF stations. I cannot believe that this man is using geography as a defence for scrapping HMS Ark Royal. What an idiot. A five year old could pick holes in that defence.

And for our daily dose of idiotic comments, the Guardian never disappoints when it cannot understand why special forces operations are kept secret and furthermore argues that they should be publicised. Why are lefties so fucking stupid?

Defence Policy; Coalition vs. UKIP

It must be a bitter pill to swallow for the coalition when "a bunch of fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists" have a more realistic and grown-up defence policy than the government. I sincerely agree with Labour and Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary when he added his voice to those calling for the SDSR to be reopened. He said it already looked "out of date" and that many of the assumptions about it had been "shaken over the past month". True, Labour is the majority party responsible for this shambolic state of affairs in the MoD but it was the coalition's choice to slash %7.5 of the annual defence budget, and they decided to do so in one of the most mysterious ways yet known to man; e.g. rip apart newly constructed surveillance aircraft with CAT diggers... WTF? What did the Nimrods ever do to Dr. Fox to deserve such an inglorious end?

Hence I reproduce here the full result, thus far, of the Coalition's approach to defence and if you scroll down a bit further you will see that of UKIP. I know which party I would like in power if my country went to war.

• Reducing the planned purchase of 22 Chinooks to 12
• Delaying Trident for political reasons that will cost billions
• Cancelling Nimrod MRA4
• Reducing armour and artillery, if reports are to be believed, to the bone
• Reducing surface vessels
• Reducing Tornado
• Withdrawn Harrier GR9′s
• Withdrawing Sentinel
• Slashing allowances and expenses
• Setting up the armed forces for a post Afghanistan change in terms and conditions of service
• Implementing a 2 year pay freeze
• Reducing pensions
• Reducing service personnel by 17,000
• Reducing the MoD Civil Service by 25,000 which will likely result in more work for service personnel
• Removing the External Reference group from reporting on the Military Covenant
• Trying to convince everyone that the SDSR was a considered and balanced review (thats my favourite joke of the year)
• Sacking 25% of RAF trainee pilots
• Reducing size of army to an estimated 80,000 troops, after the Afghanistan campaign

And from UKIP's website is the following:

UKIP promises:

• To defend our national interests, maintain the NATO alliance, support our traditional partners. We want to disentangle our forces from the EU and moves towards EU armed forces. UKIP will keep our independence by retaining – always – ultimate command and control over our national forces.

• To stop trying to buy defence on the cheap UKIP will spend an extra 1% GDP per year on defence – an increase of 40% on current budgets ( a £14.76 billion increase ). UKIP believes in establishing a defence budget which will properly sustain Britain’s defence commitments. To keep defence costs down by smarter defence procurement, and with more involvement of British industry wherever possible.

• To increase the Army to at least 125,000 personnel (trained requirement) in order to enable it to cope with its existing deployment and roles. To double the Territorial Army in size from 37,000 to 75,000 soldiers.

• To restore the Navy to its 2001 strength, with 3 new aircraft carriers (one extra), 4 assault ships, 30 destroyers and frigates, 12 Fleet Submarines, 25 coastal vessels and 50 Merlin helicopters, with around 7,000 extra personnel to 42,000 (2003–41,550). UKIP would guarantee the futures of naval ports Plymouth and Portsmouth and base ships permanently in Rosyth and so return it to a proper naval port status.

• To increase the Air Force’s capabilities by enlarging the tanker fleet, modernising the transport fleet, buying more helicopters and 50 extra JSF aircraft, and increasing RAF personnel to 50,000.

• To restore many traditional regiments, such as the Black Watch and Staffords, subsumed as battalions of EU-inspired ‘super-regional’ regiments such as the Royal Welsh, Royal Mercian and Royal Regiment of Scotland, in order to serve in EU battlegroups.

• To renew the Covenant between the Country and those who are asked to risk their lives on its behalf: through better pay, generous compensation for injury, restoration of Crown immunity, private medical and dental care, reinstatement of military hospitals, decent accommodation, an offence of treason for those UK citizens who seriously attack serving personnel, and above all, respect and support. We will also introduce a National Service Medal to be awarded to all servicemen and women to thank those who have seen combat, and those who have not, in their service of their country.

• To reappraise our operations in Afghanistan to a single clear and achievable mission or seek to negotiate a withdrawal with our NATO partners.

• To maintain Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent with existing Trident submarines, and then replace them with four British-built US missile armed submarines.

• To retain and increase Army and Territorial Army personnel through better pay, free medical and dental care for them and their families, retention ‘warrants’, school recruitment and other incentives.

• To introduce a National Defence Medal to recognise ‘Forgotten Heroes’.

One can promise a lot when in opposition, but their mettle can surely not be worse than the Coalition's.

What is all of this born out of? Our pathetic excuse for assisting British nationals in Libya. Utter humiliation. What is becoming more apparent though is that there are no military assets to send out there because it would appear that we have scrapped everything even remotely useful. Word is doing the rounds that a no-fly zone should be imposed on Libya but of course that would necessitate an aircraft carrier as there is no way a country out there would play friendly host to a squadron of British fighter jets. We do not have any aircraft carriers anymore. The coalition in their infinite wisdom scrapped them. You can see whence the argument travels from here.

In essence for every year you travel back in time the probability that we could have managed this shit storm of a situation, professionally and authoritatively, increases exponentially. In 1950 the Royal Navy would have had an entire carrier group out there by now, and in 1980 at least one Invincible class carrier would have watched the Libyans with fiery eyes, Harriers at the ready and Nimrods on the go (though remember 'could' does not imply 'would' since there is geopolitics to take into consideration as well). There would be no beating about the bush, no incompetence, people who risked other people's lives would have been sacked quicker that you can say 'BBC'.

