UK National Defence Association

[ORAC]

Grauniad: Military chiefs demand more cash (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-7060084,00.html)

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is facing calls from senior military figures for an urgent cash injection for Britain's Armed Forces.

The UK National Defence Association (http://www.uknda.org/) is being launched, under the patronage of three former chiefs of defence staff, to press for a major increase in defence spending.

With British troops committed on two fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan, it will argue that the Armed Forces budget needs to rise from around 2% of national income to 3% - a target it wants all the political parties to sign up to.

The association's patrons are ex-defence chiefs General Lord Guthrie, Admiral Lord Boyce and Marshal of the RAF Lord Craig, and former foreign secretary Lord Owen. Other supporters include ex-MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove and Mr Brown's security adviser, Tory MP Patrick Mercer.

Former Tory MP Winston Churchill - the grandson of the Second World War leader - is the association president.

Speaking ahead of the launch, Lord Guthrie said the lack of sufficient resources for the military had become "a most pressing issue".

"Underfunding of our Armed Forces is already having consequences, both for our overall defence capability and for our forces at the sharp end, which are too thinly spread and being required to go to war with equipment which is often outdated and not fit for purpose," he said.

Lord Boyce, who was chief of defence staff at the time of the Iraq invasion, added: "Even though defence did see an increase in the most recent comprehensive spending review, that goes nowhere near addressing the fundamental issue of proper funding and over-commitment."

[skippedonce]

'The Ministry of Defence said it welcomed any initiative aimed at promoting informed debate about the forces. But it added that military spending was due to rise by £7.7bn by 2011, extending the Forces' longest period of sustained growth since the 1980s.'

So much for inflation.

[VinRouge]

Its actually bang on 3.5% inflation. Now, if you currently look at RPI, you could argue we are getting completely shafted. completely completely shafted. M4 money growth stands at 14%, and I for one have noticed many increases in purchase price that funny old thing, CPI does not represent. IN fact, if you can look at what goes into the cpi basket and see that its fine if you are going out and buying a cheap widescreen tv or dvd player from tescos, but when it comes to food produce, the basics, we are all getting right royally shafted.

The fact that they give us sub-inflationary increases in defence spending at a time we are engaged on 2 fronts is an absolute disgrace, and one they should be ashamed of. But yet again, that great cash sink the NHS will get every penny spare.

I just worry that if we enter a UK recession, which, from where I am stood at the moment is looking fairly likely, it isnt education or health that will suffer. :=

[TheStrawMan]

7 July 2004
SPEECH BY THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, GORDON BROWN AT THE BRITISH COUNCIL ANNUAL LECTURE

Thinking globally in an insecure world – and more important in the world since September 11th - requires us of course to take necessary steps to discharge a British government’s first duty – the defence of its citizens, the people of Britain. And as we look forward to next week’s spending review, I will make available the resources needed to strengthen security at home and take action to counter the terrorist threat at home and abroad. Those who wish to cut in real terms the budget even for security will need to answer to the British people. We will spend what it takes on security to safeguard the British people

Hollow words Mr Brown. you will now have to reap what you have sown

[Kitbag]

Really depends on what he means by security at home and abroad. Defence or the spooks?
I believe the Security Services have had uplifts in their spending. The argument could be advanced that the Armed Forces are not part of that arrangement by a suitably mealy mouthed pinko communist subversive self serving rissole, or his equally embarrassing excuse for an opposition spokesman.

[harrogate]

"Lord Guthrie said he believed that funding shortages were behind Lord Drayson's decision.

He added: 'I would think that probably - and I'm putting words into his mouth - that he was frustrated by the bureaucracy and that some of his plans for modernising procurement are just not achievable unless more money is available.' "

He's clearly speaking for Drayson there.

Shame Drayson doesn't have the balls to say it himself, but it's still progress I guess.

[TheStrawMan]

Lord Drayson is just another PVR statistic, but then who's counting and who cares Mmmm ?

[Melchett01]

Yet again, another cry for help that will go unanswered. Of course, Bob Ainsworth has just appeared on the news utterly refuting every allegation leveled at those who shaft us on a regular basis, stating that the priority for spending has to be operations.

What he and all the Islington Luvvies have singularly failed to grasp is that we need more money to pay for both operations AND daily UK acitivies such as training to ensure that they are not learning on ops. And without funding, that training will not happen. Regardless of what Bob and his cronies say.

Now call me a cynic, but it is quite interesting about all the talk of special schools and special hospitals that we have seen over the past few months. Wouldn't have anything to do with the unfortunate (and I use the term sincerely) position that the current PM and Leader of the Opposition find themselves in with members of their families - would it? I suspect that if Gordon and Dave had members of their immediate families in the Armed Forces and serving on ops, this thread and the entire issue would not be an issue.

