Tory MP Douglas Carswell ‘punished’ for damning army kit
From The Sunday Times
August 31, 2008
Tory MP Douglas Carswell 'punished' for damning army kit
Jonathan Calvert and Andy Rowell
A Conservative MP has been thrown off a parliamentary body after speaking up for Britain's "poorly equipped" troops in Afghanistan.
Douglas Carswell, MP for Harwich and Clacton, was excluded from the armed forces parliamentary scheme (AFPS) earlier this year for making outspoken attacks on the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and arms contractors following a trip to Kandahar as part of the scheme.
He revealed in parliament that troops are left without air cover because of inadequate helicopters. Carswell said the parliamentary scheme, which is financed by defence contractors and uses MoD resources, had attempted to censor him but he refused to be silenced.
"Having learnt from our troops on the ground some of the serious problems with helicopter shortages, and then raised the issue responsibly, I found myself slung off the scheme," he said.
"Worse, I discovered the scheme is funded by big businesses that might not want too many questions asked about the way the defence budget is currently being misspent."
The scheme was created more than 20 years ago by Sir Neil Thorne, a former Conservative MP. Its aim is to improve the quality of parliamentary debate on defence issues by giving MPs and peers some first-hand experience of the armed forces.
Last week Thorne said that Carswell was free to criticise who he liked. But the MP's membership was withdrawn after he suggested that defence companies were attempting to buy influence in parliament by giving money to the scheme.
"I haven't gone to all this trouble to build something up over 20 years to have it destroyed because somebody insists on dragging the AFPS name through the mud," Thorne said.
Carswell, 37, joined the armed forces scheme two years ago. He was given an honorary rank and was expected to wear a uniform while on visits to war zones. During the Kandahar trip in March 2007, he had a conversation with an RAF member about an "ancient" grounded Lynx helicopter. He was told that many Lynx craft were not compatible with the Afghan heat.
Back in the UK, the MP learnt that the MoD could have replaced the Lynx with US Black Hawk helicopters, but had already committed to a new Lynx generation apparently costing twice as much.
The Lynx are to be made in Britain by AgustaWestland, one of the three defence companies sponsoring the armed forces scheme. They each give £45,000 a year.
"The defence budget is being spent in the interests of some contractors, not our armed forces," Carswell claimed.