Originally Posted by rickshaw-major

Which is why more airlift is required! Say for instance, Chinooks! Maybe about 8 of them.

Are you serious? How will we pay out benefits to single teenage mothers, asylum seekers and layabouts if we spend money on stupid helicopters?

Originally Posted by Fallschirmjager

Originally Posted by rickshaw-major

Which is why more airlift is required! Say for instance, Chinooks! Maybe about 8 of them.

Are you serious? How will we pay out benefits to single teenage mothers, asylum seekers and layabouts if we spend money on stupid helicopters?

Silly me! Helicopters can't vote

I fecking hate this Government but I'm also positive that Call Me Dave's lot aren't going to make it any better.

That's the problem R-M, who the hell to vote for? I've always been a Labour voter but never again, however we have two tory parties. I think to choose between the two at present i'd have to vote for Cameron.

It probably suits the Goverment to run down the Armed Forces to virtually nothing
It's no secret that Blair and Mandleson (and now Brown since Mandy's in charge) want one Europe and a European Army
We are told that there will never be another large scale tank battle so lets park Chally 2 up and develop no more new tanks
Yet turning on the news we see Danish Leopards blasting Taliban positions in support of British Troops

When (I almost put if.. then silly me) the Tories win the next election the damage will be done and may be unrecoverable

Blair will be the EU El Presidente and Mandy will have slithered back to his side don't rule out roles somewhere for the party faithful
They will push and push for a European Army and they will get it because the French Germans etc will vote it in and then carve it up

We will retain the infantry and teeth arms and do all the fighting
The French will provide some nice aircraft carriers, someone will provide helicopters and so on

That way they can claim to America and specifically Obama that they are fighting in the war on terror and fully supporting them

In reality you will get some Foreign Legion (mainly Brits and Eastern European ) and some ex Eastern States wanting to join NATO fighting on the ground along side us
Germany and the rest can hang back whilst providing "logistical" support

Balir will get everyones thanks for organising it and Mandy will rule Europe

The next spending priority will be fireproofing or rebuilding every 1960s towerblock inhabited by actual or potential Labour voters - that's if Harriet Harperson has its little way. This will be done simultaneously in every urban constituency with as much publicity and ostentation as possible.

Usual fcuking disgrace, like the rest of you I totally despair..................

Odo

Originally Posted by tomthetinker

The next spending priority will be fireproofing or rebuilding every 1960s towerblock inhabited by actual or potential Labour voters - that's if Harriet Harperson has its little way. This will be done simultaneously in every urban constituency with as much publicity and ostentation as possible.

Or knocking them all down and building state of the art brand new houses

The thread title hides the political spin. "Frontline troops must be a priority" is a bit of a no brainer. But look at it another way and it reads "... we are going to rip the guts out of everything else.."

Older readers will remember "Front Line First" and the associated Defence Costs Studies of the back end of the Major years. Cue in the early 90s the destruction of Defence Medical Services, military chefs, recruiting offices on the high street, much of our organic, deployable, combat service support, etc etc.

15 years later those capabilities are still being rebuilt and we are still suffering the consequences.

Originally Posted by chimera

The thread title hides the political spin. "Frontline troops must be a priority" is a bit of a no brainer. But look at it another way and it reads "... we are going to rip the guts out of everything else.."

Older readers will remember "Front Line First" and the associated Defence Costs Studies of the back end of the Major years. Cue in the early 90s the destruction of Defence Medical Services, military chefs, recruiting offices on the high street, much of our organic, deployable, combat service support, etc etc.

15 years later those capabilities are still being rebuilt and we are still suffering the consequences.

Very,very true.

The headline is simply a sop to those voters in the UK who regard HMF as the last bastion of public service that they can genuinely be proud of.

The Gurkhas fiasco was a big wake up call to many in parliment and the 'frontline' tag is a nice little soundbite they can trot out when being quized on defence spending by the MSM.

The situation that applies to other areas of public spending,where the cliche "doing more with less",may be applied simply does not equate to the realities of our military commitments.And stripping out any more of our support infrastructure is hardly going to increase our ability to project force.

The cynic in me expects to see a tory defence white paper futher undermining our ability to prosecute war independently of others (expect to see,as said before,more "co-operation with our European allies" ).

I also expect to see the MoD become increasingly the animal of the FaCO.Not such a bad thing some would suggest,until you realise that the Foreign office is itself the creature of the EU,an EU that is soon to start flexing its newly found muscles in the area of Foreign policy,perhaps to the detriment of our intrests here in Blighty.

With regards to helicopters, can MM or someone else in the know tell us where the eight chinooks at Boscombe are coming on with their retro-fit.