But what is really, truly, amazing is that the news channels are focusing solely on the hardships of a few Brits who are stranded in the back and beyond. I sympathise with them of course but in the background people are being slaughtered for what they believe in. Poor little Brits cannot get out, boho, whereas the Libyan people are having their own armed forces used upon them, mercenaries brought in to make them toe the line, air-to-surface missiles used on a crowds of people, humans, like you and me, non-combatans, non-lethal, non-hostile, or at least not hostile enough to ever warrant the use of laser guided precision weapons, normally employed to neutralise tanks.

No, who cares about that? Lets focus on the gallant HMS Cumberland which has just "rescued" stranded nationals in the most pathetic of manners. To top it off, she is being decommissioned after this final operation. What if this had happened 6 months from now?

Finally do you know what the really tragic thing is? Somewhere someone down the line will have to rebuild all this capacity since this simply wont fly. All of this scrapping is thus pointless and wont save any money in the long term since it will just need to be rebuilt anyway.

Not a revolutionary prospect but close

You read it here first, a long time ago actually, but the next election will be the election of the so called "fringe". Only difference of course is that the fringe is not longer the perpetrators of the right or the left, they will be the flag-bearers of the left and the right. Why? Because no other political parties do; they have no colours to nail to the mast and no defining streak which sets them apart from the other in the majestic political landscape (notice the sarcastic hyperbole), they are to all intents and purposes 'centre'. Not 'centre-right' or 'centre-left' but bang, slap, middle of the bar, is where most mainstream political parties have set up camp today, and guess what, I reckon that voters will realise this too a much larger extent once the next election creeps closer. Consider why:

Have we had reduced immigration? No

Have we repatriated power from Brussels? No

Is the defence budget being slashed in the middle of a war? Yes

Can gypsies still set up camp wherever they want? Yes

Is the Human Rights Act going away? No

Is health and safety madness still prevalent? Yes

Is political correctness madness still prevalent? Yes

Are the trains and bus-services still too expensive? Yes

Is Britain still being sold off; lock stock and barrel? Yes

Are the pubs still dying? Yes

Is religious insensitivity to every single fucking thing, still clogging the news? Yes

Is there still too much red-tape? Yes

Are the righteous still preaching 24-7 how we should live our lives? Yes

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Now consider why nothing has happened with these rather large issues, it has to with political ideology or maybe it just has to do with vested interests - personally I think it has to with principles or lack thereof rather:

New Labour: Centre-left

Conservatives: Centre-right

Liberal Democrats: Centre-left

The Green Party: useless and pointless

BNP: Left

UKIP: Right

SNP: Centre-left

Now this is what I think is going to happen come the next election. People who at this election were on the verge of not voting for either LibDems, the Tories or Labour wont be on that note again. This time it is abundantly clear that all of their parties have moved away from their traditional ground and into the centre where, as this post so fragrantly demonstrates, everyone hates them particularly those us with a very firm set of principles, and that pretty much entails the entire blogosphere.

The Tories will most likely loose a lot of votes to UKIP because after 13 years in opposition and perhaps two or three in government it is as clear as daylight that they do not espouse right-wing policies. A lot of working class voters will probably shift to the BNP because of 13 years in government they were completely ignored and their two or three in opposition was an abject failure and a complete waste of everyone's time, because they are trying to defend the most abysmal mandate period in British political history. They have not yet succeeded in that goal and if anything it will turn into a pyrrhic victory if they do, but then the party at large will probably disappear as well. Here comes the interesting part; a lot of LibDem voters wont know what to do with themselves. They are at face value left leaning people who were not completely convinced by Labour but they have also come to realise that neither their party nor their most obvious successor, Labour, are going to serve as a reasonable substitute for their vote. Who they go for instead is anyone's guess but probably some really weird party like Socialist Alternative or Trade Unionist & Socialist.

And such is my thesis (and has been for about 1.5 years now, remember you read it here first); The election that really counts was not the one past, but the one we are about to have sometime in the next 4 years.

Victory! Royal Tournament Returns

It is one of those strange days when you realise that someone at the top has been listening to a few of us at the bottom (and some other people at the top as well of course). If you have a look on the right you will notice a widget with a link which has been there for well over a year. What you do not know is that I have emailed a lot of people with regards to reinstating the tournament including Dr. Fox and the previous Defence Secretary and have had talks with that dubious American Captain who really should not be in the MoD (I told him so and to that mail he did not reply). However today is a one of celebration for they are going to reinstate the tournament.

Hurrah!

Alternative Future Nuclear Deterrent: Resurrection of TSR2

Over this weekend I attended a fantastic event which was extremely interesting. There were lots people there to which I could relate to very easily. The nature of the event led us naturally to consider aspects of Britain's military history, present and future. There are few countries which can be so wholesomely buggered as Britain when it comes to research. We have this inane ability as a people, to have these wonderful, marvellous and quite frankly, crazy ideas - but we never have the money to fund them.

I was once told that what is now ethos in the MoD is to have British scientists dream up the ideas, sell them to American, let America develop the idea into a final product, and finally buy it back and improve it. This have been done a lot over recent years in the UK with regards, at least, to military hardware. The Apache is perhaps a quasi-example; the UK did not buy the supplied avionics software for the apache but instead developed their own, which turned out to be so good that eventually the Americans bought it back from us. Who'da thunk?

Which leads us to perhaps the most depressing story yet in Britain's aviation history; the cancellation of the English Electric/Vickers-Armstrong TSR-2 which was terminated in 1964. This aircraft was so revolutionary that even today it would be modern and it was designed 50 years ago. The whole story is drenched in failure and political dereliction. It has produced one of the, to my mind at least, finest but most depressing statements to date

All modern aircraft have four dimensions: span, length, height and politics. TSR-2 simply got the first three right.

