Hello,

I have just been offered an unpaid gig as the Defence Correspondent for this blog:

www.the-daily-politics.com/

Anyway, I am yet to draft my first article. I have been asked to write from the inside out so I thought I would ask you shy and retiring types - what you would like my first article to be about? We want to look at real issues facing the military today - so what is the hottest topic of the moment? What should I open with? Don't hold back. (As if you would!)

I am going to draft the article on Tuesday 3rd November.

I look forward to hearing from you.

(Also if you don't mind please can we focus on the question and not ask me to get get my 'clout' out or any variations on sodomy, or, in fact, anything to do with shagging wo/man, beast or inanimate objects or any other generally offensive behaviour. )

How about the attitude of serving personnel towards politicians? You could draw comparrision with soldiers of former generations as well. With rememberance day coming up it would also be topical and 'in vogue' as well.

'Why don't we buy battle proven and cheaper kit off the shelf instead of letting Big And Expensive milk us dry while they try and re-invent a British version of the wheel and then find they can only develop a square one which they then sell to the MOD as an improvement over the rest of the worlds wheels'

Well - looks like a good website. Any site that sticks up the full episode of Have I Got News for You is alright by me.

Welcome Mrs Macnaughton, It's official, I've posted a welcome on the website, we look forward to your first post.

The Daily Politics is hosted out of Switzerland, feel free to email us in confidence, if you can trust an old backstabber.

With reference to HIGNFY, YouTube can now be watched on a decent mobile given the bandwidth. If there's anything you'd like uploaded to watch on YouTube, let me know, if I can I will.

Editor: The Daily Politics

(Also if you don't mind please can we focus on the question and not ask me to get get my 'clout' out or any variations on sodomy, or, in fact, anything to do with shagging wo/man, beast or inanimate objects or any other generally offensive behaviour. )

As if anyone around here would do such a thing.

Although pretty well done elsewhere I still think the value of spending £300M on upgrading antique helicopters is worthy of further debate. Lots of material on PPrune, the Register(even if it is Lewis "Donkey" Page) and the Times.

I reckon you may also know a few people who have thoughts on this too......

What's more shocking about this decision is that for the same money we can buy 30 remanufactured and upgraded CH-47D model Chinooks from Boeing with delivery staring in 9 months.

Military procurement: UK Armed Forces bent over and rogered silly by BAE Systems and others, time and time again, at great expense to the UK taxpayer and those unlucky enough to suffer injury or death.

The Chinook Mk 3s being retrofitted because they don't work and are desperately needed...

The Nimrod MRA4, once called the Nimrod 2000, a hugely expensive vintage aircraft restoration project, taking a set of unique individual airframes and refitting them for engines that are too heavy but which are needed to lift the rest of the bulk off the ground. Like the Nimrod AEW "Nimwacs" scrapped and replaced by the E-3D Sentry (once the best airframes had been wrecked. British Aerospace back then, BAE Systems now...

The revolving door between government/military and defence contractor worlds...

The factory jobs in Labour constituencies subsidised at great expense by the taxpayer, producing inordinately expensive kit that is often late...

The covenant of truth and the moral inadequacies of the government in contrast with the soldier on the ground who lives by honour and integrity.

You mean like the chap who turned his nose up at 60 brand new Blackhawks in favour of 34 all but useless at battlefield transport and far more expensive Lynx Wildcats and who now works for…


Cue drumroll… Finmeccanica

Ok - I think I am going to go with military procurement and helo shortages - focus on the CH47 only - so give me your unadulterated views on this matter.

Quite big topics though - so maybe we need an overview:

1.) Helo shortage - yes or no - why? Solutions, please?
2.) Defence procurement - why do we decide to adapt functional kit, which delays route to frontline and invariably then doesn't work when it/if it gets there.

Who makes these decisions? Who do we blame? How can the system be improved? How do we affect change? What would make a difference? Army asset managed by the RAF? Discuss.

Thoughts please...

Any chance you could cover the history of skiffing in the British Army? I'm sure that'd be really popular.

MsG

Yes… Gotta keep Wasteland in jobs and provide post CS/MOD jobs for higher ups. Rationalize and buy what works in a bigger reality.

Kiowas, Blackhawks, Chinooks across the board for everyone… we have a who's who of all the wolrds Helicopters in the UK - insane@!



Gotta keep Big And Expensive, DES, QuinetiQ et al in jobs and provide post CS/MOD jobs for higher ups. The story line is that foreign kit is not up to our standards and has to be 'upgraded' before we deploy it… the reality as has been shown in the last week is our standards are a * national disgrace and we pass off gear that would never even see deployment in any reasonably well equipped armed forces.

Any chance you could write it?

How about getting someone to edit your own blog first? I got a headache trying to read it.

And your specific problem is?

Black text on a white background is hardly unusual. More detail please.

Excuse him. He's (ex) CrabAir so expects somebody else to do eveything for him: clean his boots, tie his tie, read his newspaper out aloud. You know, that sort of thing.

Why thank you Mr city - I should employ you as my biographer. Your accuracy with the details is, as ever, wide of the mark.

My point was directed at the OP, but the Daily Politic blog is cluttered and bitty and quite uneasy on the eye. It detracts from what may well be superlative content.

Humour not on your menu tonight then?