Lord Malloch Brown is certainly leaving office with a bang. His comments about the lack of helicopters will not be welcomed by Gordon Brown on the day he is holding his monthly news conference. Alistair Darling has been quick to defend himself and say that at no time as Chancellor has he ever denied the MoD funding for more helicopters. Which begs a question which someone will hopefully put to Gordon Brown at lunchtime...
Did he ever, during his period as Chancellor, turn down funding for extra helicopters?
UPDATE 11.30am: Malloch Brown has rowed back. Wonder who can have ordered him to...
40 comments:
Journos wont have the guts to ask it and Brown wouldn't answer them even if they did.
"Which begs a question"
Gah! No it doesn't, I expect more from a 'professional writer', Sir!
(Rant over)
With MB it seems the truth finally comes out.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Afghanistan-Lord-Malloch-Browns-Helicopter-U-Turn/Article/200907415343719?lpos=UK_News_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15343719_Afghanistan:_Lord_Malloch-Browns_Helicopter_U-Turn
Major U-Turn - Major Git.
On the same subject in the Lords yesterday: Lord Foulkes asked the Defence Minister Baroness Taylor of Bolton to remind Sir Richard and Sir Jock of the “importance of loyalty”.
It takes a Scot Labour Peer, and there are many, to show you the true meaning of the 'Turd'.
The way this vacuous government treats or troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere is nothing short of treason. They spit on our troops alive by sending them to foreign lands ill-equipped and ill-prepared for what they will face.
TREASON.
He'll only lie as per.
Son of the manse indeed.
It's an "evens bet" that if/when questioned regarding the UK Helicopter shortgage Brown will trot out the usual excuse that helicopters have been "increased by 60% and that flying time has been increased by 84%!" Does he still think anyone really believes a word he says on ANYTHING anymore ??? His word is meaningless as is the rest of the government's. They have been found out to have been waging a war(probably unwinnable) on the "cheap" and the chief culprit for the blame is Brown when he was Chancellor.
I hope, but won't hold my breath, that some of the attending "journos" have the actually "cojones" to nail him on the lie and tell him to stop babbling meaningless statistics. They mean NOTHING!!!
How much longer must we suffer this man as Prime Minister? He is totally unfit to hold the office! May 2010 can't come quick enough to consign this man and his incompetent administration to political oblivion !!
Sorry Iain not your best post.
Common knowledge the helicopter budget was slashed in 2004.
When we were in conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq.
MB has now 11:15, clarified, that is for practical purpose, retracted his statement.
Why has MB retracted his statement, anything to do with a McDoom TV interview at 12:00?
Yep. Foulkes really is a piece of work. Would never cross his mind of course that the General owes more loyalty to the nation and to his soldiers than he does to New Labour and Gordon Brown.
That's the problem with these GOATS - they forget that the price for their Peerage is that they do (and say) what they are told.
How long, I wonder, before the latest GOAT to enter the Upper House (Alan - call me 's'ralan' - Sugar) goes off-message?
"S'ralan" can perform one service to the nation at least - the first chance he has he should tell Brown "You're fired!!!"
I am currently reading "Ground Truth: 3 Para Return to Afghanistan" by Patrick Bishop.
I was struck by these two passages in a chapter which spelt out the increased number of fatalities due to the Taliban using IED weapons:
"In the Spring of 2008 the situation was as acute as ever. Britain had eight heavy-lift Chinooks in service in theatre at any one time, the same number as two years before. This was despite the fact that troop numbers had doubled in the meantime. The Chinooks were old now. Some had been flying for twenty years and looked and felt their age. The government had been under sustained pressure to act"
and also this:
"'More helicopters means less road movement which means less death, said one senior officer. 'It's as simple as that'"
Didn't this happen with another retiring Minister? Criticised government policy then a short time later "clarified" what he had said to be the exact opposite.
It's old but true....'You can't polish a turd'.
What a cowardly weasel he is! If it was right one minute then how come it's wrong the next?
Can we drop GOATs and adopt GONADs (government of numpties and dunces)?
A bit of tautology never hurt anyone.
classic obfuscation
Totally corrupt government. It can't be put in any more sophisticated a manner than that.
I don't know this in detail but to a civvy lord malloc browns last act as a soldier is to desert his troops.
Can anybody clarify whether it's true that this guy has more loyality to Gordon brown (and I supect his own skin) than his troops. I really find it hard to believe that a soldier would commit such a huge act of cowardace so publically?
