What impressed me the most in the whole sorry mess was the incredibly professional hatchet job – (for that’s what it was, in no uncertain terms) – that the Brigadier and the ex-CO of the QLR did on Morgan in their press conference. I was a total pleasure to see two senior officers handle the media so consummately well, making their case step by step so that even the journos could follow it.
I thought their real master stroke was the young Lance Corporal who demonstrated the two versions of the SA80. (And please, don’t let someone tell me that using a young LCpl - “just an average QLR squaddie” – (who handled himself and the media every bit as professionally as his Brigadier), rather than a SNCO or WO wasn’t a carefully considered part of the plan to show the high standard of the average soldier in the regiment).
I’m waiting with bated breath to see what will happen when the identities of the people who staged the fake photographs are revealed. Will the photographer turn out to be a squaddie (who just happened to know an awful lot – too much, in fact – about photography), or will the man behind the camera turn out to be a civilian photographer from the ‘Daily Mirror’?
I’m guessing that the gentlemen concerned will be wanting to be a long way away from any barracks, and will be ‘doing a Maxine Carr’ when they are released from prison, (which I hope will not be for a very long time). I also suspect that they might see at close hand some real ‘stress positions’ in any prison they might ‘attend’ after their trails.