I wait with baited breath to see what the UK NDA will achieve, but I suspect very little in real terms.

[Widger]

I wait with baited breath to see what the UK NDA will achieve, but I suspect very little in real terms.


You may be right but, at least there are three or four heavyweights in the association who should be able to make their voices heard. Don't forget also, that Adm West is the Security Minister and he understands fully the capability all three services have available/or not to bear.

[plans123]

For your run of the mill squaddie though, will his voice be heard? Or is it a case of it'll only be heard if they cough up the cash yearly or £100 for life membership...

Maybe they should concentrate on getting members of the Armed Forces to support them first by joining for FREE rather than put their hands in their already stretched sky rocket's.

[Oggin Aviator]

Don't forget also, that Adm West is the Security Minister and he understands fully the capability all three services have available/or not to bear.
As stated here. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6751959.stm)

Oggin

[Mr-Burns]

Why is it always former defence chiefs that speak out? Any chance of some present big-knobs saying anything?? methinks not.

[harrogate]

Am I right in thinking that Patrick Mercer is the Tory MP that Gordon caused a big hoo-haa about when he recruited him as an advisor on non-party line policies the other month?

If so - fair play. He's paying back Gordy by giving him the headaches he deserves, albeit possibly being seen as taking this into a wider party-lines policy debate.

[Biggus]

The minister states that spending on defence is due to rise by £8 billion (I'll work round figures) by 2011.

Lets say spending in 2007 (again I'll just mention one year, rather than 2007-2008, for simplicity) on defence is £35 billion.

So, spending rises as follows:

2007 £35 billion
2008 £36 billion
2009 £37 billion
2010 £38 billion
2011 £39 billion

Compare that to it staying at £35 billion each year and you have a £1b + £2b + £3b + £4b = £9 billion rise. Yet each year is less than a 3% increase, and the defence budget has not risen by £9 billion, i.e it is not now £44 billion!

A typical politicians trick. While what is said is accurate in once sense, it is presented in a misleading manner. Oh, and they are all as bad as each other, whether they be Labour, Tory, etc.....

I'm not saying this is exactly the case with the defence budget, but it is the sort of thing ministers get up to. In fact, I beleive I read somewhere that a large proportion of the £7.7 billion rise comes at the end of this period, in 2011 ish (a case of promising jam tomorrow!). So plenty of time between now and then to go back on promises, find excuses (such as not being in Iraq any more) to review/revise previous statements, etc.......

You may have got the hint that I am not too keen on politicians.....!!!

[Guzlin Adnams]

Most of them Rseoles.......:{

[GasFitter]

Any chance of some present big-knobs saying anything?? methinks not.

Of course they won't speak out whilst they are serving. They are employed by the MOD, a government department, and will therefore do their best whilst they're in the job. It's their, and our, duty to support HMG.

[Pontius Navigator]

For your run of the mill squaddie though, will his voice be heard? Or is it a case of it'll only be heard if they cough up the cash yearly or £100 for life membership...
Maybe they should concentrate on getting members of the Armed Forces to support them first by joining for FREE rather than put their hands in their already stretched sky rocket's.

Plans, I think you are confused. The NDA is different from BAFF. I may be wrong but I do not think they are seeking financial banking from mere plebs like us.

[WasNaeMe]

If ever the ‘UK National Defence Association’ needed a ‘gift’ to launch & maybe justify their existence, they should hop over to the ‘Nimrod Information / Panorama Mon 4th June (Merged)’ thread, watch the next Beeb news or read today’s Times online.

[Melchett01]

They are employed by the MOD, a government department, and will therefore do their best whilst they're in the job. It's their, and our, duty to support HMG.

Yet another one way relationship between the government and the forces.

PN - I had a look at the website, can't comment on the BAFF, but they do say that if you want to "join" you can do for either £12/yr or a one-off £100 life membership, the proceeds of which go to help the running of the website and various other fees etc.

[GasFitter]

Support doesn't mean a one way relationship. Our Senior officers should do our bidding for us, and say:

a. What is, and what is not possible.
b. Financial, material and personal cost of following a course of action
b. What the risks are.

[Melchett01]

Agree wholeheartedly with you there - the high paid help should be supporting us, telling the accountants where to get off and reminding the politicians that their actions now will have consequences for the future - probably for a generation at least.

Likewise, the Govt should be fsupporting and funding the forces adequately for the task at hand and to allow us something in reserve to cope with any nasty surprises that may be round the corner.

There are a lot of things that people in positions of authority should be doing, but they don't seem to be doing them. But we at the coal face, regardless of rank, service or specialization are constantly being reminded of our loyalty to and requirement to support a govt which is systematically breaking the back of the armed forces. Quite frankly, things have gone far enough that I do wonder whether it isn't time for HM to have a word with her PM about how he is treating her armed forces.

[GLOBRN]

UKNDA - Subscriptions.

