Thread: MOD/Navy: Pers allowed / not allowed to sell stories.

Originally Posted by Voyager

Sir Jonathon Band

"I think when MOD sets its mind to do things, it is a most amazingly impressive department," he continues. "There's huge intellectual power, and its combination of civil service and military is extremely powerful. But what it does need is firm leadership. There's always room for lots of initiative from the bottom, and I welcome it, but it needs to be directed to the priorities at the top of the shop."..................

.........."It means using the Navy as an instrument of state power to get around the world and encourage good behaviour, good governance, and democracy. It also means supporting British industry and British diplomatic efforts...................

.................."Navies have traditionally always gone into ports and been platforms for ambassadors and trade missions," he says. "You can do that in a ship. You can't do it from the top of a Challenger tank."

Sir Jonathon Band's comments remind me of the definition of an intellectual, "someone who has been educated beyond common sense."

Just wonder how much of its "huge intellectual power" was spent in deciding to fight a war on two fronts, or sending people to war with inadequate equipment at the same time as spending over £1000 a time on hundreds of exec chairs in the new MoD Main Building. Seems to me it uses its intellectual property to further its own aims as opposed to looking after its servicemen. RE: sending sailors out in rubber boats against the IRG. Smart Mav, real smart.

This is turning into a classic case of order, counter-order, disorder...It makes the Ruritanian Department of Defence look like a model of warlike efficiency and the Italians look positively military.

Are the Navy happy Mr Browne?

Yes PM.

Well feck 'em about a bit, in the papers, out of the papers and whatever you do don't carry the can even if you admit the can is yours, it is in your hands and you are moving from can station alpha, to can station bravo!

Originally Posted by nigegilb

Some key players;
James Clark

A former newspaper journalist brought in as director of news at the MoD, he will have been a key figure in finalising the press strategy. He would have been expected to liaise with officers and advise on how the story would "play" in the media

But the probability is that the original proposal for the 'treatment' of the story started slightly further down the line...

No names, no Pack Drill, perhaps? Take a look at who was running the press call when the 'formal statements' were read out by the relatively uncomfortable (former) captives.

That said, the decisions were endorsed all the way up the line. So either the senior ranks were incompetent/fooled, or they just couldn't understand what likely reactions would be (and that's a measure of how far out of touch they are), or they couldn't be arrsed. Or maybe all three.

This was the culmination of a serious international incident. Setting aside the operational failures, are we to believe that all of these guys couldn't even get this right?

Originally Posted by PartTimePongo

Amazed how many wimp out of using the acronym.

Well not if you're a C4 or BBC newsreader and then allow yourself a joyful smirk :D

I was DYING for Humphreys/Naughtie to utter the arrse word on Today. Big girls blouse - would have made my day!

There is no way that the press people in the MoD were not involved in the decision. It is shameless that they are trying to hide behind the Navy. As I understand it, the press office people have to clear every story.

Sign this:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Navy-media/

i think we can stop calling them the senior service now. they have proved they are lower than a snails arse.

Des Browne

The Secretary of State for Defence admitted yesterday that he had been asked to "note" the decision to allow the sailors to give media interviews. He has accepted full responsibility for the fiasco and will face the wrath of MPs on Monday


Tony Blair

The Prime Minister did not know the captives' stories were to be sold until Sunday, after the key decision was taken. Downing Street refuses to go into more detail. Mr Blair conceded yesterday that in retrospect it was a mistake but said the Navy was acting in good faith

Acknowledgement to the Indie for the above list. Not many here on arrse believe that the PM only found out about it on Sunday.

If this is not news I apologise in advance. But there is a petition on the No 10 website 'to name and sack the person responsible for declaring that members of the armed services can sell their stories to the media.'

Can this just be allowed to die now and the key players in the ultimate naval fiasco of the century allowed to fall back into mediocrity and, more importantly, the service of their country?

What should NOT be allowed to be closed is how this utterly embarrassing incident was allowed to start.

Clearly the Iranian Rev. Guard naval units have been watching poor drills on the part of boarding parties in the Shatt / Gulf waters for some time - allowing Lynx top cover to come off-station to refuel (an activity which can be completed in less than 5 mins) is sloppy to say the least; and doubtless was one factor which instigated a move on the part of the Iranian capture teams.

Couple this with weak ROE, low numbers of the required kit (from AEW to heavy weapons on pacifics) and this was waiting to happen.

