No digression please. Thanks for your comments Mr HC regards The DP - noted but you can't please all of the people all of the time.

No....he's got a headache.

Opening gambit....defence procurement.
Massive headache!

Procurement is a running sore.

A much less explored area, but worth digging into are the Tory proposals to freeze or cut the defence budget, whilst ring-fencing international development and the NHS.

What money is defence missing out on? What capabilities does that cut translate into? What does that mean for UK forces?

Seriously, and I'm writing this as a natural Tory voter, their view that defence spending can be reduced whilst other areas should be protected from cuts is at best politically naive, and at worst dangerous.

The more uncomfortable their position becomes in the run up to the election, the more likely they are to do something sensible.

Much as I hate to agree with MCH, he is, IMV, correct.

Whilst reading is a personal experience, I personally prefer to tap the space bar and move down from article to article and not have to go top to bottom at least three times. My $0.02.

What with the 20th anniversary of the Berlin wall coming down, why not do a comparison between soldiers lives then and now?
You could mention the (at the time) vastly superior accomodation in many Germnay based units, decent adventure training, the fact that junior soldiers had, for the most part, decent travel arrangements including MMA and flights etc. A great logistics infrastructure designed to hold and keep stores for when they are needed and not brought in as an emergency measure several months after they were required. Military hospitals etc!
The list could go on quite a bit I think.

I'd be interested to know why the government claims there will be no more cash to spend on defence, but has agreed to inject another humongous sum into the banks?

If there is a shortage of cash, why is the government so tardy in collecting it's taxes?
According to this report, the Treasury has not collected 27.7 billion pounds due to it!

The Daily Politics is a 'Blogger' blog. I have changed it to a three column format which allows me to add more content to the main page, blogs are always top to bottom.

Once I have a web designer, an IT department, an Editor and a few more writers, I can do what all good media moguls do, go for lunch while they do all the work.

Another question for you to ask…

Why is defence being cut while we give Billions in Aid to other countries so they can build up their armed forces?

Example: India and it's aircraft carrier programme.

There's a nasty echo in here

Hmmmm - procurement and helos not popular with the editor. Looking for something fresh that links defence and politics. Was thinking 'leadership' watched Into The Storm last night, felt inspired.

I feel that we lack a strong leader in Downing Street - and I am personally looking for someone to put the 'Great' back into Britain. I feel like I am living in 'fairly average' Britain at the moment.

The Taliban are tribal warriors but so are the British. We are a tribal nation, stubborn, determind and resilient. We live in this green and pleasant land and despite the dreadful weather and love our country (sort of, in funny cynical kind of way).

The road to Afghanistan is full of flawed philosophy but should we just walk away? I think it's too late to do that - I think we need to find a solution that we can believe in so that we can pave the way forward. But we need strong, dynamic leadership with a clear strategy and an end goal. Do we even know what success looks like?

How do we stop the dis-illusionment within the armed forces? You have to believe to acheive. I believe in the British Armed forces - I think we are the best of the best - we turnout great soldiers, that are resourceful, innovative, strategically smart, tactically accurate, resilient and unrelenting. We don't have 'all the gear and no idea' and to some extent these limited resources creates a strong dedicated work ethic that underpins the British military. We have a unique sense of humour and spirit that does not shy away from adversity.

What I want to know is this - what makes Britain's Armed Forces great?

(Only positives please - can all the bah humbug, cynical, grumpy, old bastards, please bah humbug somewhere else.....................tumbleweed rolls across the thread as nobody responds................... )

I think you've just answered your own question. What makes the British army (I can't speak for the Navy or Air Force) is the average squaddie.
For just the reasons you've stated above, every one of them deserves a medal!

Are we allowed to know why?

Or is it something silly like the title doesn't fit on his/her 3-column bogger format....



"Only positives please." Now that's an old New Labour favourite.