-Sir Sydney Camm

There are of course many theories surrounding the whole sorry story of the project mainly relating to economics and politics. The British economy in the 1960s was in huge financial debt and was still struggling to pay back monies owed to America from WW2. The Labour Government was politely told you will buy the F111E, you have no choice. All tooling and production lines of the TSR2 are to be destroyed. This is the unofficial version of the reason why the project was cancelled. Over the years the government has denied these accusations completely. They of course would, but most people who worked on the project know that this is precisely what happened. All tooling, production lines and blueprints were certainly destroyed, so afraid were the Americans that they had their British embassy personnel shipped into the factories to personally make sure that everything was destroyed.

There is more to this shameful piece of British history than meets the eye. The only remains of the project are the prototypes XR220 and XR222. They only survived because they were shipped around the country for engine testing and evaluation. It would have been a scandal to chop up and burn these aircraft in front of the public. Instead a team was dispatched to the testing grounds and took pick axes to the inside of the prototypes so they could never be flown again. Their internal organs were ripped out like savages, where cold calculated economics destroyed one of the finest machines ever built.

I am in favour of the 'special-relationship' and I have vigorously defended it in times of need on this blog. But 50 years ago American politicians were frightened TSR2 would affect their exports of aircraft. Coupled with Lord Mountbatten's desire for this plane not to succeed and personally telling the Australian government not to pursue its commitment to purchase 30 airframes. Previously before being made aware of the whole TSR2 scandal I would have defended the 'special-relationship' but what they did was just mean to put it politely. There is not even a hint of good sportsmanship and while the defence industry in this country is still going fairly strong, Great Britain has never recovered its lead in the aviation world since the destruction of the TSR2 project.

I am often called an 'old man' by my friends and I think that is because I am very cynical about the world, I think this is fairly obvious when you realise how often we do not end up on top on every sphere of international cooperation. We always manage to get ourselves screwed, this if anything has been the enduring ethos of the past century. There have not been many international cooperations where we have actually benefited. This is not to say that we should not cooperate, we most certainly should, but not in engineering. This is something we do much better on our own and always have done. Look at some current defence cooperations and consider their worth:

A400M - crap and £9 billion over budget

Type 45 destroyer - crap and over budget

Typhoon - crap and over budget

F35 - unbelievably crap and so many many billions over budget

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There is hope though at least if you are willing to look outside the box and look back to a time when we could built very gucci stuff. TSR2 was to be nuclear weapons capable, and also able to carry conventional bombs. The roll of the fighter/Bomber was to fly from a short runway from within the UK to attack Russia, remember the Cold War was very much still on. The aircraft was to enter Russian air-space at extreme altitude over 58,000ft. Then descend to under to under 200ft to avoid ground radar. Once near the chosen Russian target a nuclear bomb or missile would be released to devastating effect. Now the Cold War is over but the Tories are committed to a new nuclear deterrent in the form of nuclear submarines. I suggest you consider the content of the article below if you have not already guessed where I am going with this





The TSR2 story is one of incompetence, mismanagement and failure. It is also a story of brilliance, determination and courage. It might sound crazy but if we want to we can build things like the TSR2 again -if we want to. Someone only needs to tell the boys in Whitehall that British manufacturing is nails.

The TSR2 story ended with XR219, XR221 and XR223 being taken to the shooting ranges at Shoeburyness, all eventually to be destroyed as 'damage to aircraft' targets. XR220 was kept at Boscombe for a year or so for engine noise testing and then placed in storage at RAF Henlow after it had much of its flight test equipment ripped out (even the wires were cut rather than disconnected). It was later transferred to RAF Cosford's Aerospace Museum. XR222 was gifted to the College of Aeronautics at Cranfield for instructional use. She was later donated to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford. All the other airframes were scrapped. In the months after cancellation, all the tooling and jigs were destroyed, and a wooden mockup of the TSR2 was burned while BAC men filmed it for publicity purposes. In many ways the destruction of so many aspects of the project reflected the even greater act of vandalism that had been perpretrated on the British aviation industry.

These people deserve death by firing squad

Fucking little cunts, this really infuriates me, I know I am normally fairly polite on this blog but this really takes the absolute piss. For fucks sake!

War memorials desecrated every week

On an EU note, Janet Daley has it that

"Germany and France – two countries with sound historical reasons for distrusting the instincts of their own people – were the founders of this enterprise"

No you stupid woman it was founded by a British civil servant and a dodgy french bloke called Mr. Monnet. How on earth is the EU to be taken on if our "commentators" cannot even get its history right?

More, a request to readers; does anyone have a poll or something of the like taken after Cameron's U-turn on Lisbon on voting intention for the GE? The Conhome has one which states that the party has not been hurt by the u-turn, but it being on Conhome makes it about as useful as a square circle.

Holy Schmoly

Sorry chaps for taking a pause from the very important issue of our country's future. But, hopping on the superficial bandwagon this is just too cool. Miss England is a soldier - for all this government's fuck-ups including HM Opposition, they could not rob us of our peculiarity. I am now a proud Englishman/British again. Whereas most nations produce some sloppy 'Head and Shoulders barely-legal-teenager with boob implants' who hasn't done an honest days work in her life, the English come up with a foxy solider (yes I know some of the other contestants were equally impressive but that is not the point). That, my friends, is very honourable.

Thank god we are still sexist, the world without beauty competitions is one I do not want to inhabit.

BFPO to close next year

I lifted this piece, in its entirety, from Aquila Victrix - it is too significant not to.

By this time next year the government intends to bring an end to BFPO operations in Europe.

The British Forces Post Office provides mail and Post Office counter services to Forces personnel and their families whilst serving outside Great Britain.