Conduct during capture is always easy to comment upon when you are not there - what the western media saw was very clearly and cleverly choreographed by the Iranians who are excellent at managing the propaganda war.

The following debacle over selling stories / publicity etc has been simply embarrassing and yet another example of how "Tony and his team knew nothing about it" - well done Tony, since you know so little about what is going on around you (from crooks buying your wife flats in Bristol to who is actually in charge via the decision to go to war) perhaps you should F**k off and allow someone who does know what is happening around them / is prepared to make decisions to take over command

As for M'lud Admirals Band and Johns; Gentlemen you know what is required of you as Officers and Gentlemen - do the decent thing - at the very least it will point out to the rest of the world what a shower of shits your political masters are.

Finally, Faye, £150k buys a lot of Ginsters and fags - but think on: no-one is paying for the stories of over 200 servicemen and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for their nation in the last 4 years. How do you think that sits with us, your colleagues?

Hellfire......reading that Daily Wail dit makes me even more paranoid than Nature intended...watch your backs people....


( did I say recently what a thoroughly decent, dependable and trustworthy fellow that Good CO bloke was ?....You know, the one who has EVERYONE's real details close to hand...... :D .....his Christmas list just gets longer and longer...)

Don Cabra

Surely that's a crating or a bottle of port fine for those quoted?

Thread edited.

It's not the Naafi Bar, and the press won't differentiate between 'Satirical Black Humour' and a serious post.

PTP

If someone staffs up a paper to you to be "noted" and you recognise that the action suggested in it is wrong, then one of the reasons why you get a big black car, red boxes and lashings of ginger beer, for all I know, is that you pick up the phone and say in Churchillian tones "STOP!!!"

Whether the paper comes from some scrote of a civil servant or a four ring admiral (if we have such beasts) you are the minister. You are johnny on the spot. If you had got where you are by ability rather than your flair at dodging brickbats and grabbing accolades then you would a)know this and b)act accordingly.

Originally Posted by PoisonDwarf

Originally Posted by Jarrah

P.S. Re: Nazis. They had some good points. If you happen to know any, ask any WW2 veteran what he thought of the Wehmacht.

It's bad enough that you try to hijack this serious thread with blatant fawning over the nauseous neo-nazi BNP. Now you go even further and say that the Nazis "had some good points". So we fought a world war with 250 million dead at the end, they killed anyone who didn't match Hitler's aryan ideal, for example the 6 million Jews. What are the good bits, Jarrah? Making the trains run on time? Full employment? OK the Wehrmacht were tough soldiers, but it doesn't make the regime any more valid.

If you had read my earlier posts carefully, you would have seen that I suggested starting a different thread, if anyone wished to pursue this particular topic futher. I have not attempted to hijack anything.

Your outbust of evasion, distortion and disinformation is typical of the kind of irrational 'screamer' occasionally encountered during leafleting sessions - and usually considerably outnumbered by responsible individuals met in public who are genuinely concerned for this nation, including the state of its armed forces.

As for "nauseous neo-nazi BNP," evidence, please, if it's not too much to ask - and once again, I strongly suggest you start another thread if you wish to respond (hopefully in at least a semi-coherent fashion).

P.S. Re: Evidence. Please try to come up with something a little more original than the usual unsubstantiated/irrelevant leftie 'spin' like "Party policies/aims/ambitions/personnel/past criminal convictions etc. speak for themselves." I've heard it all before and it gets boring after a while.

P.P.S. To answer your question briefly. A lot could still be learnt from the fact that the Wehrmacht was not too proud (or stupid) to learn from its opponents, e.g. the late Captain Sir Basil Liddell Hart. (I hope that some lessons are learnt from this Iranian fiasco. Whichever way you cut it, Britain and the RN have been made to look impotent in the eyes of the world and, as one earlier contributor said, "Lord Nelson must be turning in his grave.")

It has also been said that the only real difference between Blair and Hitler is that, in spite of his ruthlessless, brutality and ultimate failure, Hitler genuinely loved his country and tried to make it great, whereas Blair despises his and is trying to destroy it. TB is also succeeding, where Hitler failed.

What really pisses me off, being ex RM is that the Paras are gonna dine out on this for years. Bet they can't believe their luck. That goes for all you Pongos.

Problem is I'm inclined to agree with them. We are the laughing stock of all the forces. This came straight out of Charlie Chaplin.