Night Cameron Blocked Robbie Williams Entrance – Mail
Government Finally Orders 20 Chinook Helicopters - Mail
More Smackheads than Tories in N.E. Glasgow – Chris Dillow
Mandy’s Speccie Speech – Tory Bear
Keetch Denies Affair – Hereford Times
Brown is Plunging Down the Same Abyss as Major – Whittam Smith
Going Postal – Tim Harris
Mrs Bercow Stands as Labour Candidate – Paul Waugh
 |
||
 |
 |
Lord Mandelson said when accepting his award from the Spectator…
“It is a great honour to be the first winner of this prestigious award to come from outside the ranks of the Bullingdon Club since 2006. I am not sure what the collective noun for Bullingdon Club members is – I am looking for the word. I know its not chumps.”
-GOLD (DEC)
As at 0701 GMT 10 Nov 2009
Flat – no positions +57.16%
As at 1450 GMT 6 Nov 2009
Why is Deperate Dan in the cartoon?
eh up lads didnt we do well yesterday and if cook strauss kp and ravi see this DONT LEAVE IT TO MONTY AND JIMMY AGAIN
Fred. Dunkirk was not a victory. To be shafted for 4 1/2 days by a mediocre aussie side then saved by a sterling innings from the most underestimated batsman in the team together with heroic innings from Anderson and Monty is not doing well. A little more application from the No.7 would have been welcome as well. Stauss’s Captaincy was shit : he can’t operate with 2 spinners and his body-language indicated a distrust of the potential match winners on a turning pitch. Broad was over-bowled, he’s still not into his prime and bowling so many overs on a slow turner must have dented his self-confidence. KP wanted to be somewhere else for 5 days.
Make Collie skipper, let Strauss concentrate on his bowling, bring back Key and Harmie for Lords.
Sorry -Batting
you seen strauss bowling lad ?
rob key and harmie in the lords now that would be funny lad
And for pity’s sake, Cook has had plenty of chances to prove himself. Get rid.
grumpy old man we have played loads of 20/20 its hard to keep changing from test to odi colly was awsome lad and at least the tail showed some bottle
The only thing funny about watching Rob Key would be the sight of an english-born batsman scoring a double century at Lords. If you remember, he was dropped after this feat a few years ago for pie-eating instead of leaving his talent in the gym.
and i got a fine for having afew drinks in the west indies at the world cup its just not cricket lad
well the way monty was batting maybe he should open ?
Don’t forget the part played by that bearded chappee who came onto the pitch with the physio towards the end. It takes guts to show gamesmanship like that.
Who would have thought that the hero od the day would be Monty with the bat!!
Sterling job in the end and a well deserved draw, the look on Ricky Ponting’s face as he shook hands was worth the effort. Now on to Lords on Thursday…
can i just say that the support at cardiff was outstanding
Only heard the last few overs (elsewhere yesterday) but it was the sort of drama that only Test cricket can produce. Full marks to Paul Collingwood (I personally rate him very highly as an all-round cricketer) and to Jimmy and Monty. However, we should not have allowed ourselves to be in that position in the first place.
Freddie was the pick of our bowlers, Jimmy Anderson was class at times, but the spinners disappointed. The pitch killed the game for us – too flat, allowing the Australian batsmen too much comfort, and our batting was, in all honesty, pretty lamentable.
Steve Harmison is bowling well at present – replace Monty (sorry Monty) with Harmy at Lords, and read the riot act to the batsmen.
Sorry batting! – indeed!
I agree entirely, I would even go as far as to say England were cheating at the end…..sending on players with gloves and water and even the trainer, that was crap!
Lets be quite clear about one thing; you cannot discipline one player (Patel) for lack of fitness and then select Key (or Bunter as I believe he is known in pro circles). It is unfair to say he cannot move fast, but unless they are planning to leave a plate of cream cakes on the field I would not expect it. Best to listen to the whispers in the aussie camp that they are pleased Bell is not playing. He may lack confidence due to the appalling captaincy of Vaughan, Pietersen and (worst of all) Strauss but, as the aussies say, he is the only England bat with test technique.
O/T but Kate Garroway interviewed Millipede on GMTV this Morning. How can this political interview on a major news channel ever be considered impartial?
To a point she did challenge certain points he made but let him still spout propogander when most people would be shouting at the TV
“ask him that go on ask him!!” she didn’t of course. Garroway should not be allowed to intereview Labour party people as no doubt it was all arranged at the party the night before given that Dolly is one of the chief spinners etc and the wider Joe public does not know the connection.
No doubt Dolly made sure she was fully briefed on what to ask before she left for work this morning.
Nu Labour cancer is everywhere,there needs to be a CULL when Torys get in.
Who the hell watches GMTV?
Quite a lot actually and they believe the spoon fed shite given as fact
“coz it woz on the telly wannit”
You are quite right. But I have learnt that British women spend an average of £1.1 Billion EVERY MONTH on cosmetics/beauty products.
A bright idea occurs: Hike up tax on these products by 50% if not more, then you’d rake it in.
Yes I’m Femail, but certainly NOT your average one!
Who the hell watches GMTV?
Dolly?
Cricket is shit. Play for five days and the game is drawn. The Ashes trophy is ridiculous as well.
It woz the physio wot won it.
And the Aussies would never have thought of doing the same now, would they..??
underarm bowling remind you of good sportsmanship lad ?
Strauss is not up to the job of captain.
it should be kp lad strauss a bit wet
kp is not enough of a team player! Colli knows all about that!
Did Gordo wish Kevin Rudd good luck for the Ashes at the G8?
Let’s all hope so – it’s quite probable after watching yesterday’s match.
Quite a few Aussies crying into their pints by the time it finished, I think they’re all now Formula 1 fans!
Pontin had a face like a smcked arse MAGIC
No, it’s desperate El Gordo
If they changed the name to “Ministry for War” rather than Ministry of Defence would they then spend money on the army?
Silly question Liebour doesn’t do war do they.
It used to be the War Office until they went all fluffy pc and changed it to Ministry of Defence.
I think this cartoon is one of the most important the boys have done in a long, long time. I think it is very telling. Brown’s friends have noticed that there is something lacking. Pity it is taking the lives of hundreds of British military personnel to prove the bloody point to them. Question is what are they going to do to stop him killing any more of them?
Brown under attack, Guardian under attack – couldn’t happen to two more deserving targets
Agree with that TN. It’s a very good ‘toon.
( Makes McM look like he’s about to lose bladder control. Surely that could never happen……? )
What a load of bollocks- you cannot fight wars without killing and being killed. End of.
It don’t matter what fancy equipment is used, the enemy will find the weak spot and attack it. I we had heavily armoured APC’s the Afghans would switch tactics.
The real problem is that there is no point to this war.
‘Ere, you been reading my blog?
Or mine, Cato!
The “strategy”, such as there is, is to drive out the Taliban and hold some provinces so the upcoming Election doesn’t look a total farce. Worth all those deaths ?
Of course the Government of Hamid Karzai, the Mayor of Kabul, will still be knee deep in corruption and it still operates a Taliban “light” Policy of Governance that sees most of the power on the ground still in the hands of the warlords and tribal chieftans as well a there being widespread adherance to strict Shariah Law.
An unflattering report by leading think tank the International Crisis Group this week said poor security and failure to capitalize on gains since the 2004 poll meant widespread fraud was possible in the voting.
