Surely something is either unique or it is not? What does 'pretty unique' mean?

Well said sir ......... comparable to pregnancy: you is or you aint!

As for Sudan, it rather looks as if our lads and lasses in uniform have done very well, in contrast to the FO.
The Beeb has "The HMS ........." to add to its sins of course.

A team deployed to Sudan to conduct urgent airfield damage repair as part of the UK Joint Task Force.

The airfield was being used to evacuate Entitled People by multiple nations. This is the first time Airfield Damage Repair has conducted on Operations since the Falklands War.

The airfield being used by multiple nations to evacuate entitled people was in a poor state of repair, further exacerbated by the high tempo of heavy, multinational military transport aircraft The work enabled the continued evacuation of UK and other nations’ entitled people.

The team deployed as part of the @16AirAssltBCT Air Manoeuvre Task alongside @RoyalMarines under @UKJFHQ and supported by personnel from @24CdoRE and support from 11 Group @RoyalAirForce and 529 Specialist Team Royal Engineers (Air Support) @Proud_Sappers.


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....e91fe495b.jpeg


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....7ea225f46.jpeg
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As I feared, runway looks like a lightly bound/sprayed surface on probably shallow foundation. Fine for its intended purpose, not for 100t pounding. The lads are doing their usual grand job, maybe we could transfer them to UK road potholes when they get back?

Probably some lasses as well.

Thinks ................... do we deserve our armed forces? I fear we are becoming a third rate country with first class young service folk. When Sudan kicked off, allegedly the ambassador, his 2 i/c and Head of security were in UK, and only 4 / 10 FO staff were at desks [as opposed to WFH]. Sudan was exactly the type of situation where teamwork and togetherness and networking produces the best results ...... Zoom and emails do not cut it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...f-on-wednesday

Last UK rescue flight from Sudan to take off on Wednesday

The final UK rescue flight from Sudan is expected to take off on Wednesday, the government has said.

The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, said British nationals who wanted to leave the country need to make their way to the Coral hotel in Port Sudan by 10am local time (9am BST), adding that there would be no further British evacuation flights from the city.…

So far, 2,341 people have been evacuated on 28 flights, according to the government, which described its evacuations as “the longest and largest operation of any western nation”.

Downing Street said 1,195 were British nationals, with other nationalities, including Sudanese dependants of British nationals, also helped to leave….

In updated guidance on its website on Tuesday, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said:

“The UK government will run final evacuation flights from Port Sudan on 3 May. If you plan to leave Sudan, you should arrive at the Coral hotel in Port Sudan by 10am on 3 May to be processed to travel.

“After that, no further British evacuation flights will operate from Port Sudan.”….

Earlier, the foreign secretary said a British military presence remained at the country’s main seaport on the Red Sea coast as the situation remained dangerous.

As well as officials and military personnel in Port Sudan, the warship HMS Lancaster is off the coast to support Britons….

Reading ORAC's post and given that this particular snippet is in the Guardian, which means it is difficult to scorn, one wonders whether the original and typical attack on the government response was justified, or did the government pull its socks up following the criticism?

FB

And yet....
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fu4a18iW...jpg&name=large

I like it - partly for the 'neither up nor down' sleeves :E - seems consistent for both Gunner and Bootie?

The Regiment does also have FP Wing HQs and squadrons on sufficiently high readiness (the exact detail isn't for a public forum) to make them usable. Regiment were deployed.

[QUOTE=Rheinstorff;11430126]The Regiment does also have FP Wing HQs and squadrons on sufficiently high readiness (the exact detail isn't for a public forum) to make them usable. Regiment were deployed.[/QU

Thank you. By chance, the engineer who serviced our alarm a couple of days ago is ex-Regiment, noticed family photos and gave me his life story!

Only injury cut his "best days of my life" short. He was grumpy about Paras and RM getting all the limelight in recent years "doing our job for us".

The Regiment will always have a job - stuffing aircrew in the chamber and giving them ‘a little extra ‘ CS gas !
( if this still happens? )

Not only aircrew: you only need a pulse. 25 years since the last, and its just like yesterday. Oh Joy!

