Bob Ainsworth
In a previous life, not so long ended, I was on the crew of an RAF SAR Sea King tasked with flying Bob Ainsworth on a SAR training sortie. He was newly appointed as Minister of State for the Armed Forces and the aim was to contribute to his education on the role and capability of HM Forces.
The sub-text aspiration from within the SAR Force, as briefed to me by the movers and shakers, was to appraise him of the situation viz a viz SAR-H, in the vain hope that he would instantly recognise it's folly and move to reverse it. Vain as this hope was, they needn't have expended the effort. This corpulent minister squeezed into an immersion suit and proceeded to fain interest in what he was being told whilst airborne.
Both during the sortie and during discussion afterward he proved to be an intellectual pygmy, patently failing to grasp not only many basic aspects of SAR ops but also even the simplest issues associated with the consequences of the SAR-H initiative.
Where am I going with this? I guess, my assertion is that whilst corrupt, arrogant politicians are an issue, the fact that stupid corrupt politicians can rise to be Ministers is more worrying.
As an aside, in the early 80s he was a candidate member of the International Marxist Group - interesting provenance for an Armed Forces minister.
The man's an arse and I hope he's forced to resign.
Sun Who.