Karzai has appealed to the Taliban to vote in the upcoming Elections but tha is unlikely to say the least.
It also needs to pointing out that Al Qaeda are not the same as the Taliban since Brown is bombarding Britain with the “fight them over there” propaganda.
There is no endgame or clear strategy past the August Election except hoping for the best with the same President that has presided over the last 4 years on violence and Taliban resurgance.
A prolonged offensive was also suposed to drive the Taliban to the negotiating table but again, absolutely no sign of that.
War is about killing – not ‘arts-n-minds, whatever those are. Fuck the locals and the wimmin’s ferris wheels, stop sending in 18 year-olds in shit vehicles, instead target the few bastards at the top – and kill them. And make it clear we’re coming to kill them. Only the Israelis seem to have the right approach to modern terrorist warfare.
This utter c*nt Brown and his lickspittles are killing our Troops. I f*cking hate Brown more than that tosser Blair.
One look at the CV of the marxist metalbashing lickspittle in charge at defence (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1199239/Lack-leadership-Brown-killing-soldiers-claims-Army-brass-dead-named.html)
explains exactly why the treason continues.
Liebour cabinet in toto should be shot at dawn on day one after the next election.
No, do it now.
The Penguin
No Labour MP has any Military experience the bunch of cowardly spinless f*ckpigs. Ainsworth is a commie c*nt. String the yellow bellied scumbags from the lamp posts, except for Brown, Blair & Prescott they can by used for bayonet practice.
With a magazine of 30 rounds, load, ready, at the Labour b*stards to your front, watch and shoot, watch and shoot.
AN EXTRACT FROM THE BBC ARTICLE FROM THIS BLOG (TOP OF PAGE)
But Tory former defence secretary Lord King said the Americans had eight times as many helicopters for the number of personnel.
“A really critical shortage is helicopters,” he said, adding that the UK had “never had enough troops to do the job”.
A former commander of British troops in Bosnia, Col Bob Stewart, also said more soldiers were needed in Afghanistan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Rammell
But armed forces minister Bill Rammell told the BBC troop numbers had been increased from 5,500 to 9,000 and that the international force had been bolstered by an extra 20,000 US personnel.
“We keep troop levels under review but we believe we have got the numbers to do the job,”
Shameful, shameful, shameful. That awful apology for a Defence Minister spinning ‘operational secrecy’ as a legitimate reason for not giving a straight answer to how many troop-carrying helicopters we have deployed in the field.
This goes much deeper than ‘tractor stats’ – it is blank denial of a conspiracy to betray our troops. Is their anti-colonialist ideology so warped that it has made NuLab ashamed of the Army that defends our shores?
Brown started to roll out his plan in 1984. Shameful, evil, treachery.
I would have drawn the “green shoot” bursting forth from our dead soldier’s chest, like in Ridley Scott’s Alien. (And who “cultivates” the alien in the story?).
Have I missed any comment on That’s News or elsewhere about this extraordinary headlie (not a typo) on the front of yesterday’s Observer?
Never mind Operation Panther’s Claw. This is Operation Cat’s Paw – using the military to construct Gordie the Statesman. Obama showed more compassion for British dead than any of our own shoddy specimens.
Hard for Gordon to evade this one. He was in charge of the purse strings for so many years.
Kin weired that he can throw money away at Northern and Scottish banks and Trident missile systems but not pay for proper equipment for troops on the ground.
The US has in excess of 100 Chinooks we have 12
enough said.
The Landrovers for the foot patrols are US rejects and not well protected.
Labour have not protected the troops as they should do but still argue that they have everything they need. So why does Dannat the Chief of the Defence staff stand up and states the direct opposite.
Who do you believe?
Lions led by donkey’s
Lions killed by cowards with ieds.
No, London Muslim has a point. Dannatt excepted, the rest of the service chiefs have been far too busy climbing the greasy pole and chasing their pensions and defence consultancies and pet toy projects to be effective leaders and to stand up for their troops and what they need and make a noise about it… until they’ve retired and their pensions are safe. Then they start grumbling. THAT is cowardice.
Dannatt is highly respected by his men, because he puts his career neck on the line and says it how it is. Because he has been a thorn in Brown’s side, he was passed over as Chief Of The Defence Staff and his career will come to a grinding halt, which is why that quisling Stirrup was extended in post.
Lions led by donkeys is an accurate statement. Read Lewis Page’s book, Lions, Donkeys And Dinosaurs. It shows you how bad it has got.
There is a need for complete root and branch reform of MOD from the top down. Despite the fact that Joint Operations such as this are the way forward and that the tri-service model works very well, the single service chiefs are still too busy protecting their own empires rather than advocating what is necessary for capable and effective defence of the realm. Labour are never going to have a grip on this and Cameron needs to do so and FAST if he is to get my vote and the respect of the services.
No different with the cops either. Completely bereft of leadership.
12 Chinooks? Watching the TV series about the RAF in Afghanistan I’m sure they said 8. Perhaps the number has gone up since that film was made?
How many could you buy for £10.9 billion(govs loss on lloyds/rbs). Another sterling achievment..well done you lot well done.
Eight ? i thought it was four ? I watched a program the other night Which said when we first went to the falklands we only went with six harriers and TREE Westland choppers ! Of which Two crahed on the first mission !
Probably 4 stripped for parts to keep the other 8 flying.
How is it that a powerful, rich country like UK with a well trained army and reasonably good equipment cannot win against a comparatively few guys equipped with only guns and bomb making equipment? The Afghans /Taliban soldiers are probably living off the smallest amount of food and living in primitive conditions with scarce any body armour. Perhaps when it comes down to it, it’s because the Afghans/Taliban actually believe in what they are doing, and have fire in their belly? With all the fire power at their disposal USA couldn’t win out in Vietnam. Russia couldn’t win out in Afghanistan – lost c10.000 men. Why should we think we will be any different?
If politicians pontificate about the necessity of war, then I think they should be willing to actively participate.
Russia’s loss in Afghanistan was not down to AK47 equipped stone-age tribesmen but western supplied stinger missiles taking down countless Russian ‘copters. It was the Yanks in 2001 who backed the Northern Alliance and its warlords. The Taliban in the late 90s had stopped the poppy/opium trade. Now, under the Yanks/Brits, it is back to pre-Taliban levels. Do some research. think about what’s really going on.
Take a look at Charlie Wilson’s War, starring Tom Hanks. True story, good film.
India has 700,000 troops occupying Kashmir.
The Afghans are fighting on their own soil – they know the land inside out.
I suspect we would be as determined if the fighting was happening in our own green and pleasant land.
Read your Kipling ! Some things don’t change and anything involving foreign troops on the ground long term, is doomed to fail – ( Judging by the precedent of the last 2,000 years).
At this point it is my great pleasure to nominate the comments on Afghanistan made by ‘Dr’ John Reed, as the most offensively fatuously ignorant , by a nulab politician in this Parliament.
The Soviets built schools for girls (and boys), hospitals and other infrastructure but the locals didn’t want that and went for the ’stinger’ option. They went for Afghanistan for the same reason we are there, to wit to fill a security blackhole. The irony is that out of theatre NATO is doing the Russians a favour and attracting every lunatic Islamic irredentist from their Southern Flank to the fight.
The least we can do is make 100% sure that the military have everything they need and then some. 5% off welfare for a start and a halt to expensive immigration of extended families.