I am the CE and Chairman of the UKNDA - and am pleased to tell readers that there are THREE ways to join the UKNDA as explained on our web-site www.uknda.org (http://www.uknda.org)

One: Sign up as a REGISTERED SUPPORTER - No subscription - i.e. FREE
OR:
Two: Join as a Member £12 p.a.
OR:
Three: Join as a Life member - a one off subscription of £100

Subcriptions are necessary to build up a fighting fund to achieve the aims of getting at least (!) 3% of GDP for the Armed Forces. Our Launch event, for instance, wasn't cheap to put on - and otherwise where's the money coming from for the web-site, brochures, publicity etc?

Anyway - our launch was a huge success..... 4,770 hits on our site on the day of the Launch (and good TV and Press coverage).

Join us now - we need you, your support - to help from the mass movement that will shake up all of the polticians and make them realise that the ARE "Votes in Defence" and that the lives of our people (and their own jobs) depend on our Armed Forces!

[Lyneham Lad]

Well, in view of my deep concern at the continuing gross underfunding of our Armed Forces and the unpalatable political deceits concerning such matters, I have joined the UKNDA. I only hope that, amongst other things, the media skills of the UKNDA can match (or better) those of the Whitehall spin-machines, otherwise it will be a lost cause.

My best wishes to this new organisation and I look forward to reading/hearing news of effective campaigns on behalf of all three Services.

LL

[GasFitter]

the high paid help should be supporting us

I think I hear what you say here, but I must admit that I'm not one of those who subscribe to the theory that those at the top would willingly sail our Service, and those who work within it, down the river without doing their best to represent us.

telling the accountants where to get off

I think we'd all love to do that, but the reality is that funding is a resource that we have to deal with, whether we like it or not!

HM to have a word with her PM about how he is treating her armed forces.

Living in this great democracy of ours means that it's the great British people who want New Labour to run our affairs (under our current electoral system). Once again, whether we like it or not, she may voice an opinion, but there's nothing she can do. People are more inclined to pay to vote on 'X Factor', 'Strictly Come Dancing' or 'Big Brother' every week than stick a free vote in a box every 4 or 5 years to elect a Government. We get what they want. They want more spent on Schools, Hospitals and Affordable Housing rather than fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it appears.

[pulse1]

Unless somebody does something new, funding for Defence is going to get even worse. According to James Kirkup, Political Correspondent of the Torygraph, the treasury is trying to claw back billions of pounds from MoD to pay for UOR's (Urgent Operational Requirements). UOR's have included buying armoured vehicles, enhanced body armour and fire supression for C130's.

An informed lobby group such as UKNDA could surely do something to keep this in the public domain. If not, it looks like the past failures to properly equip the services for the realities of battlefield conditions will be paid for with the lives of servicemen in any future battles. I.e. it will progressively get even worse.

[ORAC]

Looks like they're getting people behind them already, inclusing the Independent. :ok:

Renew the Military Covenant - in full (http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article3149962.ece)

'I certainly viewed Brown as unsympathetic to defence," says Lord Guthrie, the former Chief of the Defence Staff. In an interview with this newspaper he reveals that he came within a "couple of hours" of resigning over the 1998 review of defence spending. Was he saying that the spending he thought vital was approved by the Prime Minister but blocked by the Chancellor? "That is exactly right," he says.

This is an important warning to Gordon Brown. Lord Guthrie is one of the patrons of the UK National Defence Association launched last week. Formed to campaign for higher defence spending, the association is part of a growing movement demanding that the armed forces be given the resources they need to do the job we ask of them. It is a movement in which this newspaper is proud to claim a leading role.

That is why we devote so much space, on this Sunday above all others, to the question of renewing the Military Covenant. This is the document that sets out the terms of the deal: they risk their lives for our security; we undertake to give them the resources they need and to look after them and their families.

One of the consequences of British deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq is that Remembrance Sunday, which had increasingly become an occasion for re-learning history, has been infused with the new meaning of contemporary experience. What is striking is that the mood for this renewal of the Covenant is so broad-based. The situation is different from that of the Falklands war 25 years ago when large parts of supposedly progressive opinion regarded any show of pride in our armed forces as "jingoism". Today, a newspaper such as this one, which was most strongly opposed to the invasion of Iraq, is completely unembarrassed to demand that our military should be accorded more respect.

The Independent on Sunday supports the mission of our forces in Afghanistan and has always accepted that seeing through our obligations in that country is an expensive, long-term commitment. Indeed, one of our arguments against the Iraq war was that it would divert resources and attention from the Afghan theatre. So it proved, but that argument is in the past now. It must be accepted that even if the notional British presence that remains in Iraq were now withdrawn, it would not solve the overstretch problem of which Lord Guthrie speaks. Deployment in two major combat theatres simultaneously over the past five years has exposed the underlying shortfalls that have developed since the end of the cold war.

