Jess,
Agreed. And you can change something so much, that in the end it bears no resemblence and has none of the benefits the original example had anyway (if a frog had wings, it wouldn't keep bumping its arse, but it wouldn't be a frog anymore). So I'm not sure if another pressure group like BAFF wil be the ideal model in the long run. Formed with the best intentions and with very capable people, the easiest way to ignore something is to give it quasi official status, a seat at the table and then ignore it or suffocate it. The old adage 'I'd rather have the enemy inside the camp, pissing out, than outside pissing in' springs to mind.
Darling's budget last month would have made 66,000 servicemen worse off, and the make up of the ground force being what it is, that brunt would have been felt most by the Toms and LACs and SACs serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And what would have happened if we had had a pressure group? With the greatest respect to the RBL which does a fantastic job, (and as Beattie says) we simply don't need another mid level lobbying task force which is great at hammering on doors but just as used to having them slammed in its face. The troops need heat, not light - every man and his dog has a single issue policy group being paid to hammer away for them at Westminster now. And their impact is diluted. Another bog standard Federation would have got its salary justifying teeth stuck into the issue of losing the men 3/6 a month, and thats what the g'ment will have wanted. They can bat that sort of issue and problem away all day long - its used to it by now. And it'd tie BAFF up in knots until the cows came home. This new body needs to rise above that and be able to think
long term.
If you had independant 12 men and women, representing the interests of the soldiers, sailors and airmen, which had inroads into power at a level that you can't buy and can't be won by votes and one which wouldn't undermine the Chain of Command and which had sufficient balance, weight and gravitas, one which could quietly say 'Hang on Air Chief Marshall - the Hercs need ESF and the men need paying on time, please sort your life out. Will April of the year after next be sufficient time?', you'd be happy wouldn't you? Or conversely, to be able to testify as easily to the Select Committees 'Look - those aeroplanes need replacing and the houses need fixing and we really think you should do it quickly because there's an election coming up', then you'll be on the right lines.
The upper echelon of the (MoD) Civil Service has been far too heavily politicised for its own good. By way of a loose example, when the BBC Trust speaks, even the Mandarins take note because it hardly ever utters, but when it does, the world stops. Perhaps thats a model? The BBC had a board of Governors who together regulated the Beeb and represented the interests of the public, but not the employees. It was independent of the DG and the rest of the Executive Team. They had no direct say in programming, but were nevertheless accountable to Parliament (and us) for the BBC's actions. It now has the BBC Trust and the BBC Executive Board, which sets an overall strategic direction and exercises a general oversight. Clearly too, thats no good in itself, because the MoD is thankfully, unique and priceless. But its the sort of lines along which this new legislation should be thinking. God help the MoD if it does nothing and ends up with a version of the Nurses or Police Federation, which as we saw the other month, are inneffective and only make their members look like tw
ts. Either way, if the MoD does nothing and hides its head in the sand, it'll end up with something it probably won't like or want. It has to engage in this process properly, now.