In 1940,when Britain faced invasion,we attempted to convince the Jerries that we had a defensive weapon utilising petrol pumped under the landing beaches to set the sea on fire.We also helpfully dropped leaflets on the troops across the channel warning them of what they would face.Dads Army is a funny show,but the essential truth of old boys with carving knives tied to broomsticks,is not as far fetched as believed.If invasion had taken place,do you doubt we would have used all available means to fight, including chemical weapons? There was a popular saying of the time”you can always take one with you”
When you fight in somebody elses land,be sure you know the purpose,because to them it can be very obvious
Britain is not any differrent to Russia in the respect of experiencing heavy losses. In 1842, Britain lost around 10,000 military and civilian personnel in the retreat from Kabul.
It was and is a tribal society and does not relate to the organised Westrn dictates that are being imposed upon them. Historically, Afghanistan has always been a thorn that pricks the occupying forces.
British armed-forces were and are, I believe, the best in the world bar none. Britain knows Afghanistan historically. Ultimately, like Iraq, occupation is not an option.
The Government has to ensure that correct support is provided to the front line and the front line command should determine what, is that level of support, and the objectives that are required.
I do not believe that a Politician would volunteer to be in the front line command for the duration. However, I would like to be proven wrong in that belief.
The number probably varies.
Link
This a Sky news article; about the eight Chinooks we have had for seven years which have never gone into service because of software problems.
This is a typical MOD recruitment cock-up.
Someone [Yanks] have some kit that works and is affordable. We buy it, but must have Rolls Royce engines/ assemble it here/have better software so the end result is this type of cock up, done as a sop to the British Industry.
I bow to no one in my dislike distrust and disappointment of Brown but there is probably plenty of money there, they just cant spend it sensibly.
Having said that short term if the soldiers in the field need the kit then just give it to them, sort out the inefficiencies later.
We purchased 8 Chinooks from the USA without the software codes in order to save money. When we needed them they told us to get lost – quite rightly. The money now spent on trying to get these aircraft into the air is now many times the amount the MOD thought they could save.
We don’t have 100,000 people in the MOD for nothing, you know. Work on the basis that these jobsworths generally hate the services and everything falls into place.
They keep messing arround with procurement, though.
Redirect our EU contribution to the war effort. Needs must.
Never mind what he threw at the banks and Trident. What about the millions he gave Mugabe recently? He’s more interested in keeping the global warming stealth taxes scam going than in supporting our troops. The one-eyed wanker should be destroyed, but two problems prevent this:
1) The British public are mostly supine tossers. We saved the Frogs from the Nazis and THEY lead the way in standing up to shit leaders.
2) To get rid of the unelected, detested, one-eyed Scottish puppet we have to go over Mandelscum first.
Is this cartoon for or against the war? Always hard to tell what point Rich and Mark are making.
Especially for you.
Most effective cartoon for weeks. Justified constructive criticism from the Gods has upped the standard.
One of their better cartoons by far. Unfortunately, not exactly a high standard to beat, but credit where it’s due.
It almost makes you want a decent cartoonist to redo it.
I would say it is neither for nor against the war but makes a point about Brown’s peculiar view of things. Best cartoon for a long time; damning and poignant.
Absolutely. Drawing’s crap as usual but the point is well made!
Seconded
Third rate as usual
Borderline offensive
However, a good statement about Jonah’s funding for the MoD
lampoons are offensive it’s the nature of the beast
Not up to Gilray’s standard, by a long way!
4 = arse.
It beggars belief that we can fund all the equipment required to train up “athletes” to take part in a two week party in London but can’t find the dosh to buy our troops proper equipment fighting in some pointless war in a country that doesn’t want them there anyway.
It’s a question of priorities, you see.
It is much more important that the Afghanis have a Ferris wheel than that the money goes into strengthening the weakened bridges over the canal system and therefore allow the troops to use more heavily armoured vehicles.
How much do helicopters and vehicles like the Americans have cost? And would £470, 000 be a useful contribution? Cos that’s what the Fun Park cost.
Hardly pointless, there’s a hell of a lot oil in the Caspian Sea you know. Funny how Gov., can use the words democracy & anti-terrorism, when it really means, making it friendly enough for us to build pipelines across.
They will never build a pipeline across Afghanistan from the Caspian Sea. Apart from the impossible terrrain, where would it go? The markets are to the west not the southeast. There are already four oil & gas pipelines coming out of that region one through Russia and the rest through Georgia & Turkey.
The war in Afghanistan has got nothing to do with oil. Perhaps you are confused with Iraq?
Soldiers are trained killers. Their modus vivendi is war.
No it to carry it to the oil hungry S.Asian market. Still the only viable Country to use,
1 Chinook Helicopter= £8 Million- war is expensive.
And profitable.
There seems to be no problem in finding Helicopters to take crews to and from the North sea oil and gas rigs. But of course there is loads of money to be made there.
And why the fuck do they have to be chinooks anyway?
$8 Million is small change compared to the rich pickings in the from of untapped oil and natural gas reserves in Khazakstan ?
A 1040 mile pipe line will be contsructed through Afghanistan … the Russians tried to get at it, but failed miserably, now its the Americans and the EU’s turn to have a go !
All they have to do is to be rid of them pesky indians (Taleban ) and hey presto .. trillions of dollars awaits the victor.
Safer Streets in great Britain.. errr ! yeah right ?
“And why the fuck do they have to be chinooks anyway?”
it’s all about branding. would you prefer nike to primark own brand?? as someone has said, war is profitable especially if you from haliburton
£8 Million for a helicopter, or £20bn for New Labour’s two week jerk-off event in 2012, where the athletes contribute NOTHING to the cost of their jerk-off event, but will make taxpayers pay for it and take sponsorship – which increases the costs to the end consumer of everything just to pay these same athletes.
Already New Labour wasted £1.2bn for a tent in Greenwich. The party has NO shame in wasting taxpayers money on shit.
THAT puts it into perspective.
Labour / New Labour have ALWAYS hated the military.
According to he The Mail; Women spend £1.1 billion per month on beauty products. Now you lot do the sums. Hike up the tax on those products & we could buy a few more helicopters!
Or we could buy one less lipstick per month, and give the money toward the helicopter fund?
Dr. Mick, leave the pills and open an atlas.
The only pipelines coming out of the Eastern Caspian Sea Basin to the North of Afgahistan are through Russia. To get them west they would have to go South through Iran or across the Caspian Sea, and Russia won’t let them build across the sea and there’s no way the US will finance a pipeline across Iran.
The latest pipeline proposal is called TAPI and will deliver gas to India. It’s pissing the Canadians off because it looks as if they’re the ones who will have to protect it.
British Soldiers are dying for America’s oil and gas companies.
Think oil, not terrorists and it all becomes very clear, Dr Mick.
http://www.counterpunch.org/tomenron.html
Our troops should come home. Its time we woke up to the end of our empire. We are a small country with a dodgy economy. This global projection is not in our interests.
When the Taliban’s cronies attacked the US, and by extension all of us in NATO, we should simply have bombed them flat. Its their own problem. By getting involved we made it our problem.
Bring our boys home.
May 2001, US official via Pakistani delegation to Tliban;
“Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs.”
We couldn’t give a monkeys who is in power, as long as they’d let us build a pipeline through the Country. Sad but true.
Thank you Guido old chap.
