Gordon Brown’s u-turn over TA funding exposes much more about the dishonesty and ineptitude of the Labour government than they realise.
Firstly it shows that the government have given little thought to the funding of front line troops. Most of us in the TA believed that we were paid from a dedicated budget at the MOD, it turned out that we were paid from the spare change generated by the regular army’s under recruitment.
Now that the regulars are at full recruited strength the MOD have run out of money for us. It wouldn’t have taken Mystic Meg to work out that recruitment and retention would increase in this recession, just like it has in all the previous ones.
Secondly it shows how little this government understands or respects the reserve forces. The TA has supplied thousands of front line troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan over the last few years. They have fought and in some cases died along side their regular counterparts and this is how they are repaid for their commitment and loyalty. As Liam Fox so rightly said being in the TA is a habit, force them to break the habit and you break the TA, despite having asked so much of the TA Labour haven’t taken the time to learn that must fundamental of facts.
Many people know little about the TA and I doubt we would be a doorstep issue at election time, but the sustained pressure that David Cameron and Liam Fox deployed prevented the government pushing forward with a plan that could have destroyed the TA as we know it. I know that I’m not alone in thanking them for championing the cause of people who Churchill described as “twice the citizen”.
Comment by John Poynton on October 30, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Truely this government’s incompetance knows no boundaries!
You cannot fight a war on a budget. Ministers must support commanders first and ask questions later – and that includes the TA..
Comment by ralph mchendry on October 30, 2009 at 7:15 pm
The fundamental requirement is to bring back the death penalty. The Homicide Act 1957 wil do.
Comment by Ray Turner on October 30, 2009 at 9:53 pm
I think the current Labour Government has just got its focus and its priorities completely wrong. The TA fiasco is one example.
Why for example, is taxpayers money being used to support German workers in Wolfsburg, building VW Golfs for the UK market which will be bought by people using the money saved on their mortgage interest payments which in turn is funded by the poor rates of return on my savings which because I’ve still got a little more saved (supposedly for retirement) than the arbitrary limits set for means testing, means I qualify for no benefits whilst effectively unemployed myself and so I am reluctant to dip into those savings to pay hundreds to a private dentist to have a broken tooth fixed…
No wonder I’m spitting blood at the Government and the political system as a whole at the moment…
Comment by Gordie on October 31, 2009 at 11:12 pm
As a viewer of UK Poltics from ” Across The Pond” and A HUGE fan of the Rt Hon. Mr. Cameron… I can not wait until 6,Jube, 2010 until Mr. Cameron is RIGHTLY installed as the UK’s new PM & MAYBE just MAYBE The Lib Dems will gain enough seats in the HOC to become the “Party Opposite… I’d love to see Mr.Cameron & Mr. Clegg face off @ the Dispatch Boxes.
Comment by Mr Bilham on November 1, 2009 at 5:39 am
Sometimes, tying to get ‘a Government’ to see sense or to listen is like throwing stones at lightning. Totally pointless.
The TA fiasco was very serious, but aren’t other defence issues just as disturbing?
Since the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, apparently ‘XX’ number of warheads have gone ‘missing’ around the world. That is just one good reason to invest in intelligence and defence, so that we can all sleep at night.
Mr Brown needs to wake-up a little more often because he has long taken his finger off the pulse of Britain, and seems to drift effortlessly into a Zombie like character committed to dragging the country to hell.
He’d apparently do-away with a nuclear sub to save a few quid. Funding for intelligence and R&D is likely to decline in the future if his track record is anything to go by, having already lost the gold reserves, and it will probably get worse in a matter of months rather than years because the UK has no industrial output or revenue to support the funding for troops abroad!
Consider – If the Labour Government can’t stop people urinating in public places, in lifts, telephone boxes or on pensioners in ‘Broken Britain’, then how can they possibly every hope to win a war in a country like Afghanistan?
No Labour MP has been able to answer that question? They just shrug their shoulders and smile.
But so long as the peerage is in sight and everything is going to be paid for, who really cares about this county anymore? Labour MPs evidently don’t!
Comment by Paul on November 1, 2009 at 11:18 am
Please ask conservative central office where defence will come in your post election priorities.
I think you’ll be shocked to see it’s not in the top 4!! Although I think environment is!!!
It beggars belief! I thought yo were right wing party. Who do I turn to now?
Comment by Adrian on November 1, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Jim,
Sorry to correct you on a couple of things.
It was the Army who devised and chose to implement the TA pay cut. It was not a political decision to do that. It was a political decision to allow it to be adopted as policy for the duration – until Brown’s direction to find the extra cash from Treasury ‘reserves’.
I believe the army were only trying to fill a black hole in their budget and were grabbing unallocated funds (as TA pay is – it isn’t ring-fenced) from anywhere it could. Perhaps the MoD could just be a little more ‘disobedient’ and wrack up overspend to the same degree as other Departments.
I believe it was Field Marshall Lord Slim whom you quote, not Churchill.
Carry on.
Comment by June Wilson on November 2, 2009 at 4:48 pm
James Cleverly statment of Gordon Brown’s U-turns is a bit off seeing as to how I read in the Sun today that David is also considering a U-turn on a referendum if the rubber stamp is used before the next election