I think Gordon may have offered the MoD and the forces a lower figure than they might have wanted and that THEY chose not to prioritise helicopters when they had to make choices. Completely different from any Chancellor choosing helicopters for the chop. That's not normally how these things work Iain. Cash limits are proposed, there is a negotiation, Departments cut their cloth. Same under the Tories as now under Labour. Sometimes there are redlines but I can't see any reason for these in this case. I think the reporting and the Tory spin on this has been rather disgraceful.
Word ver = stabb.
I'm watching Gordon Brown's statement. He manages to sound such an idiot when he says "Operation Panther's Claw".
A dithering non-dynamic bunker dweller just can't manage to say the name of this operation with any conviction.
So, when WILL Mandelson become Prime Minister and replace Gordon Brown?
It's not looking too good. Malloch Brown cannot put the genie back in the bottle. No matter how hard he tries. And Darling has pointed at Brown as the chopper flopper...
And that Lord Mandelson. Isn't he on rather a LOT of very important committees? Like, nearly all of them?
@Chris Paul, What on earth are you blathering about? Tory Spin? Malloch Brown made the original statement. No one else did.
CP@ 12:21:
Gordon when chancellor cut in 2004 the helicopter budget by £1.4B. Also the % of defence on gbp was 2.8% in 1997 is now 1.9%.
Normally, yes, Chris Paul. Except for the problem thyat Gordon Borwn will try to micromanage everything. Even (especially?) things he knows nothing about.
I had a college lecturer who was just like Brown. Mention a subject to him and he would admit that he had never heard of it. But within minutes the numpty would argue against anything you said on the subject (which you were an expert on) as if he were the world's ultimate expert. He'd even make stuff up on the spur of the moment!
I am convinced Brown would have been that kind of useless lecturer. As he is that kind of useless minister.
Iain said "...Which begs a question which someone will hopefully put to Gordon Brown at lunchtime."
Just one problem. Parliament's not sitting, so no PMQs today, Mr D. Sorry to disappoint. ;-)
Grim Reaper. He's doing a press conference.
sorry - bad link. See "where defence leads":
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/
Anonymous said...
On the same subject in the Lords yesterday: Lord Foulkes asked the Defence Minister Baroness Taylor of Bolton to remind Sir Richard and Sir Jock of the “importance of loyalty”.
What the prize prick simply doesn't get is that the army pays allegience to the Queen and not this God-awful Government.
Jonathan Cook at 12.22:
"I'm watching Gordon Brown's statement. He manages to sound such an idiot when he says "Operation Panther's Claw"."
Or indeed when he says anything else.
Have emailed a couple of facts about the "helicopter fiasco" or the "helicopter scandal", it is too long to fit on the comments page.
Brown tries to imitate Gladstone.
Queen Victoria commented that "Gladstone does no talk to me, rather he addresses me as if I were a public meeting."
So it was with Brown at the press conference - all those third person sentences. It is as if Brown is trying to kid us that he is merely stating the received decisions of other oracles - and the words have nothing to do with him at all (honest, guv).
MB obviously meant what he said in this mornings Telegraph. It was clear. The fact that he `rowed back` shows two things. Firstly that Pillock-Brown hasnt the guts of a louse and secondly just re inforces the publics view that Broon is firmly to blame for the lack of helicopters and tries to gerrymander everything.....looks like a lose-lose situation to me...
Wonder if Adolf might have another `downfall` soon!!!!!!
Smells of Mandy. You know the Real Prime Minister.
Re anon post, maybe they are Liebores with nowhere else to get the comments read.
Foulkes is the most appalling scumbag. But even he should understand that loyalty is a two-way street.
Frankly Foulkes gives me the creeps. I've watched him for many years and he's just the same kind of unprincipled bastard now as he has been for decades. Still, at least he's consistent.
Similar thread on Spectator :
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5199888/malloch-browns-unintentional-parting-shots.thtml#comments
Iain told me "He's doing a press conference..."
My mistake. I really must stop reading your blog just before I go to work in the afternoon.
When Blair told the Labour party conference that he was going to abolish Clause 4 he used so many euphemisms and such evasive abstractions that few in the hall understood what he was on about.
Of course he duly received the customary standing ovation.
Only when Alastair Campbell began briefing the prjust ess about how conference had given an overwhelming and unqualified endorsement to the abolition of Clause 4 did the full import of what had taken place dawn on the befuddled delegates.
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