Using the BFPO means that, when members of Britain's Armed Forces are serving abroad, they have a postal address which is recognised as being part of their own country - even when they are serving on the frontline. This may sound a small thing but in its way it is a link with the people, something that helps bind together those serving abroad with everybody else back home. It is also a long-established tradition going back over two hundred years to the time of the Peninsular War.

The cutting of this service will be a significant blow to families with loved ones based in Germany, Belgium, Gibraltar and elsewhere on mainland Europe as they will no longer have the same postal rates that apply within the UK and they will no longer have the confidence that their mail will be handled in a safe and secure manner.

A petition has been set up on the No.10 website to get the government to reconsider its decision to remove British Forces Post Offices from mainland Europe. If you would like to add your name to this petition visit:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/SaveBFPO/

Is it worth fighting?

Having now gone over what I perceive to be my daily round of the MSM and independent blogs which purvey they stories as they really happened, I must ask is it worth fighting anymore? Are we winning the battles but loosing the war? Sure, Guido has his moments and sometimes he really gets a rotten egg or two, and forces them out of office. But that person is always replaced. Yes, Hannan is an amazing orator as well as a good author but being vehemently academically eurosceptic does not turn politics around, for the "people who matter" as Barosso so patronizingly did not refer to us British, are not listening.

Last week a poll showed that the support for a 'yes' vote had dropped, good news we all thought, they are finally seeing reason. Yet today it seems as if 2/3 intend to vote 'yes' instead. Ok that may well be the situation, but we solider on and we will overthrow this leviathan one day, after all Cameron has precious little options left for him should the Irish vote 'yes' this time around. However with Cameron you cannot be certain of anything and certainly not anything as principally requiring as the EU. The Economist have him as a "eurosceptic" whilst the most us, I would hazard a guess, know that he is nothing of the sort. Dave along with the Tories wont do anything to jeopardise the 'project' we know that. As if to confirm this; in 2007, the latest complete year for which accounts are available, Britain received 4.2 billion euros (£3.7 billion) compared with 6.9 billion euros given to Germany, £6.9 billion euros going to Spain and 5.9 billion euros to Italy. The biggest winner was France, which received 10.3 billion euros. What does big bright and dandy Tory spokesman on Europe, Mark Francois, say about this then

"There are serious problems with the EU budget and it badly needs reform.There was a great opportunity to achieve it when the last budget was agreed in 2005, but thanks to the government's cack-handed negotiations nothing was done."

My dear friend you have been trying to reform it since 1972, when are you going to realise that no such thing is possible. It is not a coincidence that the system works like it does, this is the final design, the master blue print, a perfect being needs no change - stop deluding yourself. It is all very well feeding the voters all that horse-poo of how you are going to reform the EU but surely you could at least try to sound sincere could you not?

That front is being lost as well. As was expected I suppose, what with the Union (the British one) about to be cracked open as well, it is very timely indeed. A second front then, the one in Afghanistan which our proud MoD is fighting so hard to cling onto. One would expect that with such a commitment the British Armed Forces must be getting the very best treatment in the world as proof of their invaluable service to the United Kingdom - well you would think that would you not, it stands up to reason so why not to the MoD?

British troops, including many injured on front line duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, are to be eased out of the army in an efficiency drive being overseen by Kevan Jones, the veterans’ minister. Smashing indeed. At the same time John Barrowman reckons that contestants in talent shows should get treatment after having appeared in such a show. Yes, poor contestants lets spend tax-payer money on unfulfilled egos who had to face up to, voluntarily, the harsh British public - I hope they get all the treatment they need, at least, suffice to say, the troops are not.

This may not be such a jolly 'my take on events' section as displayed by other blogs, notably Iain Dale and Subrosa. I ask what is the point? We can all trot around the blogosphere in our little groups and talk about the problems that beset our once great nation - in truth little are we doing, like marching and protesting, against the foes themselves. What is the point?

'Apocalyptic' and 'Fatalist' people will scream and shout at the above content, I conquer who would not? But that is the harsh reality, being pragmatic is not a crime. Being a soul-quenching optimist at a point when the country most needs its stern, realistic managers that is one.

Addendum: For the small claque of you who find pleasure in reading my blog I thank you for your wisdom and comments. I can assure you for all my cynicism I will never stop fighting. As Margaret Mead said

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

PS. Watch out for the coming 'series' on Constitutional Vandalism. Why was the Lord Chancellor's department really abolished in favour of a Ministry of Justice? Why did Jack Straw remove the dress code for the judiciary? Stay tuned!

Not looking good for the next Defence minister

Addressing the pre-Defence Systems and Equipment International 2009 conference in London, Dr Fox said:

“When the next government comes to office some time in the next nine months it will inherit a military that is overstretched, undermanned, in possession of worn-out equipment, and the worst peacetime public finances in our history.”

Forgive me if I am wrong but I was under the distinct impression that we were at war?

Who is funding the Taliban? We are

Everyone should link to this. Preferably read the damn thing as well.

"It works something like this. There's a construction project funded by the British aid budget - say building a school in some godforsaken patch of dirt, mainly so that a minister can point to it when he wants to claim - falsely, most of the time - that girls are being educated. But the government doesn't build the school, a private firm gets the contract to build it. And a very generous contract, too, which I suppose is fair enough given how dangerous it is to get anything done in that part of the world. In order to get the school built, the contractor then has to bribe local "community leaders" - that goes without saying. But it also has to negotiate with the local Taliban leadership - who insist on a cut of the aid money as their price for not blowing the place (or the workers) to smithereens. So British taxpayer's money goes to the Taliban, who spend it, among other things, on the IEDs which blow up British soldiers instead. 20% is the typical figure, although it's estimated that in some cases the Taliban are raking in as much as 40% of the international aid money."

Funny stuff really

This is getting ridiculous, are Labour hell bent on total annihilation at the next general election?