It took the Romans 500 years to get over the loss of their empire and it wasn’t a pretty sight. So we’ve got as long way to go.
How long will it take the US of A?
hail noble ceasar! the process of the romans ‘getting over empire’ you mention is known to history as the dark ages and lead to vast drops in standards of living across all of europe which weren’t recovered till the 1100’s i believe. fun times ahead boyo!
also the british/american versions covered (in part) the whole freaking world! not just the nice bits of europe and the middle east!
Well said. As the gas will benefit Pakistan and India let them provide troops to protect it alongside American troops. British troops should only protect British-European interests
It is, in fact, a zero percent victory.
According to the current BBC/Guardian ‘poll’ 47% are for the Afghanistan disaster and 46% against it or maybe it’s the other way round i wasn’t concentrating. Has anyone out there ever heard or read such politically bent twaddle as this in their lives before? Come on own-up. All other straw polls are showing an 80/20 split – I will leave you to guess which way.
Daily Mail at 0830 this morning
Is it time to pull our troops out of Afghanistan?
Yes 79%
No21%
QED
If it’s in the Daily Mail it must be legitimate
You mean The Daily Flail?
BBC – buggerers bombing countries
this all comes down to asking the ‘right sort of questions’ – can you imagine the BBC/Guardian asking anything but supportive questions to this government’s war on all the talents?
The BBC are also trying to spin it that because the percentage for the War is greater than a poll made a couple of years ago that means there is growing support in the face of the past weeks carnage.
Pure propaganda.
They seem almost embarrased to admit that their dodgy poll still didn’t manage to get a majority in favour of the War.
I well remember the BBC firing out bullshit polls like this in the run up to Iraq and very few people believed those either.
This morning’s Toady was spinning the poll as increasing support for the Afghanistan adventure!
More spin followed. New “obesity” research suggesting a family association by gender – fat mothers have fat daughters but not fat sons, and pari passu. This was spun as obesity being caused by “behaviour” not genes. Not only is the spin counterintuitive, but it absurdly supposes either that fat mums ration their sons (or spoil their daughters rotten); or that sons burn off their calories but daughters don’t, which given the general elfin safety culture, seems just as absurd. The “behaviour” thing confirms zanu liebore prejudices and opens the way to rationing health care, which is tantamount to a special tax on fatties. Yet nowhere in the science are metabolic pathways properly described – because they are not yet known!
The BBC is no longer merely sometimes economical with the truth. It is now a full-scale propaganda operation. As in its coverage of politics, so in its coverage of science.
…and propoganda for its own programmes too – the item about political parties being funded through the back door was yet another glorified trail for one of their own programmes.
Such is the paucity of Toady’s output these days.
The whole bunch need incinerating and their buildings razed to the ground with Jonah thrown on top for good measure.
I waved to a buzzard this morning. It was surfing the thermals. Wish I was up there, and out of this political crap.
I saw a buzzard being mobbed by a red kite yesterday.
There is a real world out there – it isn’t all political shite.
Mary, how are your swallows, if you have them where you are, this year?
Quite a few swallows around North-West Cheshire. At least as many as last year.
I believe Gordon is due to not answer questions in the HoC this afternoon whilst his lackey Uncle Bob Hilter is doing the rounds of media studios – funny how Brown never does direct studio work eh? – he doesn’t like people does he? – maybe that’s why he’s happy for soldiers to get killed??? Brown is the lowest of the low.
Brown is a fucking coward – he never pokes his head above the parapet when things go tits up. Courage? The man is a fucking disgrace and it galls me to think this piece of shit stain is going to lay a wreath on Remembrance Sunday later in the year to honour Britain’s fallen. Booing him at the ceremony would be disrespectful to the dead but some kind of protest should be made.
Maybe they are keeping him out of the limelight? He’s about to crack.
That’s my opinion. Noticed he made a radio broadcast at the weekend on Afghanistan. His minders have come to the conclusion that the less the electorate sees of him, the better Labour’s chances.
At least with Songs of Praise, we could prepare ourselves and he could practise his smile beforehand with a friendly interviewer. What an inappropriate topic for him – Courage – I ask you?
Gordon’s obviously not going to play the role of the Good Samaritan, he’s going to pass by on the other side. What would his father, the man of the manse, say?
Well put Sir.
Well, apparently his father told him always to tell the truth. As that clearly didn’t make a stuff of difference to Brown why should anything else that dad may have opined upon.
Last week G Brown told us that a total of 40 countries provided support troops in Afghanistan, but what he failed to mention was that British troops did 97% of the dying. We have the ability to take out all their poppy fields and help keep Heroin off the streets of Britain, but instead the trafficers are given safe passage via a corrupt police force for a cut of the proceeds and a vast amount of the profits go to the Taliban to provide weapons to kill British troops.
Gordon is desperately trying to spin a Guardian/BBC ICM poll this morning saying it shows public support for the Afghan War. The poll was conducted before news of the last tragic eight deaths broke.
The Guardian, this morning, says of that poll :-
42% are in favour of immediate withdrawal of troops and a further 14% want them home by the end of the year. That’s 56% – a majority gordon – in case you can’t count. Stop spinning – we don’t believe anything you say anymore.
Any chance that Brown when will stop spinning when he is in his grave, do you suppose ?
The times report this morning
In his letter to the Liaison Select Committee on Saturday — highly unusual for its timing — Gordon Brown insisted that the case for intervention in Afghanistan in 2009 was just the same as in 2001. It was, he wrote, to take on the terrorist threat at source and prevent attacks in Britain and elsewhere. Yesterday he went further and said the mission represented a “patriotic duty”.
But one reason why Mr Brown had to use a letter to a select committee to get his message across was because he sensed, rightly, that public and political support is wavering.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6695518.ece
Nell
see this
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6695518.ece
“But one reason why NcDoom had to use a letter to a select committee to get his message across was because he sensed, rightly, that public and political support is wavering”
See the ‘powers that be’ are now openly using BBC Top Gear to propagandise. First, last week, the lame criticism of ‘Gordon’s interfering government’ – subliminal message: Clarkson is on your side, so don’t go insurrecting, leave it to Jezza, and now this week, bolster support for the invasion of Afghanistan and covince the saps the British Army is a potent killing machine, not to be messed with.
‘look, we’ve got big, powerful scary tanks and guns that can rip women and children to bits with half inch hot lead’ – perhaps the last bit escaped the tiny minds of the dribbling fools watching Clarkson de kunt and his fellow fairies. Notice also the confirmed bachelor, James May, has now been given a cover story of ‘a girlfriend’ – overseas sales to the USA and elsewhere suffering from open, copious references to James’(and the dwarf and the beanpole) previous ‘manly’ lifestyle.
BCK,
You Sir are a cock,Clarkson does a lot of work for Help For Heroes but chooses not to blab off about it.
Well said Mick. Clarkson is one of the biggest supporters of the boys in the ‘Stan but because he’s not some rightous indignant New Liebour cnut he doesn’t go on and on about it. When the TG roadshow went around the world last year, there was an unnoficial show in the MoD Afghan base.
http://www.army.mod.uk/news/15799.aspx is a good write up of yesterday’s TG
There’s a curious detail in the army website report:
“Jeremy’s rally car, which was confiscated by the police from a drug dealer and donated to Top Gear, was not surprisingly beating the Army vehicles in a straight line.”
Peculiar, but pleasing.
