I will start this post with a few select quotations from the Secretary of State for Defence, Dr Liam Fox MP
Whilst in Afghanistan recently
“I will give you my promise that we will do everything we can to ensure that, whatever you are asked to do, you are properly, fully equipped to do so, to maximise your chance of success and minimise the risk to you.”
His welcome speech on the first day of his new job
“Resources will be tight for the country as a whole and Defence is no exception. We must make sure that we make every penny spent on Defence count. This means we will have to look again at all that we currently do, including the organisation and structure of the Department, each of the Services and the support area to ensure that we can undertake confidently and effectively the key tasks for which MOD is responsible.”
Before getting his new office
“Now we have 99,000 in the army and 85,000 civilians in the MoD. Some things will have to change and believe me they will.”
In a speech in June this year
“We intend to create a more efficient and leaner centre where everyone knows what they are responsible for and who they are accountable to – with the deadlines and budgetary disciplines taken for granted elsewhere”
So one might think the entire MoD was on a war footing, focussing 110% of their energy on the business of achieving some kind of desirable outcome in Afghanistan, the Indian Ocean or any of the other operations we are involved in?
If not that, then working out how they can achieve meaningful cost savings to preserve capabilities?
No, OK, what about getting involved with the Strategic Security and Defence review?
Don’t we have a new broom sweeping clean, new politics, a laser like homing in on getting things sorted out?
What do you think?
Compare and contrast.
The MoD wonders why it has such a poor reputation?
How many man/woman/transgender hours have been spent organising the event, publicising, putting it on the intranet and web sites, managing the seating arrangements and writing speeches and PowerPoints?
Business as usual.
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1 Comments
As a member of the armed forces from the sixties through to the eighties call me old fashined but I just cannot get my head round this ‘lets push it in everyones face’ policy of homosexuality. No pun intended.
Are we expected to believe that prior to the laws being passed making homosexuality legal that no one in the armed forces was ‘queer’
Of course not I would imagine we all knew someone who was covertly ‘gay’, accepted them,were mates with them and it was live and let live.
They did their thing and you did yours,end of story.
So why is it that nowadays we seem to have an armed forces that actively promote homosexuals.
It does them no favours at all, Once again the armed forces are years behind the times and if they at the top of the tree accepted these people as do those who work with them and rely on them in conflict we would not have this discussion.