Russian flights, Argentinian aggression, Northern Ireland still volatile, Iran with "the bomb", North Korea and Winky, Pakistan crumbling to pieces and one big fucking screw-up in Afghanistan.

Get the picture?

(if not here is the gist; maybe, and bear with me on this, now is not the best time to scale down the armed forces...)

To round of this post I shall repeat my underlying paradigm and philosophy: The only thing a prospective government political party needs to do to win the next general election is to reverse every single decision ever taken by New Labour. Here are some to start with:

Protection from Harassment Act (1997),
the Crime and Disorder Act (1998),
the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000),
the Terrorism Act (2000),
the Criminal Justice and Police Act (2001),
the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001),
the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Extension Act (2002),
the Criminal Justice Act (2003),
the Extradition Act (2003),
the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003),
the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004),
the Civil Contingencies Act (2004),
the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005),
the Inquiries Act (2005),
the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005)

And while at it why not reconsider our very one-sided "special relationship" ? I imagine me along with the current blogosphere will be long gone and dead by the time a British PM gives a Love Actually Hugh Grant speech (and do not act like you do not know what I am talking about, you have seen the film might as well admit it).

If we were truly tyrants, like the EU, and in a bit of a playful mood this is what should be done: Conservatives win the general election and pass the Prevention of New Labour Act (2010).

They have got to be f****** joking

When you thought that there would be more important things to contest or whine about, like the erosion of democracy and freedom á la New Labour + Tories or why not the constant hammer pounding upon the armed forces not only from the Talibans but also from HM own government.

But alas, the truly mind boggling depths of human ineptitude seems to have sunk even lower. We are told from the Guardian (do recall that since it is the Guardian they are with all certainty pushing spin and over hyping to new far-reaching horizons) that the MoD is ignoring women and ethnic minorities in its new attempt to promote the armed forces; with toy dolls.

Before surgically removing the backbone of this story let us first contemplate why they should be complaining at all. Why would you want your profession to be turned into a media gimmick by a government department, so that they can remove focus from its incompetence and focus instead the beam-of-truth on dolls. Before ranting and complaining please, oh please I beg you, consider why and what you are complaining about and do not just jump at every opportunity at some spotlight shine.

Further for the MoD, they currently have a £2 billion shortfall in their budget yet instead of spending their money on more equipment for the sorely needing fields of Afghanistan they are spending it on dolls. Yes I concur these figures might not have cost that much to produce but consider that soldiers are having to suffer at the incompetence of this government and its ministries at every single bloody turn. Did you know that they have just withdrawn the Vector from service (after introducing it only in 2007) after having paid £487,000 per deathmachine-capable-of-anything-but-its-main-purpose and they bought 200 of them giving a total bill of £974,000,00.

Giving that this is the kind of mental capacity we can expect from the MoD, saving money should be a priority for them, since you can be as sure as an "amen" in a church, that they will mess up the next big contract as well. Every penny counts as they say. The MoD should really have as their maxim 'Every solider counts' but we all know that spending money on kit, be it whatever, is better than spending money on gear which actually will blow the turban of the Talibans. For really you have got to give it to the insurgents in Afghanistan (there are more than just Talibans; ranging from foreign fighters from Europe to disillusioned Pakistanis): They are facing the full military brunt of the modern world and they are still coming out on top, as they did with the Soviets and the British before them and even Genghis Khan before them...

But lets deal with that article shall we now.

"the 25cm all-male models - including commandos, infantry, pilots, divers and parachutists - were criticised last night for insulting the 17,900 women in the armed forces. The MoD was also accused of racism after 25 images of the toy figures posted on a website promoting the range were all white-skinned."

While no-one is denying the excellent work carried out by female soldiers in HM Armed forces, not at all, you must look at the bigger picture. There are 425,500 personnel in the stated above of which females constitute a tiny tiny fraction of just 4%. Furthermore this is a gimmick aimed at boys (boys-with-toys suddenly got a whole new dimension of relevance), with all likelihood; young boys. Young boys at this age are just that, young, so young in fact that they play with action figures or to use the more common sobriquet 'dolls'. The MoD is also planning to make a buck or two on these dolls so why would young girls buy action figures when we all know that they like barbies? And if there are any of you same-sex-PC-fanatics out there who wish to take me up on this; then please be my guests. If you can find a toddler out there (female of course) who would rather play with an action packed MoD top-of-the-brass commando and the like instead of a Barbie, then please tell me. While you do that the rest of us who are, quite frankly, tired and sick of your PC bollocks will return to the real world where girls are girls and boys are boys, where the former enjoys pink and dresses and the latter mud and action-figures.

Girls, the MoD is not trying to discriminate against you (hell, if the past years of positive-discrimination does not show that I do not know what will) they are just facing up to the real world for once. Even though this is a remarkably retarded way to spend defence money they are at least being honest about it, so please do not get your knickers in a twist (I know that is slightly sexist but I could not stop myself, truly).

As for the discrimination against ethnic minorities, lets look at the figures again. Barely 10% of the armed forces are ethnic minorities. This leaves us with (assuming that no ethnic minorities are women) 86% white male personnel and people are jumping up and down, wondering why no minorities were made. If the answer has not knocked you in the head by now, like a mad football skinhead hooligan with a bad hangover, then I am afraid you live in cucko-land and only Gordon Brown can help you now for, lo and behold, he lives on the same planet.

Question is why does it have to be replicated, lied about and reflected in a product which is to put the armed forces in a good light for the toddlers of tomorrow? Why must reality be so skewed as to make a representation which is not true? Would it have been better if half the soldiers where ethnic minorities and women? Must we copy the sorry state of census-tinkering they love doing down at the BBC where half of their on-camera staff appears to be Asian even though this is not a real reflection of the Asian population in Britain (of there entire British population 12% are immigrants - not 50% if we were to believe the BBC). Even the ethnic minorities themselves have started to complain to the BBC about this, clearly something must be wrong? No, if you are going to spend your tax-payer defence cash on stupidities like these then at least make it an honest stupefaction.