PHWEEE-PIP! OOZEAPRETTYBOYZEN? SHOWUZYOURLEGS!
I’ve seen James May and he had a girlfriend with him. Several months ago, it was.
I don’t watch Top Gear, as it happens. I have no interest
in seeing cars being driven sideways.
I see mandy has taught him two new phrases – ‘it has been a hard sumer ‘ and ‘ chain of terror’
I suppose he’s going to be repeating them ad nauseum all this week.
Pity he hasn’t got sufficient command of the english language to string a sentence of his own together that might express his apologies for not equipping our lads properly and failing to provide reinforcements for tired troops.
If Mandy’s talking about ‘hard’ and ‘chains’ maybe he’s just referring to his sex-life.
Having read what Sir richard dannet has said and a few other of the chiefs of staff the blame for lack of equipment can be laid squarely at browns feet.
I hate the bastard, and i hope to christ he dies a long slow painful death, like he has condemned so many troops to, that fucking cowardly sack of shite. I mean five defence secretarys in 3 years now i think? What fucking way is that to run a department in the middle of a war?
The guys should refuse to leave the fob`s until such a time as the right gear has been provided.
‘Lack of leadership from Brown is killing our soldiers’ claims Army top brass as six dead are named
By Tim Shipman
Last updated at 7:47 AM on 13th July 2009
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1199239/Lack-leadership-Brown-killing-soldiers-claims-Army-brass-dead-named.html
Nu Labour screwing someone near you. Its in their DNA
It’s almost unheard of for someone in Dannatt’s position to say what he did, usually the military get on with what they are asked to do and let the politicians do the politics.
Good on him for standing up to Liebour. Now how many more coffins have to be driven through Wooton Bassett before the government realise that Dannatt was right
At least Afghanistan is the perfect reminder why we should NOT throw our lot in with Europe. Only the EU could send their troops into a war zone with orders to stay safely locked inside barracks and in no circumstances fight back.
BROWN HAS BEEN CUTTING THE DEFENCE BUDGET FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS UNDER THE HEADING OF EFFECIENCY SAVINGS………
…at the same time as fighting two wars, don’t forget.
If by efficiency savings you mean spending nearly a billion on the refurbishment of the MoD Whitehall offices, where 25,000 civil servants are based, which cutting front line troops’ resources and allowing those back here to live in sqalour. One can obviously see where the priorities lie
Liebour can always be relied upon for two things – reduced spending on our armed forces and the ultimate failure of their governments in a spectacular financial shambles of their own making.
As sure as night follows day.
“The sad, lonely, deluded one doomed the campaign by merely uttering ‘Afghanistan’.”
Troops home NOW. There’s a campaign against treason just waiting to be fought in the UK.
No more dying for rich, greedy men lying.
I am totally at a loss to understand what a waning second rate military power such as the UK thinks it is going to achieve in the Middle East, I am even more amazed that there are people willing to risk their lives in such a god forsaken place on the say so of corrupt UK politicians who went to war on a lie.
Name me one MP that has a son or daughter serving in the war zone in Afghanistan.
I do see however that soldiers like to do what they have trained for and if they are daft or selfish enough to put themselves in harm’s way at a politicians behest it’s their choice after all. I just feel sorry for their loved ones.
I am as loyal to these shores as the next man but nobody is kidding me that I was in peril from anybody in the Middle East until our incompetent MP’s started to throw their weight about over there in my name.
The Government can stop it anytime they want, bring them home!
Lets not forget that!
as much as i agree with ya lad am sure a consertive backbencher done a tour in afghanistan with the ta
I remember that too – but I’m damned if I can remember his name.
Spot on!
The US in Vietnam were fighting a similar type of war, against an impoverished, determined and externally funded army. They used air power to transport troops around, and most of the time kept them out of the risk of cross country footwork. Planted IED were used in that conflict.
The body count ( 50,000) was tolerated until the discovery of certain Papers. Public support evaporated, and the US capitulated when the opposition was exhausted and near defeat.
McNamara and Westmoreland managed to convince the Public that there was just cause for the war even thought they later recanted. What just cause is there for this mess? It won’t do to go on about Taleban and such like. They are just as prominent in Pakistan and Iran, but using different names.
Using a proxy war to show that you are doing something rather than nothing is a pathetic waste of lives, equipment and money. War is expensive; poorly conducted war, is disastrously expensive and leads inevitably to defeat.
Hostile spinning against Officers in Command (Dannert) who want the best for their men in the front line, shows the depths to which the Brown gang have sunk.
We have political swine in charge, with an instinct to snout in muck rather than look up to sense and solution.
Then a million people died in Cambodia as the dominoes fell.
O/T Today’s best headline (and entrepreneurship in action)
Olympic hopeful opens NZ brothel
An Olympic hopeful from New Zealand has opened a brothel in a bid to raise cash for a tilt at taekwondo glory in 2012.
Logan Campbell, 23, competed at Beijing in 2008, but has now opened a 14-room “gentleman’s club” after becoming tired of seeking funding from his parents.
No lottery handouts for him, then.
How come my post re: May 2001 is awaiting moderation? It’s a matter of record. Not nice I agree, but it’s fact!
Come on Guido old chap. I’m supporting our troops.
I support our troops too, I just don’t support this war!
Who am I to pick and choose? easy I am paying for it!
I thought that we were there to smoke OBL out of his cave.
Silly me.
Nah…we gave up on that ages ago. Now it’s to stop more terrorist attacks. Nothing, you understand, but nothing to do with the third largest deposit of oil & natural gas which just happens to be under the Caspian Sea.
Look at a map mate. You don’t know what you are talking about.
You got your name right, anyways.
Dear DOC I told you the other night that the pipeline is going from Turkmenistan to pakistan for Gas! and the oil pipeline is going to Turky and another oil pipeline to somewhere else Tap in UNOCOL PIPELINE and all will be revealed !
No John Reed said that it will be A RECONSTRUCTION ONLY deployment They are not going to fight and will in all probablity come home without a shot being fired !
Tell that to 184 sets of grieving parents and wives…
Another basterd Scotch Hoon.
The Penguin
There is a distinction to made between supporting the troops and supporting the war. Too often, when the question is asked, people who support the troops think that they should support the war to express this support. The motives behind this conflict are sound in part, I am certainly no knee jerk anti war merchant. However execution of this war coupled with the dubious location and troubling lack of equipment and resources in general suffered by British forces, call the whole thing into serious question. Brown and his gang of thugs have no respect from the military, just look at the recent ministerial apointment for gods sake! Labour have, with trigger fingers, ordered them into action time and time again.
If we are going to continue on Afghanistan we need better than this dithering and poisonous bunch of crooks at the helm.
Generally I agree, but not specifically with the basis of your argument.
Those that have been to, and know the area will tell you “Hearts and Minds” don’t and never did nor will, have a say. They look to IRAN not the invading infidel.
They are their own people, deeply religious and they don’t suffer corrupt politicians, they shoot them!
Despite what the BBC and other establishment media says it not a popular war.
One other point: The Ruskies, with more troops and more rescources – got the hell out of afghanistan when the realised that a war with such a tribal, factionalised country was un-winnable. The remains of their tanks are there to this day.
are you forgetting CIA supplied Stinger missiles, that tipped the balance to unsustainable aircraft losses for the Russians?
Quite!
In fact it went like this for the Russians:-
They came
They did not see
They died
They holed up in camps
They died some more
They took the fight to the mountains
They died a whole lot more
They went home!
