Conservative `Armed Forces Manifesto`

[kaikohe76]

People,

This is not necessarilly a direct plug for the Tories, but by publishing a Manifesto directly for the Armed Forces, it does show that they are at least thinking of the Military, which appears a lot more than the other two main parties are doing.

Unfortunately, so often in the past & present, the Armed Forces are used a political football rather, kept in the background & only brought out when the Sh*t really hits the fan. Now it appears at very long last, one of the Political Parties has had the common sense, to recognise the great debt that all of us owe our Servicemen & Women.

I just wonder the state of the UK Military in another five years, should the present shower be returned, or if they enter into a grubby little back room agreement with the LDs & manage to hang on that way.

[getsometimein]

I'm sure they'll never get into power, but the UKIP Defence Policy is worth a read...


40% extra spending on defense, increase all 3 services numbers by around 20%, increase from 17 frigates/destroyers to 30 etc etc etc... Its a great document for those in the forces!

[TheSmiter]

The Tory manifesto site here, Defence manifesto pdf on that page.

The Conservative Party | Policy | The Conservative Manifesto 2010 (http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Manifesto.aspx)

If these proposals were acted upon, it would make a welcome change for the Armed Forces community (inc families and vets) to have the respect of Government.

It doesn't alter the fact that the forthcoming SDR will mean BIG cuts all round. Whatever nice words Dave says about us, it's going to be some time before morale is back where it should be. IMHO of course.

As an aside, can anyone here or in Head Office tell us about the process of the Review? I've got as far as Green paper informs debate .......... then what?

Who has an input into SDR (MoD, FO, Treasury - I'm guessing) and who makes the final decisions? Finally, what's the timescale from initiation to publication to implementation.

Genuine query which affects us all.

[vecvechookattack]

From the Armed forces manifesto.

We will review the structure of the Ministry of Defence to reduce running costs by 25 per cent.

That worries me. There are a lot of good Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen in the MOD and to cut them by 25% is IMHO a step too far. That will mean a lot of redundancies....hope the package is generous

[alwayzinit]

Well a start would be to reduce the civil servants by 25%, you know the ones getting bonuses for buying the cheapest ammo, limiting stores in supply chain, not providing enough body armour or sending wholely inadequate vehicles into combat.

Now that would be a good start, but maybe its just me.

[Jimlad1]

"Now that would be a good start, but maybe its just me."

I'll bite - it is just you - I wish Civil Servants had half the power you ascribe to them. You'll find the decisions in question were forced on us by Ministers, or shock, horror, senior military officers.

Strangely, civil servants don't like messing the forces around, we're actually on your side and we tend to get hacked off when blamed for things outside our control.

Off to grumble, write letter to times, and find out where I left my life :-)

[Diablo Rouge]

"Did somebody say redundancy?"

Dam fine rumour to start if you ask me. Retire everybody at age 50 and keep the faith with the youth who never knew a time when the UK Armed Forces were one to be truly proud of. If you can remember leave travel warrants and (good) medical & dental care for family and serviceman, your out!!!

GB was on Sky News this lunchtime inspiring nobody with tales of 'leaked Tory documents' whilst looking in need of a haircut and a wash. He looked like a distraught individual to the point that if he continues like that, it would not surprise me if a new labour leader were placed on the pedestal toute suite.

[MATELO]

It wont matter who gets in. The uk military has a projected deficeit of 36 billion pound (as briefed by harry staish just the other week).

There again will be the need for sweeping changes and much much more belt tightening. Expect to see major bases, squadrons and regiments close and manpower cut (yet again). 20 years of back to back conflicts has pushed all 3 forces to the brink and taken its toll, something will have to give.

Afghanistan has to be finished and finished sooner, rather than later. This would alleviate the problem, but we are commited to Op Herrick for the long term, there is no let up in sight for the immediate future. So long as the MOD is haemorrhaging money towards this, then it is a bleak outlook for the future.

Anybody who has done time in the forces will know the amount of money that is wasted. DII being a classic example. Any school kid now could probably plan and install this sort of network. Granted, it is massive, but it is just a network. How theses cowboys are still working it out after 10 years is beyond the realm of thinking. :ugh:

I would love to see the future as being rosy, but I just cant see it.

[vecvechookattack]

Well a start would be to reduce the civil servants by 25%,

Damned fine idea but you know that the strawberries will be safe and the 25% cut will come from servicemen and women.

[Jimlad1]

"Damned fine idea but you know that the strawberries will be safe and the 25% cut will come from servicemen and women"

Sorry Vec, totally wrong - MOD CS has already been told to prepare for large scale job cuts (even more than the 40,000 we've had in the last 10 years) and grapevine indiciates we are to expect to lose at least 10- 15% BEFORE SDR (i.e. SDR is likely to bring another raft of cuts in).