The view from a D Telegraph reporter.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnis...risis-at-home/

"Sorry, but I am puzzled by the huge fuss over evacuating British nationals from Sudan. As usual, much of our media class seized the opportunity to bash the Government for inefficiency and callousness.I thought the response was pretty prompt under the dire circumstances, although aggrieved reporters seemed to think people could magically be teleported from the chaotic carnage in Khartoum. I didn’t hear anyone ask: “Why is Britain obliged to offer a free rescue service to 4,000 people with dual passports who travelled to a war zone against official recommendations?”

In fact, UK Government advice is clear. Dual nationals in the country of their other nationality are not entitled to assistance. The vast majority of those being rescued are, to all intents and purposes, Sudanese.

Some gratitude to the British taxpayer who is footing the (presumably vast) bill would be welcome. I was intrigued to learn that the UK is remarkably generous with dual nationality which many other countries simply do not allow. Germany asks people with two passports to decide by the age of 18 which country they wish to be citizens of. Sounds sensible.

But this isn’t really about Sudan. What I want to know is, why is it possible for the British Government to mount a rapid response to a humanitarian crisis in a foreign country, while ignoring a humanitarian crisis in our own backyard?

Maybe if we put all the thousands of patients who are waiting a disgracefully long time for cancer care, people whose cancer operations have been postponed (striking doctors and nurses, take a bow!) or people who now have untreatable Stage 4 cancer (because it wasn’t picked up early enough) in apartment blocks and strafed them with gunfire then, perhaps, they might receive the urgent help the Government was able to whistle up for Sudan.

Am I the only one watching the 24/7 coverage of Khartoum, who thinks, where on earth are our priorities?"

Personally this brings to mind a declaration from the German government some years ago, that they were going to no longer go to extreme efforts to rescue German tourists who went on jeep-safaris into Morocco or Algeria and were taken hostage by terrorists, and this after numerous warnings about the danger. It's not exactly the same, but many similar elements.

Absolutely right Tarts. People go to a lot of effort to escape oppressive regimes and gain asylum in safe countries or just emigrate to them. Having gained a passport in the safe country the first thing a lot of them do is return to the place they left. I suspect there is a boasting attitude involved. They know full well that they will be removed when it goes bad despite being advised not to return. As for the disaster on our doorstep I despair. The way we treat veterans with problems is abominable, the NHS is crying poor but is employing diversity parasites and the pensioners in dire straits is an issue we should be ashamed of. There is a hundred year old in my town who hasn't had heating for three months. What a mess.

Lazy journalism pandering the the DT xenophobic/racist readership.

There is an implicit assumption that all 4000 British passport holders were dual nationals, with an underlying assumption that they were all primarily first generation Sudanese without any evidence being offered to support this view The second assumption, why does someone having the passport of a second country absolve the UK of its responsibilities when asked for help and assistance? Otherwise what is the point of the time and expense of getting dual citizenship if it is of no value? It is not granted on a whim. Finally, there is no mention of where any of these 4000 individuals were primarily resident. Many were visiting family to celebrate a major religious festival.
Could it have been foreseen and should they have travelled? Well, given absence of the ambassador, his 2 i/c and sundry others from the country al at the same time, one concludes either it was not or that they do not read their own advice.

Diplomatic staff have diplomatic immunity and are treated differently. There were warnings given by the Foreign Office well in advance. There is a rule about dual citizenship which says that British representatives will not assist dual nationals in the country of the dual nationality. These people were bloody lucky. Once again British servicemen were put at risk for a large number of undeserving.

On the contrary ......... an unkind and probably unfair view would be that they appear to have taken their own advice, and made themselves scarce, followed soon afterwards by the remainder of their staff, leaving our armed forces to tidy up.

Regardless of any good reasons for the above, it was, yet again, not a good look..

Difficult to know which one of the Home Office or the Foreign Office is more disfunctional.

Undeserving? You know their personal circumstances? Not your call I suggest.