Anybody see the significance of this?
I think the Septics will eventually win this war for us, as they usually do.
Pull all the troops out, and glass the fucking lot over. Then build whatever pipelines you need. Simples.
The Penguin
Yeah, at least Nixon pulled troops *out* of Vietnam!
The distinction is real, but the confusion is a synecdoche. As long as people fail to appreciate that the kettle never boils, only the water, they will go along with such illogicalities as “knives kill people, so ban knives”. The blaming of whole groups of people for the acts of a few individuals also requires synecdoche blindness – on a mammoth scale.
Synecdoche is the new ‘example’.
A powerful cartoon. By rights labour MPs should be looking at this and hanging their heads in shame. They won’t, though, because most of the lefties hate the armed forces.
Did any of them protest when broon turned off treasury funding?
Nope, they were too busy reminiscing about those CND marches they went on, or the peace marches, or Greenham Common.
This government is directly responsible for the poor, under rescourced state of the armed forces….it has blood on its hands. Remember that when you vote.
the labour backbenchers are not for questioning funding (or indeed anything else, their prospects depend upon support, support, support) – remember none of them noticed the 10p tax fiasco – no, they are for nodding their heads and acting like performing sealions. for them everything is just fine….
The armed forces generally are patriotic and thus don’t vote Labour.
To be in the army with a Labour government is a death wish.
I ‘ll get this green shoot if it is the last thing I do
An offensive offering . To suggest that brown would go within 50 miles of the front line ! I the joke and the blood should be dripping from his hands
Dust off this helmet and get that uniform washed . we are doing our bit for recycling and it will save the taxpayers a couple of hundred quid
Brown’s strategey of reducing troop numbers in afghanistan.
Ouch!
From The Sunday Times July 12, 2009
Labour clashes with army as Afghan death toll mounts
Senior Labour figures accused the head of the army last night of playing politics as he said that there were too few troops and helicopters in the Afghan war zone. One minister expressed fury that General Sir Richard Dannatt, the chief of the general staff, had attended a private dinner with Tory MPs and suggested an extra 2,000 troops were needed in Helmand province.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6689952.ece
I wish the head of the army WOULD ! start to play politics and remove this Clueless shower of shit from power !
Three cheers for that!
Excellent post!
Well, someone has to speak up for the armed forces and the way that they are being starved of funds. The military covenant has been effectively shredded by this obnoxious and mendacious government so someone has to stick up for them. The MOD certainly won’t!
There are 29,000 proefessional politicians in the UK according to the Toady programme this morning. They probably cost us in the region of £1.5 bn an year. Cut a few of them and we could probably afford the equipment the soldiers need.
Remember that in order to balance the Government books, the MoD is required to repay a large chunk of the money currently being spent under the Urgent Operational Requirement scheme in 2 or 3 years time.
I wonder if that includes the few hundred thousand pounds they spent on the “wimmin’s leisure park” with a ferris wheel, you know, the one that none of the “wimmin” in afghanistan are allowed to use becuase the “elders” frown upon such frivolous behaviour.
Bet the squaddies love that – can’t afford decent boots for soldiers but we can put up a leisure park which no one uses.
this is typical of the government
That Ferris wheel: everything happens at a very high level, there’s a lot of wind and it goes round and round in circles without gettng anywhere.
If anybody is able to listen, there’s a programme about this on Radio 4 at 11-00am this morning.
Interesting programme, but about back-door funding of political parties by the state.
Gordon keeps on telling us about the green shoots of recovery.
Here are a couple of facts:-
a. 750,000 more public sector employees since 1997. All the extra funding has gone on paying them.
b. The number of mortgage products available has dropped from 30,000 to 3,000 and one in four borrowers can’t get a mortgage.
c. Senior police officers have had five figure bonuses.
Labour have spent a huge amout of our money since coming to power in 1997. It’s about time they started being honest about the inevitable tax cuts we will all have to suffer.
Labour always goes on a spending spree and always runs out of money. It’s part of their pathetic attempts to buy votes. It’s gerrymandering. They know that turkeys don’t vote for christmas, so they are guaranteed the votes of all those diversity officers, wimmin empowerment workers and inclusivity managers. The ones we are paying for, and who make absolutely no difference to the day to day wellbeing of this country.
agreed this is scorched earth now
If they win the GE then job done
If they loose they have made the place bankrupt and probably on the verge of anarchy for the next government who they will then blame for everything that then happens.
See 1979 to 1984 for the gameplan. I remember it well
Labour screwing someone near you. Its in their DNA.
They will continue to spend and spend in the hope that all these public sector workers and the massive “client state” will be scared to vote Tory out of fear of losing their feathered nests.
Only the IMF stepping in (does anyone know how we can petition them?) will let these people see just how fucked up we are…
Dont forget the fact that the electoral system is biased in Labour’s favour.
Cheating scum.
Our troops have started to see the (green shoots of recovery ) maybe they should take over the running of britain !
Very very sadly, The trrops only seem to view this said ‘green shoot’ from underneath when looking upwards at the root ….
How True!!
I would like to know how Gordon thinks we will succeed with the war in Afghanistan, when the Russians failed. They had three times as many troops as we have and still couldn’t win it – and their troops were far better equipped than ours are.
Brown and Ainsworth trying to run a war is like Cameron trying to organise a Bingo night.
Cameron could organise a very good bingo night. Brown and co could not organise anything.
The Penguin
Brown and co organized the closure of about half the bingo halls very well.
Brown should be tried for treason-then a select bunch of squaddies should be chosen for a firing squad.
I’m not joking
He should have to clean out the toilets with a toothbrush first.
I’ll go with the SAS and SBS to make up the Squad. More highly trained teams of men you will not find anywhere else in the world…
I understand your thinking, Steve, but it’s an insult to the professionalism of these Regiments to ask them to lower themselves to that level. A couple of inner-city gang members would do the job just as effectively.
A couple of hoody clad yobbos from Peckham might do the job nicely.
Maybe if we let the crap shots have a go, it will be a more painful death for him.
Why not start with a few whistlers past the head, followed by a couple of shots to the legs before moving up the body as it wriggles in pain.
The elite Special Forces would take the head with the first shot and he would never know what happened to him
Maybe, Engineer, you might be taking the better line here…
Have a raffle, winner gets to slot Jonah. Spend the money raised on the injured troops.
Then have further raffles to slot the rest of the cabinet…
The Penguin
Six tickets please!
Traitors were shot by members of the Military Police in the Tower of London.
Why do the Monkeys get all the fun?
“For every British soldier who gets killed we’ll plant a bean stalk in Africa as a memorial. – Unless he’s been guilty of killing the enemy in battle in which case he’ll be tried posthumously in a court of law for human rights violations.”
Or in Harman’s Court of Pubic Opinion.
Pubic Opinion? Yes. Because Harman always talks out of her c^^^!
Morning all, just to rub your noses in it, a quick reminder that as usual I will be doing sweet FA this week, as every week really!
Unlike you lot though, I will be getting my usual fat salary of over 100 g for doing absolutely nothing during a 4 day week other than looking to keep my political masters sweet and the usual leg up the honours system if I can do that simple task!
like a cupppa tea John, careful there’s a bomb in it
I love a cup of char, I usually have one of the plebs bring it in to me with a nice Rich Tea, no bombs though please.