As for Forces manpower - having heard a senior RAF Officer note that a lot of our financial issues could be solved by losing around 20,000 uniformed posts, you do wonder whether there is some sense in that if commitments / FE@R are cut too...

[TheSmiter]

Question I asked a few posts ago:


As an aside, can anyone here or in Head Office tell us about the process of the Review? I've got as far as Green paper informs debate .......... then what?

Who has an input into SDR (MoD, FO, Treasury - I'm guessing) and who makes the final decisions? Finally, what's the timescale from initiation to publication to implementation.


Jim Lad as you're here and I presume you work in town, can you answer any of the above?

I realise the main driver for SDR is financial, regardless of the spin which says we haven't had one for a few years; with that in mind, is it imperative to cut costs asap (ie this FY) or are we simply looking long term here?

Yours aye
Smiter

PS I fully respect the work that the majority of CS do for the military and I hope that most on here share the same opinion, although I'm prepared to be proved wrong. As I see it we're all in this together.

[Diablo Rouge]

>> losing around 20,000 uniformed posts

The smoke and mirrors solution to this one is civilianisation. Are there any more uniformed posts that could realistically go to contract?

I believe that already, UK alert state Red is unsustainable beyond a domestic site lockdown, due to a lack of people.

Combined Messing/Catering leading to further degradation of military tradition v PAYD. Can we afford 'tradition' anymore?

With any luck it will be the surplus of senior officers that take the biggest hit, after all each starred officer must be the equal of many junior rank airmen/soldiers/sailors. (& PTIs of course!!!!)

[Jimlad1]

Smiter

That is a really interesting question, to which the answer is "I don't know".

What the SDR is will depend on who wins and how brave they feel in tackling national finances. My own (vaguely informed) view is that the new Minister will be briefed on the current spending round and control totals to meet PR11 challenges - in other words, efforts to put the Dept back in the black again. Any SDR assumptions will be driven in part using the outcome of PR11 for force levels and procurement plans etc.

The chances of a purely policy driven review are nil - all parties will need to trim costs, and its a case of whether we have an SDR, then a Planning Round to balance books and undercut the assumptions, or a savage Planning Round, then an SDR to make a policy driven defence review based on whats left of HM Forces.

[Not_a_boffin]

The interesting bit about not being policy-led, is that we're pretty much at the point where its either stick with the SDR force structure (not actually bad, just never funded) and certainly revisit the planning assumptions re scale, duration and concurrency, or collapse on home base and become part of some mini-euro force based on what we already have capitalised (eg amphibious force, maybe CVF, Tiffie, C17, ASTOR) and play "niche". The latter is bad news (long term) if you're a pongo or a Foo and pretty much avoids the issue of deep strike unless JCA makes it through the planning rounds.

Still can't quite understand how butchering the E&SP line is going to make much of a difference (~£15Bn pa out of £700bn total government spending), particularly if it's a large proportion of capital spend which actually creates jobs, but no real expectation this will change anything. The real spend that needs to be cut is the resource element of the minor government departments, but again, p1ssing in the wind I suspect.......

[Trim Stab]

Afghanistan has to be finished and finished sooner, rather than later.

Actually, the whole point of the military is to actually carry out operations, not just endlessly rehearse for them. Herrick is what we are here for - too many people in the military seem to think they should just have a good time flying high performance aircraft for fun!

[Thelma Viaduct]

It's just part of the cycle where the government either sells what belongs to the country (privatisation) or just stops funding it all together.

They have nothing left to sell, so what little else they 'run' will fall in to a state of disrepair.

There is a silver lining however........eventually they'll have no responsibility at all, as they will have either sold or ruined what little they control and will therefore be no need for the leeches.

Cons are no better than any other party, they're just more up front with how they go about screwing people over.

[vecvechookattack]

Actually, the whole point of the military is to actually carry out operations, not just endlessly rehearse for them. Herrick is what we are here for - too many people in the military seem to think they should just have a good time flying high performance aircraft for fun!

Totally agree. We need Afghan....we need Iraq...Its what we do. We must stay in Afghan and Iraq for as long as it takes

[TheSmiter]

Jim Lad thanks for your input - pretty much confirms my own world view!

We're totally screwed whoever takes power, and you know what, I 'm beyond caring.

From Hansard 20 Oct 1998


Those voting Aye failed to change the motion before the House from:This House approves the conclusions of the Government's Strategic Defence Review (Cm 3999) to:This House welcomes those aspects of the Strategic Defence Review which build on Conservative policy and which take forward jointery and rapid reaction capability; but deplores the proposed cuts in money, men, ships and planes; notes that, far from being foreign policy led, there are no clear foreign policy objectives, that defence spending between 1996-97 and 2001-2 will fall by £2,166 million in real terms with inevitable consequences for capability, that the Territorial Army is to be cut by almost one third, that the RAF is to have fewer planes and the Royal Navy fewer submarines and surface ships; seriously doubts that the planned replacements for aircraft carriers will ever be built by a Labour Government; believes that the problems of over-stretch and morale have not been adequately addressed; and deplores the fact that the armed forces will be asked to do more in a dangerous world with fewer men and less equipment.