The Problem with the future of Britain

This entry will explain why Britain will have an extremely hard future. I truly hope someone will disagree because the picture about to be painted is not one of wonderful grace, but rather a dismal leviathan of horrendous proportions.

The main problem with the UK currently is not that we have ceased to exist as a nation culturally. We have ceased to exist as an independent nation as the EU now controls the island and the people on it, needless to say without their consent. We have the unfortunate situation of having our lebensraum (sorry for paraphrasing Hitler) culturally controlled by ourselves but socially , and more importantly judicially, controlled by someone else. This is rather annoying as I am sure you must have found from time to time.

But when it comes down to it we are living of glories long lost and long past, derived mostly from the British Empire and the people who served it through out its very long history. It did some awful things, certainly, but I am of the opinion that it achieved more virtues than vices and voes. But here we are today and all the great inventions, policies, institutions, histories, landmarks etcetera, they were for the greater part not devised or derived from any of the governments for the last 30 years or - maybe even further back. But rather, as we shall see, they (the previous governments) have done possibly everything in their power to destroy Britain as an industrial nation.

Where did it all go wrong then? Well James Dyson in his Telegraph column tell us that

Where did it go wrong? Consolidation, nationalisation and union unrest suppressed our automotive industry. Soaring interest rates and increasingly complicated employment law stifled small engineering firms. The inventiveness demonstrated in the Second World War was not used to build an industrial future: Vickers, a pioneering and successful exporter (when foreign currency was desperately needed), had a request for £5 million in development funding rejected. Advanced plans for aircraft were scrapped, and instead hundreds of millions were spent on buying inferior American hardware.

I think he is partially wrong and partially right but mostly wrong.

What politicians in general just do not seem to comprehend is the issue of pride. You are proud if you are a civil servant, well at least you used to be before it became politicised, and you wear your "HM ad-hoc industry" -badge with great honour for being able to provide a service to the nation at large. Certainly the girls and boys at Oxbridge used to have their hopes set for a job within the civil service or the legal system. Now only the latter aspiration remains, thanks to amongst other things the Human Rights Act introduced under New Labour. Which has created a judicial conundrum, highly favourable to young budding lawyers wishing to make a quick buck (and lots of them) - not so for the tax payer.

One of the largest societies in Oxford is now the Oxford Entrepreneurs and the trend is the same for Cambridge and Imperial College. This is of course not a bad thing at all, society needs more creative clever people, for they are most definately not in Parliament. But while these young bright people are heading for the industry in their little start-up firms, not so many have their sights set upon the civil service maybe because there is not much left there that honest young people would like to occupy themselves with certainly scientifically inclined people. Consider the industries and government departments that have been privatized over the years (beware this is a long list):

• National Grid UK
• British Airways
• British Coal
• Central Electricity Generating Board
• British Railways
• National Freight Corporation
• British Gas
• British Steel
• National Bus Company
• Rolls-Royce
• British Telecommunications
  
• British Petroleum
• National Enterprise Board
• British Leyland
• British Aerospace
• British Telecom
• Johnson Matthey
• Royal Ordnance Factories
• British Airport Authority
• British Electricity Authority
• British European Airways
• British Overseas Airways Corporation
• British Shipbuilders
• British South American Airways
• British Transport Commission
• British Transport Docks Board
• Central Electricity Authority
• Consett Iron Company
• East Midlands Electricity
• East Yorkshire Motor Services
• Eastern Counties Omnibus Company
• Eastern Electricity Board
• Electricity Council
• Merseyside And North Wales Electricity Board
• Thames Water Authority
• Midland Red
• Midlands Electricity
• North West Electricity Board
• National Bus Company
• National Coal Board
• National Express Coaches
• National Grid
• National Power
• North West Water
• North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board
• Northern Electric
• Northumbrian Water Group
• Oxford Bus Company
• Pickfords
• Public Electricity Suppliers
• Red Star Parcels
• South Eastern Electricity Board
• Scottish Bus Group
• Scottish Nuclear
• Scottish Power
• Scottish Bus Group
• Severn Trent
• South Wales Electricity
• South West Water
• South Western Electricity Board
• South of Scotland Electricity Board
• Southern Electric
• Southern Water
• State Management Scheme
• Transport Holding Company
• Ulster Transport Authority
• Victoria Coach Station
• Welsh Water
• Wessex Water
• Yorkshire Electricity
• Yorkshire Traction
• Yorkshire Water
  

Under New Labour:

• Royal Mail
• British Energy
• London Underground

Government Departments:

• Defence Evaluation Research Agency
• Atomic Energy Research Establishment
• National Engineering Laboratory
• Laboratory of the Government Chemist
• Building Research Establishment
• Transport Research Establishment
• Property Services Agency

There are many many more. These are the ones I could, through some dashing Google work, quickly find now. As to the financial aspects of nationalisation vs. privitisation I shall not comment upon, but possibly lament - for neither is doing a very good job at present at keeping the UK a float.

To put one of the above privitisations further under the microscope consider the DERA, which employed over 9,000 people mainly scientists, engineers and technicians. This agency consisted of the amalgamated (in 1995):

1. Royal Aircraft Establishment
2. Admirality Research Establishment
3. Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment
4. Royal Signals and Radar Establishment
5. Defence and Test Evaluation Organisation
6. Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment
7. Centre for Defence Analysis

What the government did with it in 2001... they privatised it. Much malice can be placed at the feet of Mr. Blair but in my humble opinion this must be one of his gravest and dumbest decisions ever. Even Thatcher had the foresight to not touch these divisions of the government. Yet Blair, being the world renowned defence analyst that he is, decided that the sale of the nations defence research arm, for a profit, was a good idea. Mr. Obama wrote "Audacity of Hope" well Mr. Blair ought to write "Audacity of a dimwit" he would without a doubt be acknowledged with a Nobel price for his efforts.