Johnners, is it all right if I call round for tea and fudge cake later? Lady Waad and I will be up in town today and I can leave her to play with the credit cards. You can claim it back on expenses as ’strategic meeting with leading political thinker’.
Sir Wills my old mate, that sounds cracking, then afterwards we can spend some time knocking back taxpayer subsidised G & Ts in the bar!
Looked it up! Have amended slightly, in line with what Siegfried Sassoon would probably have written today;
“Good Morning, Good Morning” Bob Ainsworth said,
When we met him last week on our way to the line.
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ‘em dead.
And we’re cursing his government for incompetent swine.
“he’s a cheery old card” grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Helmand with rifle and pack.
But he did for them both by his cuts in attack.
I’ve been trying to think of an erudite, intellectual response, but I can’t.
Not for the first time in History, that neatly, and poingnantly, sums it up.
That should, of course, be ‘poignantly’
Poing!
Engineer,
I must agree with your sentiments, but I know you’re only doing it cos you want your wicked way with NewGirl.
When will you two get a room??? lol!!!
Post 322 at 3:32pm.
Uncalled for. Have a bit of respect for the subject.
Well said NewGirl Siegfried Sassoon would have been proud of that.
Excellent NG!
More troops?
Then he came out to his door again, and merrily did sing,
Come hither, hither, pretty Fly, with the pearl and silver wing,
Your robes are green and purple, there’s a crest upon your head
Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are dull as lead!
Alas, alas! How very soon this silly little Fly,
Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by
With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and nearer drew,
Thinking only of her brilliant eyes, and green and purple hue
Thinking only of her crested head, poor foolish thing!
At last,
Up jumped the cunning Spider, and fiercely held her fast.
He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den,
Within his little parlour, but she ne’er came out again!
And now dear little children, who may this story read,
To idle, silly flattering words, I pray you ne’er give heed.
Unto an evil counsellor, close heart and ear and eye,
And take a lesson from this tale, of the Spider and the Fly.
So that spider called Gordon in his dismal den
Said nothing shall fly no ‘copters nor men
Let ‘em all walk through the bombs and the flak
Cos I’m in my bunker and safe from attack
It’s a NATO operation, where are they?
Ask Miliband he’s Foreign Secretary and meant to arrange such things with our good European neighbours.
Ask Brown he spent the last few days – being entertained by the main NATO partners ( did sod all as usual )
Ask Ainsworth since he shouldn’t be committing our troops to wars without adequate equipment.
Can’t pass the buck our troops our responsibility
Oh bin Laden, oh bin Laden
Though he’s dead and breathes no more
Prop him up and take his picture
Till the whole world goes to war.
To the tune of “Clemintine”
Everything Brown does is a crock of shit.
Every crock of shit is a brown thing.
They are putting up Milliwatt to field questions about Afghanistan, even though it is Ainsworth’s department, which I call sending a boy to do a chump’s job.
Me ?? A chump ???
David Miniblair is much more articulate than me, innit ??
Yes He probably is more articulate than a Marxist, trade union activist, time serving nonentity. You are singularly ill-equipped for the task of Defense Secretary and if your moral compass was working ever so slightly, you would have declined to do your Master’s bidding. Honour lost!
Brilliant.
re Banana brat Millitwat – perhaps “child to do a chump…” ?
Milliband, Gideon: What a pair, eh? With those two you just know that Britain is in good hands . . .
If that a bit like putting the Schools Sec up the other week to talk about the country’s finances?
Did you see the ‘Politics Show’ yesterday? We need someone (anyone!) in the Labour Party who has served in the Forces (even peacetime service) who maybe, just a little bit, understands what the Army needs. Weasel words ffrom a weasel party. To try to play politics while the Army is losing men is dispicable.
I have n’t been in the Army but have been in Boy Scouts
18 year olds too old for you I guess.
What makes you think that their actual goal isn’t to destroy the Army?
China wants Pakistan and Afghanistan, hand them over you round eyed scum!
An important cartoon. I hope Gordon gets to see it and chokes on his toast.
Rich & Marks cartoon is a devastating indictment of the standard of this country, because it is so true. What a fucking depressing start to a Monday to see that and realise the truth in it.
Just get out of the way.
Heres an obvious point never asked when the prime mental defective talks about how our troops are keeping the taleban, its islamist allies and supporters out of the UK.
Doesnt the mental lying fuckwitt realise that the Pakistani taleban and supporters have been walking into the UK for years by buying fake student visas/fake passports/buying a wife/visting friends’N'family etc!
Mosques, radical preachers and UK pakistanis fund the very terrorists that are killing our boys, the UK foreign aid bags of fertilzer given out so freely are being turned into bombs, terrorist sympathisers and recruiters walk into the UK freely and move around freely and openly able to visit prisons and universities, propaganda is spread to the UK quisling pakistanis through the mosques that the government so obliginly allows them to build and all this is fully protected by the yuman rites charter for terrorism generously funded with legal aid that none of us native sucker taxslaves will EVER have a hope of getting a sniff of.
So in fact our troops are NOT keeping out the islamist bastards are they? the perverted fuckers just fly into Heathrow straight through non existent border controls past police too frightened to even question them protected by yuman rites/equality vermin and onto the mosques so obliginly built by newlabour!
You couldnt fucking make it up could you?
Lions led by donkeys. except the donkeys in this case are the incompetent, self seeking NuLiebor troughers with a dithering leader.
Viewpoint of a deluded & delusional twat.
You Too?
Liam Fox on Afghanistan, “wibble wabble wobble”,
Please translate.
Lip Service.
Liam Fox pointed out the government cancelled £ 1.4 billion from the helicopter budget in 2004; despite being told it was wrong. ( Government could not learn lessons of 25 years in South Armagh )
It was not that money was not in the defence budget but the government saw the priority in spending £ 2.3 billion giving civil servants in the MOD a plush new HQ ( they wouldn’t even spend it upgrading squaddies accommodation and married quarters ).
UK troops under-resourced by a government that brings incompetence to a new level
BOO!
I understood perfectly
Ps: Best I can do I’m afraid, a piss stained Dungeons and Dragons fan of a basement level Goebbels, such as myself, has little to say on serious matters like Gordon’s blood stained but bungling war effort.
See Labour’s contortions over Afghanistan!
‘Ere stop messin’ abahht!
‘Course we’ll put up taxes so we can send more young lads to pointless wars. So long as we can waste a lot of money on expensive boys toys as well. Brrrmm, brrrm! kukukukukukkukukuku, eeeeeyowww, karumph.
more bang bang please
Mandelson wastes £ 7 million on a rebranding exercise for BERR\DTI
Could have bought a Chinook instead
RAAAARRRWKK-K!!!! GORDONSAPRAT!
@ 176 don’t you ever tire of writing stuff you really can’t believe?
Two facts for your gossamer thin imagination.
1. Gordon Brown has resisted US calls for more troops in Afghanistan and has largely withdrawn from Iraq.
2. The Conservitudes position on Afghistan is entirely equivocal.
Gordon Brown has resisted calls from the head of the Army to send more troops to Afghanistan.
When did he ever fight a war ? He runs away from elections.
Yes, now doubt the Conservitudes are all for escalating the war and drawing the UK in to an unaffordable pointless rock rearranging exercise.
If the Conservitudes want to use soldiers corpses for political posturing, that’s up to them.
No more UK troops in Afghanistan.
Got it?