The original motion then passed automatically.


Deja Vu :ugh:

Depressing isn't it?

[Spot 4]

IMHO we DO NOT need Iraq nor Afghanistan and the longer we keep pretending to be a super power, the more indebted the country will become.

We do however need to convince Argentinia* that the Falklands are best left alone and Russia that sending Blackjacks to Stornoway could end up with them being on a one-way mission. Gordon today voiced rhetoric about Somalia and Yemen being on his shopping list: With What??

Whether you agree or disagree is largely imaterial as the inevitable UK Defence Force Plc will only be fit for homeland defence and our Commonwealth and NATO commitments will be a distant memory.

*Of course the Argentinian conscripts will be well aware of the battle experienced UK Armed Forces. That will do much for their morale....Not!

[MATELO]

too many people in the military seem to think they should just have a good time flying high performance aircraft for fun!

I think you will do many pilots a dis-service with that sweeping comment tbh. Every pilot in the Forces would readily go to the "front line" and carry out their "duty". Many have and many will carry on doing so.

[Jabba_TG12]

Smiter @ Post 18#

Indeed, it does look depressingly familiar. :(

[Talk Reaction]

What ridiculous nonsense that we 'need' Iraq and Afghanistan'!!!

Yes our purpose is to do our job, but we don't need to constantly have a war to exist - that would truly make us a self licking lollipop, always looking for a fight to prove we're needed.

Our purpose is to defend the UK, secondarily to that we action UK foreign policy.

What we need is to be able to do the first effectively and without doubt.

I think there is no place in the modern military for anyone who could be so stupid as to say 'we need a war, it's our job' , bloody cretin. :mad:

[cazatou]

Talk Reaction

The last year that did not see a British Military Fatality on Active Service was 1968 - a year that the originator of this thread (and I) spent in the sandpits of the Middle East.

Every year since then the Armed Forces of the Crown have had to do more with less.

[sikeano]

Since when, did we start believing the politicians. :yuk:

[racedo]

Anything in the document of ensuring families can live in decent accomodation after all who was it that flogged it off. Frankly some of it is best pulled down and rebuilt and then pay BG to look after servicing it.

None of them are worthy of a vote but vote I shall as always even if I spoil it.

[cazatou]

sikeano

The answer to your question is May 1940 - but we stopped doing so after Churchill and Attlee had left Office. They, of course, both had Combat experience.

[Jackonicko]

Why single out Churchill and Attlee?

Only illness or other legit excuses prevented Wilson and Home from active service, and apart from them, every postwar PM up to Thatcher 'got some in' - Eden and MacMillan with particular distinction on the Western Front.

"During the First World War, Eden served with the 21st (Yeoman Rifles) Battalion of the King's Royal Rifle Corps, and reached the rank of captain. He received a Military Cross, and at the age of twenty-one became the youngest brigade-major in the British Army. At a conference in the early 1930s, he and Adolf Hitler observed that they had probably fought on opposite sides of the trenches in the Ypres sector."

"Macmillan served with distinction as a captain in the Grenadier Guards during the war, and was wounded on three occasions. During the Battle of the Somme, he spent an entire day wounded and lying in a slit trench with a bullet in his pelvis, reading the classical Greek playwright Aeschylus in the original language."

"Heath spent the winter of 1939-40 on a debating tour of the United States before being called up, and early in 1941 was commissioned in the Royal Artillery. During World War II he initially served with heavy anti-aircraft guns around Liverpool (which suffered heavy German bombing in May 1941) and by early 1942 was regimental adjutant, with the rank of Captain. Later, now a Major commanding a battery of his own, he provided artillery support in the North-West Europe Campaign of 1944-1945.
He later remarked that, although he did not personally kill anybody, as the British forces advanced he saw the devastation caused by his unit's artillery bombardments. In September 1945 he commanded a firing squad to execute a Polish soldier convicted of rape and murder, a fact that he did not reveal until his memoirs were published in 1998."

"Callaghan joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve as an Ordinary Seaman in World War II from 1942 where he served in the East Indies Fleet and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in April 1944.[3] While training for his promotion, his medical examination revealed that he was suffering from tuberculosis and was admitted to the Royal Naval Hospital Haslar in Gosport near Portsmouth. After he recovered, he was discharged and assigned to duties with the Admiralty in Whitehall."