Going back to the future of the UK. With the above in mind we clearly see what kind of vision the government has in future for the British drones: No honour in thy work but solely make a profit. This is the kind of thinking that permeates every single notion of the British governance today "how can we make a profit even though we are the School Board?" they care not for the furtherance of the people and the nation as a whole but how they can make more money for themselves. Management in Britain is notoriously bad but possibly this is why, they can only see so far as their profits go, not the impact of their innovation or how they could build upon it.

But herein lies the main problem where are our innovations going to come from if all the scientific divisions of the government have been privatised. Even the phoenix which was reborn out of the privitaisation of DERA, the dstl (defence science and technology laboratories) are boasting on their website how much cash they have managed to make out of their clever innovations. This is all well and good, but they only employ 1,000 of the initial 9,000 that was under DERA flag which means that all those other great gadgets are going into company pockets, safely locked away with no prospect for furtherance of public good only lining the pockets of the fat cats even more.

Britain has lost faith in governments which insist on selling everything which belongs to Britain and not the government, Britain and government are not synonyms for the same words which the latter would do well in reminding itself of once in a while. But also, one must concur that some nationalisations were not particularly thought out either, see British Leyland for example. Regardless, some fine institutions have been lost to the greedy hands of corporations and along with it the crucial know-how, built up during centuries, and the people behind the organisations who lost their civil service badge which they prided themselves with.

What will come of this? Apparently we are now a service based economy and all those evil manufacturing companies remaining in these forsaken lands are slowly being weeded out by the government as they are under intense pressure to stay alive. We know have to import most of the know-how, Britain the country that gave the world the steam engine amongst other great things, because otherwise the country would go out. Apparently there is no one in the 70 million+ strong population who can figure out how the hell a nuclear plant works. That is amazing.

Unless this is all turned around Britain does not have a future.

Them vs. Us

I will not provide any links or any sources of any sort in this post, well possibly a few we shall see. Rather ponder on the philosophical aspect of the current place in the political space that is apparent in our minds and certainly on the telly. This government must be the worst government Britain has ever had I cannot think of any previous government that was worse. You might say 'well, hey hang on a minute Thatcher did a lot to screw Britain over did she not?' and I concede she did a lot to screw us over. But one has to consider the fashion, manner and purpose of the economical rape she performed upon us back in the 80s. She did it with the belief that Britain would be better of because of it, she even took on the EU and had them hand money back to the UK for having initially overcharged us but refused to give the cash back. Well, she got it back. The difference between BlairBrown's government is that they do not give two hoots about what happens to the people of this country once they are gone.

It is not an issue for them that they have chronically massacred British society in every way possible it seems. It does not seem to be an issue that they slashed troop numbers by 50,000 since 1997 but are now fighting two wars on a peace time budget. It does not seem to bother them at all when selling of public property to greedy corporations who have nothing in mind, people and liberty the last at least, but to make more and more money - even in these times. They don't seem to care that 14,000 laws have been created since they entered office but 10,000 have come from the EU not the UK. I can go on and on and on but I think you are beginning to get the overall trend here; the best interests of the nation is not at their bequest and I am struggling to think what really is. Is it finance? status? power? massive pension? a paragraph in a history book (suffice to say BB and Co. will be remembered as arch traitors not arch saviours as they seem so keen on branding themselves)?

What drives men to so completely abandon their entire people and engorge in utter political madness? This is a tough question that I am not to sure that I can answer. But even more, to add a sub clause, why the hell is Whitehall joining in on the circus? It is if they are trying to make fools out themselves. Whom with their balls in the right place and marbles as well, would even jokingly suggest removing British history from the National Curriculum and in its place insert Wikipedia and Twitter studies? I cannot possibly comprehend anyone so magnificently stupid, yet clearly before my eyes I read that a very senior civil servant has done just that - the fellow has even got a knighthood, not that these mean much these days and we can thank New Labour for that one as well.

Even the MoD, the once so proud institution, is fleeing the battle field and leaving our few soldiers to do their bidding best they can with the shitty equipment they are handed. It is a good thing, at least, that they have more courage and valour in their index than white hall officials have in their entire bodies. Even if your leadership is a Labourite debauchee retard does not mean that you, as a member of the British civil service, have to abandon your good common sense when it stands between you and delivering the orders of Labour HQ. There was a time when good sense prevailed but when military procurement has reached such a ridiculous level of politification I cannot help but think 'where will this lead?' - will our tanks and planes have the next goverment's logo tattoed upon their armour? Or even worse, the logo of the corporation who is currently leasing us their tanks...

Is it really such a surprise that people are looking to the BNP to sooth their anguish, heal their sorrows and for once not have salt poured into their wounds as seems to be the normal response by Labour whenever something goes wrong; they mess it up even further. This may be a cliche lost upon most but it cannot be over stated, the kind of cross roads we are heading for, if Westminster does not shape up its act (and you can be as sure as night follows days that Cameron will be the next Blair, so not much luck there) then they truly will have civil unrest at their hands and what is worse some people want civil unrest, they surely even crave it for anything is better, currently, than a 'democratically' lead nation under 'one' law where we can be 'free' and 'happy' and despair not for we know that the state will put our best interest before any of their own.

Military Hospitals

With the abject failure this government has provided for the armed forces in the form of the broken Military Covenant, Chinooks, Vectors Vehicles, Snatch Land Rovers, Airbus A400M, Jackal, Pinzgauer High Mobility All-Terrain Vehicle, The Viking and many many others - all this coming from a nation who once upon a time was extremely proud of its military engineering. It all became politicised a long time ago sadly.