For someone planning to be the "defence correspondent", deliberately avoiding the defence/operational issue of the moment and instead writing a whimsical piece on what you would like the political leader to be seems, well, rather bizarre...

PS. Have you considered the Irish from our own 6 counties?

Manning priorities in the Army i.e. the amount of senior officer (Col and above jobs) posts and are they really neccessary? I'm on about posts like Camp Commandants, Assistant to the Assistance to the Assistant whoever. Also questioning man power liabilities against what we actually have on the ground with all the black economy posts etc.

RAF Transport Command - options for contracting out?

The Editor has nothing against covering procurement issues. It was done some months ago in July: Brown's lies on helicopter procurement. I'd like to think we were one of the leaders with this story, it was certainly picked up elsewhere.

Which is not to say that there isn't more to be said, but I'm not sure what more we can do on that particular issue.

What I want to know is:

After Panther's Claw, what next? The Pakistanis are pressing the Taliban from the South, are the ISAF forces going to press from the North through winter, or hibernate until Spring?

Does anyone else think that this is an opportunity to finish the job off, after all the Americans are reinforcing, the British have just rotated the Brigade and in theory the Taliban should have taken a battering this summer.

Swiss,

Still think you are missing the obvious political - defence story here: we are not devoting adequate resources to our Fighting Services. The next government (as seems likely) want to freeze or cut the budget. If they do that then we will need to seriously revisit the UK's role in the world.

That debate colours every other one in the defence sphere right now.

I think it's because it's a blog - not a newspaper - so it can be whatever it wants to be and the subject is too big for an opener. It's not an avoidance matter but I think it's about establishing a voice. This is the beginning of many so it's not like this issue won't necessarily be tackled. Also I don't think I had anything new to say on the matter - it's a pretty well documented debacle.

How do you know it's going to be a whimsical piece on leadership? I haven't even written anything yet. The question I asked was: what makes Britain's Armed Forces great?

I said I was inspired by Into the Storm and the Britain lacked leadership and that I was thinking about leadership as maybe a topic.

I am exploring options by trying to engage in a dialogue with those interested in the armed forces. (I am totally setting myself up for a lynching here - setting expectations and then drafting some diatribe that you all decimate - no pressure!)

Are you being a bit of grumpy pants Mr White City? Do you need a hug?

I don't understand the PS - please can you explain.

How is that we have some good military leaders and some great ones previously but shoite political ones

Why not? Every man and his monkey writes about procurement and, on the whole, make a complete hash of it. They generally have zero experience of military or major procurement at any level so equate it to the only procurement they do have experience of - their weekly shop at Tesco.

I'd be far more interested in a well researched, written and insightful article on the affects of poor political leadership on the MoD (and other governmental departments) than yet another simplistic and factually wrong article saying we should buy lots of American COTS. Witness Jacqui Smith's performance on QT last week, worse even than Jack Straw's. If you're not capable of holding your own on QT, you're not capable of heading an Office of State.


And that is the result of poor, ineffectual and incompetent political leadership. The disease needs treating, not the symptoms.

Why does every article you ever read about procurement come back to FLynx Wildcat and why we should have Blackhawks 'off the shelf' for £3.20 each

We also flatter ourselves if we paint a rosy picture of the UK armed forces, where everything in green or blue is fantastic because we all know this is total bollox.

In fact, not seeing ones faults is called arrogance and arrogance is central to many of our less than glorious episodes recently.

We also make the mistake of seeing politics as somehow detrimental to the forces, lets not forget who we serve and also lets not kid ourselves that all political intrusion is a negative.

Balance is key in these discussions.

I understand the PM and the Armed Forces represent the whole state and not just part of it.

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

At least that's what's written on the cover of my passport.

You state you don't want to start with a "subject [that] is too big for an opener." And yet you propose to write a piece about how to put "great" back into the national psyche. Don't you see a little contradiction there?

Your editor is keen on a piece that identifies or proposes military/political strategy in Afghanistan for the coming 6 months.

But you don't want "big", apparently!