Gurkhas - Betrayed again!

To some degree I have been supportive of the necessary cuts to get our country economy back in line (I only hope they reverse some of them when things are better, but I know it is probably a mere pipe-dream). 

I even understand that cuts in the military are necessary (though as with most of the cuts, the choices in what is cut seems to be front-line services rather than dealing with back-room excess and wastage)

What is intolerable is that a single small regiment (3% of the army) have over 50% of the compulsory redundancy. How convenient for the government that the majority of the soldiers serving in this regiment do not have the right to vote in the UK. Even more convenient is the fact that the Gurkhas will be using a different system to calculate their redundancy pay so they will receive less money.

The Gurkhas have a long and proud history, for more than 200 years young Nepalese men have left their homes to fight and die for Britain. For years they revived less pay, and had no right to remain in the country they fought for when they retired. Now having won a huge battle to obtain the right to citizenship of Britain, they are now being made redundant.

Nick Clegg - our Valiant? Deputy Prime Minister was so loud in the fight to get them citizenship and equal pay, seems to be being as meek as a mouse now they are getting the sack as a result.

It is about time our politicians and the people of the UK recognised our Military Personnel. They fight and die for what we believe in, on distant shores far from the ones they love. They deserve more than to be used as mere puppets and cost cutters in a pathetic party political game.

Some redundancy may be necessary,  but let's make them equal and as few as possible. Look at the contracts the military make in detail, and get value for money rather than just throwing it away. Look at excessive bureaucracy and cut it down, then when we have cut wastage back as much is possible then we can look at redundancy's, though hopefully with the money saved only voluntary redundancy's would be necessary.

Outside of that, it is up to the people of the UK to support our service personnel, both active and retired, especially in these hard times - 

I put out a call across the UK, to all businesses - Give a discount to servicemen, both current and retired. Lets show them our appreciation and make them realise how proud of the we are!

I out a call to all Communities, actively support the family's and personnel in your community. Family's that live off base far too often lack the support that those surrounded by other military family's get - lets work together and make sure they all get the support they need.

A Goverment in Denial

It has been a while since I have had time to write - life can be like that sometimes, but the news of recent days and a small amount of free time has given me cause to speak out.

Again Gordon Brown shows he has no ability to accept a reality that all evidence shows is almost diametrically opposed to his own deluded beliefs.


Helicopters

Again Senior Army Officers, that are working in the field in Afghanistan have complained about a lack of helicopters - in one case with the officer dying in an attack almost identical to the kind he described in a memo stating the problem. Yet despite this, our Prime Minister insists that we have plenty of helicopters in the field. Maybe he should try saying that to the grieving relatives of soldiers that have time in administrative transportation operations. i.e. soldiers moving to another base, not performing combat operations.

As Tony Blair found out a few months ago, they are accountable in the public's eyes.

Drugs Tzar

To show that this desire to ignore all evidence that may be contrary to their desires they have asked their Drugs Tzar to resign, why - because they claim he is not able to give impartial advice. What they mean is that the advice (which is backed up by lots of scientific research) doesn't follow the policy's they want to impose on the population.

You might think, well they will be gone soon, and then things will be better, but the comment from the Tory party over the drugs Tzar, wasn't in defence of his scientifically backed up comments, but that the government had taken too long to get rid of him, and they should have done it the first time he made a comment they didn't agree with.


The Conservatives

The Tory's are currently claiming to be the Original Liberal Democrats, but their message is neither Liberal or Democratic.

With the Tory's in power, the privatisation of the infrastructure for another of our vital services is inevitable - they have already stated that they will privatise Royal Mail and not even the Americans have gone that far. Will they never learn that privatising the front end is ok, but as our lack of development in the communications sector has shown, if the infrastructure is privatised, necessary work to develop better technology and keep pace with the rest of the world will not occur due to cost.

The best we can currently hope for is a hung parliament, with the Liberal Democrats holding the swing vote, as I fear a Conservative Government will just continue the spiral a greater divide between the haves and the have nots.