I think the rot set in under Wilson - before him, it's hard to contest the view that politicians (of all colours) tended to enter politics for benevolent and altruistic reasons, after him, it's hard to see any major UK politicians as being anything other than self-serving and selfish.

As to the Tories, recent history would seem to show that they will talk the talk, that they will do a reasonable job at looking after those servicemen who remain in service, but will cut force structure and procurement more fiercely and more dramatically than Labour.

[Wander00]

And further down the hierarchy, ref a former Defence Minister, if I remember correctly, Denis Healey was a Beachmaster on D-Day

[kaikohe76]

Cazatou,

Good & happy times 1968 doing our stuff in the sand. Have sent you a private message with my contact details.

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

Wander00. I believe that was the same Denis Healey who stated publicly, in a wireless interview, that he would not have commanded a nuclear retaliation when he was Wilson’s 2IC. It’s also quoted here (OK, it’s the bloody Mail); HMS Apocalypse: Deep in the Atlantic, a submarine waits on alert with nuclear missiles that could end the world..... | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1090400/HMS-Apocalypse-Deep-Atlantic-submarine-waits-alert-nuclear-missiles-end-world--.html)


If Wilson and Downing Street had been destroyed by a bolt-from-the-blue, Healey would have had to take the retaliation decision.

What would he have done?

Lord Healey: 'I would not have retaliated'
Sitting in his sun-filled conservatory, overlooking the South Downs, he was clear: he would not have retaliated. ‘I would have said that there is no reason for doing something like that. Because most of the people you kill would be innocent civilians.’

A seeming drawback of politicians who’ve “done a bit” is that the horrors they remember can make them border on pacificism. It has been argued in the past that Gen Montgomery was inclined to be overcautious in the “second lot” due his butcher’s bill memories of the “first lot”

On balance, though, I’m inclined to prefer an ex serviceman in Parliament than some career political activist or overly gobby solicitor

[Talk Reaction]

Cazatou,

That's an interesting and slightly sad statistic. I should be clear, I've spent a lot of time on ops and generally on balance think what I've been involved in has been worthwhile, I simply feel that those who say such glib comments as 'we need afghanistan to justify us/its our job' are stupid. In an ideal world simply being would be doing our job as a deterrent to aggressors. As you so adroitly pointed out, we definitely don't live in an ideal world, an unpleasant things need to be done. That said, I would happily give up my job if things changed meaning no more British servicemen needed to die or be injured unnecessarily - and I would NEVER quote the need for a war as a justification for my existence.

I wonder if British forces hadn't committed to so many 'peace-keeping' etc type missions since the end of the cold war, whether we would be anything like the size we are today, or if we would already be a small defense force. Alternatively of course, perhaps the cost of all these ops has in a way forced some shrinkage.

Musings aside, it will be a much better day when we are not required to do anything other than be ready - I hope it isnt another 42 years away.

[VinRouge]

Tory Manifesto hints towards a possible Bomber Command Medal.

Shame it will be 65 years late and many who survived such attrocious odds will be unable to receive it.

[cazatou]

Jackonicko

I referred to Churchill and Attlee as they were Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister in a Coalition Government for 5 long years of War between 1940 and 1945. At no time during that period could they have been accused of placing Party before any other consideration.

One might also consider that Churchill had a far greater experience of such matters than both pevious and later incumbents. He had trekked with the Malakand Field Force, charged with the 21st Lancers at Omdurman; had been captured by, and escaped from, the Boers during the South African War and subsequently fought against them (with a price on his head) whilst serving in the Imperial Light Horse.

He subsequently became 1st Lord of the Admiralty and later in WW1 fought on the Western Front as a Battalion Commander before becoming Minister of Munitions and subsequently Secretary of State for War.

Attlee, as you may know, was often referred to by his supporters simply as "The Major"; recalling his service in WW1 with the South Lancashire Regiment.

Churchill and Attlee proclaimed for all to see the unification of ideals and the coordination that portrayed the British War effort between 1940 and 1945.

[cazatou]

Talk Reaction

Your #31

I wholeheartedly agree with your closing sentiment.

[JackRyan]

http://www.freewebs.com/christiansocialism/05.gif

Whatever your political affiliation, you have to be disgusted that Labour can win an election with this little red on the map. Whoever wins, I really hope there's some electoral reform. How can you finish 3rd and win? Brown is currently our unelected Prime Minister. If he musters a majority from 2nd / 3rd place then that's hardly a mandate either.
:ugh:

[Ken Scott]

Nice map, but isn't the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland, all of which is voting, missing a couple of bits?

[Jackonicko]

It also needs to be said that much of the blue area is sparsely populated, while some of the small red splotches are our biggest and most populous cities.

Unless we invent a new form of suffrage, based on one acre one vote, it's an irrelevant map.