As we report today, the resource constraints – and, it must be said, the bureaucratic inflexibility – of the Ministry of Defence have resulted in too many avoidable deaths and injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan. Last week, a coroner confirmed that Fusilier Gordon Gentle died after the equipment that could have saved him was stuck in a warehouse. But the continuing human cost of those operations has exposed inadequacies in the aftercare to which soldiers and their families are entitled.

We have sought in recent years to draw attention to the poor state of much of the Forces' accommodation; to the failure to anticipate the need for separate military wards in NHS hospitals; and to the patchy provision of care for soldiers with combat-related mental illness.

So when Lord Guthrie says that defence spending was cut too far after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this should no longer be interpreted, as once it might have been, as a general trying to defend the purchase of hi-tech weaponry. Any more than it should be when General Sir Mike Jackson told this newspaper recently that "all roads lead to the Treasury", as he made the case for better armed forces' pay. If we are to fulfil our side of the bargain, we will have to spend more, not just on equipment, but on housing, health care and pay for our troops.

Well, the roads that once led to the Treasury now lead to No 10: the Prime Minister no longer has Mr Brown next door to stop him doing what is needed. Since 1984, defence spending as a share of national income has fallen from 5.3 to 2.2 per cent. Last month's spending plans give the MoD just enough to cover inflation over the next three years. At a time of two active operations, this is not enough. And last week's Command Paper rushed out to accompany the Queen's Speech is one of the more feeble "long grass" exercises we have seen. It fails to offer an honest appraisal of where the Military Covenant is broken and how it might be fixed.

This Remembrance Sunday, we hope that the Prime Minister, recent author of a book about military courage, will pause to consider Lord Guthrie's words about our obligation to our armed forces: "You've got to do a bit more than talk about it."

The cruellest sacrifice: Revealed: 88 casualties of MoD's failures (http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3150020.ece)

[FormerFlake]

Some sensible posts needed here with all the lefties about:

http://ios.typepad.com/ios/2007/11/the-cruellest-s.html

[Jack Aubrey]

I spent many years serving in Scotland and always enjoyed the robust dry humour of Scots. I rarely met any that I disliked.

Except one kind. The local occupants of the manse who walked around like jackbooted moral Nazis, despising everyone for their sins. And most of all they despise the military who are all godless, immoral, mindless servants of the devil, negligent of their moral duty and worst of all, Tory voters to the last.

I think that what the General meant was that Brown ****ing hates the military and doesn't give a **it how many of them die.

The man is a disgrace. His life is devoted to telling other people how they should live their lives. Rather than defending and enabling them to live their lives as they see fit. ****ing fascist!

[Pontius Navigator]

I think that what the General meant was that Brown ****ing hates the military and doesn't give a **it how many of them die.

The man is a disgrace. His life is devoted to telling other people how they should live their lives. Rather than defending and enabling them to live their lives as they see fit. ****ing fascist!

Oh, no, not another irresolute fence sitter. Make your mind up Jack. :)

[Lyneham Lad]

Each month the UKNDA publishes a brief(ish) newsletter and generally includes membership numbers. The latest one, received today shows the current state of play:-

Active (i.e. paid up) members: 1132
Inactive (not yet paid) members: 218
Registered supporters: 940
TOTAL: 2290


I find this very disappointing and wonder why the numbers remain so low, particularly given the vigorous support of our Armed Forces on this and other forums. It would be interesting to read what Ppruners think of the UKNDA, it's aims and achievements so far.

...and before anyone asks, yes I am, since early Nov.

[dunc0936]

I joined only a few months ago, When I was starting to plans for a march in London, Cmdr Muxworthy and And Smith were deadly against it, for various reasons, I still very happy to be part of the organisation and like yourself am suprised that the membership numbers are still so small especially with the number of serving and ex forces personnel around, however my contact has been brief with them and my offers of help have gone un answered recently so I do feel a bit disapointed

Regards


Duncan

[taxydual]

I've never heard of the UKNDA (and, no, I don't live in a cave somewhere).

BUT, looking at the line-up of the 'personalities' leading the cause, I do get the uneasy feeling of yet another 'Retired Gentleman's/Politician's/Senior Officers Luncheon Club' filling in the hour's between the odd Board Meeting, game of golf, cricket at Lords and Glyndebourne.

No disrespect to any of them (and more power to their elbow's if they mean business) but action is noticed. Inaction isn't.

I haven't noticed anything.

[advocatusDIABOLI]

Pehaps the fear is that it will be another 'quiet' thing, not mentioned on the 'open report' which stops any forward progress.

Just a thought.

Advo

[Father Jack Hackett]

"UK National Defence Association"

It would help if they came up with a title less redolent of an Ulster loyalist paramiltary group!