If they are going to politicise the procurement of military hardware to the detriment of serving personnel then surely, one would have thought (grown out of common sense), they would have provided space and care for the injured soldiers (the dead ones are another matter) when they came back to the UK, there are roughly 150 or so injured soldiers arriving to Selly Oak in Birmingham each month and they have 14 beds.

Normally the ills and evils and mischief and malaise of this decade have been born out of the political tragedy that is New Labour. But the failure of the care for military personnel is, believe it or not, not one of their many many misdeeds.
Seven of the eight military hospitals have closed since a Tory government review in the early 1990s and the last in Haslar, Hants, will shut this year. Now of course since a British government is not bound by the decisions of a previous government they could have overturned these decisions taken by Major and Co. They did not, well it is at least good to know that Labour are not being hypocritical in their stance towards the armed forces; they truly could not care less.

What happened in the early 90's then you might wonder, why were the Tories so rash in their decisions to close down the military hospitals and shrink the size of the defence medical services? Well certainly the Cold War was at its end and subsequently it was assumed that all the evils of the world had gone away with the Soviet autocracy. Perhaps they thought Perestroika and Glasnost meant Peace and Prosperity to the western world?

Down to business then, the Defence review called in 1990 -one year after the wall fell- was aptly named "Options for change" (change has become the new synonym for 'completely shatter what is working and replace with something completely unfit for purpose'). The reason given for closing these sometimes two centuries old units was that servicemen could be better cared for by civilian NHS personal with their specialist equipment and specialist personnel, apparently. Yes the NHS is certainly specialist in one thing and that is complete and utter mismanagement.

These are the wards that have closed:

1. Cambridge Military Hospital, Aldershot (formerly Army hospital), closed in 1996.

2. Princess Mary’s Hospital, Halton, Bucks (formerly RAF), closed in 1996.

3. Duchess of Kent’s Military Hospital Catterick (formerly Army, closed in 1999.

4. Queen Elizabeth Military Hospital, Woolwich (formerly Army), closed in 1996.

5. Princess Alexandra Hospital, Wroughton, Swindon (formerly RAF), closed in 1995.

6. Royal Naval Hospital, Stonehouse (formerly Royal Navy), closed in 1995.

7. Princess of Wales Hospital, Ely (formerly RAF), closed in 1992.

(ohh did I mention that they were closed because the Tories wanted to save £500 million over 10 years - we now have a gaping hole in the defence budget of over £2 billion. I am glad it all worked out for them.)

As you might have imagined the utter folly of this decision has had dire consequences for servicemen around the world since there is just not enough place for them all. The decision was taken so that the government could save money and undoubtedly spend it on something else which would benefit themselves rather than the people - this seems to have been the general trend since Heath, I wanted to say Atlee but he did provide for free universal education which is always useful. Not even Sir Mike, the former head of the Army, though this was a good idea - he was terribly accommodating when it came to giving away British armed forces to the EU but that is another story.

A group of people (well, all 113,973 of them) petitioned the Prime Minister to Create a dedicated Military & Veterans Hospital within the UK.

What was the response? (well what do you think...)

I shall provide two for your:

In a blatant lie:

"MILITARY top brass have snubbed calls for a hospital dedicated to Britain’s Armed Forces and veterans, the Daily Express can reveal today.
In a pointed rebuff to UK troops, they insist current NHS provision is adequate and defiantly refuse to see the need for a specialist military medical unit.
The Army’s most senior medical officer has said the case is now closed and he is not willing to discuss the issue any further."

Nr. 10 was not much better:

"In terms of providing a dedicated hospital for veterans, it is worth noting that since 1948 it has been the policy of successive Governments that the NHS should be the main provider of health care for veterans. The range of general medical treatment required by veterans is in most cases no different from other civilians, and it would be wrong to expect them to travel large distances to receive treatment at a single hospital, especially when excellent care is already provided closer to their home and families."

Gordon.. just because successive governments have indulged in the same idea does not mean it is a good idea. As for the medical officer well he seems like a delightful fellow clearly the man the squaddies should talk to when they come back from operations (which are set to get worse this year) with their gun in one hand and their leg in the other, and cannot get appropriate treatment but have to be heckled by not-so-intelligent members of the Muslim community who cannot see the difference between the the decision makers (those who started the war) and those who are only following orders.

The Tories running slogan today is "time for change" and on their webpage they claim they will "will repair the broken Military Covenant, respect our Armed Forces, and ensure that Forces’ families and veterans are taken care of". If they plan on staying more than four year I do hope that they reconsider their early mistake of the 90's or they might just find themselves without its armed forces when the going gets tough on the streets.

Dr. Liam Fox and Defence cuts (almost rhymes)

Dr. Fox has made a speech.

Does it not strike anyone else as odd (apropos defence cuts and Liam Fox) that terrorists still manage to kill British soldiers even though supposedly superior protection is provided for them in the form of civilians, hence ending the stag requirement for soldiers.

Surely if they want to save money a start would be to let soldiers be soldiers and relieve the incompetence that is the Northern Ireland Security Guard Service (NISGS). Naturally it is easy for us in all our relative comfort to pour scorn on these guards who most of the time have very tedious not to say boring job. But when soldiers are killed, at home and not in AfghanIraq, then one must but wonder; if they have such massive problems with funding (which they clearly do) why on earth are they employing relatively low armed civilians to protect, for all intents and purposes, soldiers in whose training guard duty is a requirement.

As has become popularised by students who want something to fight against but cannot seem to find a better target, their "out of Iraq" campaigns are rather catchy at times, they certainly have got the ear for fine battle hymns. Might I be so bold as to suggest a similar approach for the armed forces "Civies out of the Army" - who knows it might just work?