Saturday, October 14, 2006

The Last Bastion of British Values and Decency Protests

So, finally the head of the army has apparently twigged what is afoot! After fifty years of unremitting and relentless assault, the fact that the people of Britain have been engaged in a remorseless battle in defence of decent standards has finally been absorbed in the cloistered corridors, messes and wardrooms in which move the heirs of those who fought and died to keep our country free. Our new Army chief, mere weeks in his post, has challenged the government on terms which the press and media, predictably enough IMO, have totally misconstrued. First consider the timing. Blair should now be on remand or in jail. Police inquiries on the payments for peerages issue can only end in 10, Downing Street. Peerages are in the gift of the Prime Minister. He submits the list to the Queen and precedent requires she comply. There are further questions, I recall seeing in the press, regarding the lease of the speculative student accomodation Bristol flats which reportedly were eventually let to companies or their employees associated with France who will apparently be involved in contracts for Britain's replacement 'through deck cruisers' ( to use an 'old' Labour platitude) or aircraft carrier as the rest of the world knows them. So what, you ask? Blair is a known verbal contortionist - everybody knows that! Big Deal, I can almost hear readers add. But now it is clear that our overstretched armed forces chiefs' must have dearly wished that Blair would have been done for after the summer of scandals and that Brown's conference speech might give some hope of more realism over Britain's capabilities in Iraq and Afghanistan. But NO, instead Blair ploughs on and Brown's conference speech predicts no change, instead they got this recent Prime Ministerial statement, of which this quote is taken from Reuters:

In an interview with the British forces' broadcaster, Blair rejected the claims, saying morale was high and troops would be given any extra support they need.

"If the commanders on the ground want more equipment, armoured vehicles for example, more helicopters, that will be provided," Blair said. "Whatever package they want, we will do." Look at that last phrase again: "Whatever package they want, we will do." That was,of course, a lie. Yet nobody in the MSM queried the statement. Nobody even in NICE, busy banning basic treatment drugs for Alzheimers, even raised a whimper of protest at the clear financial implications! Why? Britain has finite resources - there are no more helicopters and 'smoke and mirrors Brown' has no more cash to borrow or pensions to pillage! BUT, of course, everybody else knew it was a lie, they knew it even before Tony Blair opened his lips (I guess that is why it isn't really news) ..... So Gordon Brown stepped in and offered tiny tax relief for our under-equipped servicemen and women ........ well not a tax exemption exactly but perhaps a bonus that would match their tax liabilities... details were difficult. WHAT???? Tax exemption should be perfectly straightforward. We are supposed to believe that there has apparently been no real plan to destroy the 'country of principle' that my generation was taught to trust in and uphold. It apparently just happened while the country was supposedly governed by Buggins Turn Labour and Conservatives!!! Yet the nation I knew has disappeared almost without trace. In every aspect of our daily lives it has disappeared, like our democracy, gone to the EU as if it had never been there. Talk about heritage to a young person today..........??????? Somehow our armed forces have become the last repository of the values that once the whole country held dear. Sooner or later, it was therefore inevitable they too would come under attack. At least they now seem to have seen the threat. It would be foolish indeed to suggest that the dual operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were contrived to stretch our armed forces to the limit, but listening to the London Mayor Ken Livingstone on the Radio 4 Today programme, suggesting the values of the British Armed Forces were alien to Londoners - then reading Matthew Parris in The Times , calling for the sacking of the Army Chief, who had merely expressed ideas which our multi-facing PM wholeheartedly agreed, makes one really wonder! So, Sir Richard has viewed the future. In his follow-up interview after that published in the Daily Mail on Radio 4, he stated that he did not wish to see the army 'BROKEN' in five or ten years time. Has he twigged that this is the real objective of some close to government? Did Shirley Williams and Tony Crosland really wish to destroy Britain's brilliant post-war education system? Perhaps they were the idealistic pawns of other less well intentioned anarchists. The end result is the same whoever is to blame! Other examples abound, the NHS, Local Government, the Civil Service, Westminster Democracy, the Judiciary etc., all in thrall to corrupt government and fourth rate politicians. Now the Armed Forces are under attack, just as a government detesting our past values might have wished - underfunded, under hostile fire, overstretched and largely overseas. What the public statements by the army head mean to me is that something far more serious than the timetable for withdrawal from Iraq is in question. We seem to be witnessing another (perhaps final) Battle of Britain, unhappily it seems already lost!

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