How very clever indeed! I do take my hat off to the Prime Ministers Spin Doctors/
PR team.
I went to bed last night with Radio 4 headlines of US NATO Sec declaring that Britain would have to put more emphasis on Counter Terrorism in Afghanistan as the Dutch were 'wobbling'. The report backed up the claims in the Daily Telegraph that the Dutch were 'wobbling' due to the threat to their troops.
It was an anticipated that 4000 troops would have to be deployed to under take the ISAF task that will be taken over by the UK led ARRC in May.
4000 (increase of 1000 on initial press reports in Nov/Dec 05) troops being deployed on Ops in Afghanistan, how many in Iraq? How many left. And both are not Operationally benign theatres.
That was at 2300 last night - something I thought that the British public would be interested in and possibly concerned about as yet again Her Majesties' forces are deployed from UK shores that may see numerous body bags return to Brize Norton (I think some experts are equating to a possible Falklands size death toll).
But oh no - at 0600, Radio 4 eports that the police have uncovered 'chattering' in an 'extemist faction' of fathers4justice with a 'desire' to kidnap the Prime Ministers 5 year old son.
Please, please do not get me wrong - the kidnap of anybody, let alone a child is wrong, but without Govt or Police coment on the SUN report this has conviently stolen the limelight away from the potential deployment of 4000 UK troops into an area of Afghanistan that has not seen any coalition activity in at all, but is one of the major Afghan poppy growing areas of the world.
So this one will just again slip under the publics awareness or 'give a sh1t ometer until the first body bag does come back to UK, then it will be too late as they will already be there (just as in Iraq today) and Britain will be 'fighting' on 2 fronts.
But then again, I may be wrong and perhaps a possible 'chatter' about a 'unconfirmed' plan to kidnap the Prime Ministers 5 yr old son is more news worthy than the potential deployment of 4000 UK troops?