I might be mad to post this but...
Hi. I don’t have much time to look on the web these days, but I saw this thread and thought it was worth answering because this forum has been so important to me (re Nimrod and Chinook in the past most importantly where this forum was instrumental in campaigning) for what it can achieve. Popped in for a look and saw this about me. Which is a bit weird but fair enough considering I’m a candidate for the General Election.
I wanted to say a couple of things about the comments. In the spirit of PPrune I will probably (definitely!) get a hard time for this - but the RAF is the most formative part of my life so mad though I might be, thought I should…
Air Operations Officer - that’s there because people understand that better plus that’s the title I had in the joint roles I had in my time in the RAF. Flight Operations is fine with me too.
At the time of 9/11 I was OC ASCOT (we all now how unpopular that makes you) and I was the person sitting on the end of a phone trying to sort out where all our assets were and what we needed to do on that morning (I was in the US that day) and subsequently. As you know, the only air assets in Afghanistan for sometime after then were AT/AR assets - and did an amazing job despite a total lack of defensive aids (don’t get me started on that) - and I was the person overseeing that - alongside great planning and tasking squadrons. Clearly, there were many other fantastic people working in the same HQ - I think they would also concede that I was the one mainly on-call 24/7 for ASCOT for several months then.
Re Milosevic - even my bosses didn’t know about that - there were only a handful of people in the UK who were aware - and so I was not just ‘there’.
Re working with military charities - I have done lots of that work free of charge and have been asked to work (paid) at times.
I chose to be member of the Labour Party and so there is no way that I can be accused of ‘other parties won’t have me’. Many of you may not share my politics but those who know me know that I have the same principles and politics I had 20 years ago.
What’s wrong with South London? - Well I’ve not lived there for 26 years and I don’t belong there anymore - I am happy to be living in Gloucester as the first home I have not been posted to. It’s a great place in case you haven’t been here.
How’s it going on Defence issues? We need more people in Parliament who understand the military and will stand up for the people with whom we have served. I am on different sides of the political divide from some, but I love the RAF and will do my best to represent the RAF that gave me the most brilliant experiences of my life. There are MPs on the Conservative side that I am glad to see are ex-RAF and do the same.
I know many of you won’t agree with my politics but I genuinely think we need more of us (RAF/military) involved in politics to stand up for serving military and veterans. Give me a shout if you want to discuss any issues.
With the very best wishes
Sophy