But never from an erection
This government has committed the UK to 2 wars while reducing troop numbers.
Mr Brown has affirmed his intention to stay in Afghanistan but refused to let the Army fight it their way, thereby resulting in more deaths.
How are our European allies able to to have such an easy time in their sectors,and why did we get the short straw choice of Helmand?
Well if we’re talking about the French – have you ever seen them fight a war ? – who won WW2 for them?
Who won Waterloo?
The other EU-NATO countries, refuse to send their troops into “hot” areas.
Nicky Campbell, the former public school boy from Edinburgh, the doyern of the Radio5 elite, intelligent beyond our wildest dreams, a moralising and newlabour mouthpiece, never had a proper job in his life, believes that the war in Afghanistan is just fine and the government are pursuing the correct path. He has been able, again, today, to offer listeners blatant propoganda, in a typically unbalanced sort of way. The man is an arse of the highest order and should be disciplined by the BBC for breaching the BBCs terms of reference with the listner/viewer. He should be sacked immediately for gross misconduct.
didn’t Campbell once claim to be an orphan, for sympathy? or maybe its parents just disowned the kunt.
as to BBC reprimanding him, don’t be daft, he’s doing exactly what the moneymen/UK govt/Media want, and the piece of shit whore gets extremely well paid for it. another psychopath narcissist like Blair.
The lying twat, makes me puke. A typical ZaNuLab rat, always on hand to serve his ZaNu Stasi masters.
Legalise drugs and get rid of one reason for this nonsense. As for the Taliban, if you beat them in Afghanistan they will move to Somailia, however it is becoming increasingly clear that we will not beat them in Afghanistan.
This is an incredible mess and the government know it but they are stuck with it until someone has the balls to call it a day.
It’s either that or we end up taking so many casualties that even this government will not be able to spin a credible story
What a great cartoon. Sums up our PM in a nutshell. Delusional and living in cloud cuckoo land…..
http://www.plenty2say.com – Ross Kemp has paid tribute to our fallen in Afghanistan….Now there’s true sincerity.
Ross Kemp was on Mayo a couple of weeks ago extolling the4 virtues of the government and the war – what a shit he is
A terrible indictment of a pathetic and corrupt government.
Imagine the tories had commenced this war. The left would be all over the media now, CND where are they, indignant labour MP’s where are they?
Remember the flack thatcher took just for defending british territory in the falklands and the pilloring she got with regard to the sinking of the belgrano. She made sure our troops were protected protecting sovereign territory. She never sold us a war like liarb and the soup did, and then when they were found out they managed somehow to kill the whistleblower.
These kids joined the army because there are no real jobs. This is all they had.
Milliband, darling, ainsworth, brown living off the fat of the land with their 2 and 3 houses paid for by the taxpayer sending young recruits to die in a foreign land. TO PROTECT US FROM THE PEOPLE THAT THEY LET IN HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. TRAITORS EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF THIS GOVERNMENT.
Agreed! But will they be tried and sentenced… except to a life on good pensions+directorships+ quango bosses
THe liars want you to believe that somehow our brave soldiers are dying for a rightious cause, they are not.
Do you imagine we need to be protected from some tribal farmers or cave dwelling Islamofascists? Do you really believe that these backward peasants could mount an attack on this country, from Afghanistan?
It is ALL lies and our troops are being killed in a futile bid to change a country that has refused change for centuries. The cretins Bliar and McSnot have locked us in to a quagmire without end, except of course in defeat and in humiliating withdrawal.
I see militwit is spinning that the Afghan war is making Britain a safer place – what a bald faced Lie!
The last two terrorist attacks here were mounted by home grown terrorists a point this govt is desperately trying to hide.
Disgusting that they are still not promising better equipment or troop reinforcements.
Interesting that they’re using militwit instead of ainsworth to propagate this rubbish – obviously bob’s not up to the job
SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!! I used to be a sheet metal worker just like our illustrious ex-Speaker
We’re both the scum of the Earth ( or do I mean ’salt of the Earth’ ? )
no you weren’t, you were a shop steward at the Jag. not a tap of work.
@Robbo
The Grauniad would nt lie, would it ???
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/person/36/bob-ainsworth
You were right first time…
If our immigration system had been a lot more stringent, we would know exactly who was in the country. I agree that the last two attacks were carried out by home-grown terrorists but there are so many unknowns who’ve managed to cross several other country’s boarders to get here, it’s hard to say where these people are, and where they originate from.
Government always make a big thing about arresting the suspected terrorists in the UK, finding bomb making equipment in houses all over the place but once arrested, these people hardly ever seem to get prosecuted properly. Wonder why that is.
…sorry – that should read borders.
Perhaps we should bring all our troops back to defend our borders which have become increasingly porous since 1997 ?
Cant do that I am afraid, the EU ( our real government ) want ten million more immigrants in the UK in the next decade.
It is all about destroying social cohesion under the Orwellian doublespeak flag of “unity in diversity”.
What they really mean is the Balkanisation of a previously homogenous society, along with a shared “unity” in poverty, which their policies are aimed towards.
What proportion of those succeeding or attempting to blow people up in this country are born and bred here? And what proportion are actually foreigners? I fear the former is larger – which means we are fighting the wrong people in the wrong place in the wrong way.
The danger is much closer to home than Helmand.
We are fighting them over there AND over here. As the chap from the RUSI on Toady said this morning, there are plenty of other failed states which provide a vacuum for terrorism – Yemen, Somalia, South Mali.
Are we going to try and deal with all of them? I doubt it.
The fundamental question is whether by invading Afghanistan the risk of a terrorist attack in the UK has been decreased. I think that the answer is NO. The chance of terrorists using Afghanistan as a base for a terrorist attack has been reduced, but now we have home-grown terrorists.
I was a soldier for many years, and still have many friends serving. Now we have 184 dead, thousands wounded, hundreds maimed for life, billions spent and we are no safer than we were before.
Well said!
At least our troops will trained up and ready when, without doubt, we will need them on the streets and in the fields of Britain, although we will probably need to raid S London, Glasgow and Liverpool to get arms for them!
How can he bear the sight of himself in the mirror? Give our soldiers helicopters!!
Every time he looks in the mirror it cracks.
Reingold and Schaffhauser are not without dignity though the twilight shines trough all. Even Enfield and his brother need the extra delimiting power to contain the necessary conformity.
O/T – Harriet Manhater-Harperson still on the social engineering kick:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/
Another good reason for a quango cull.
Not enough northerners on quangos, says Harperson. Too many Jockos in government, reply the Plebs. Like her court of public opinion, yet again the woman has stuck her foot in her mouth, only to demonstrate she can chew it off.
During the last two world wars some MPs stood down and enlisted
Can you imagine any of this shower of shite doing the same?
Hereditary peers (the ones Labour sacked) served with distinction
,FFS they were mostly peers as they had a long thread of warrior DNA.
Imagine going into battle with Capt Millipede or Brigadier Wacko Jocko
You would laugh your bollocks off at the thought of being “lead” by such wankers.
Then slot them by accident
They’d be fragged. Accidentally, of course.
Bring them home and set them on Bradford
In the Viet Nam war the US troops learnt that the way to survive was to stay in or near their bases and leave the Vietnamese alone.
In Iraq the US now have that as offical policy.
They’re learning.
Partly true. In the South it was safer for the US to have defended camps and patrol the areas outside the camps, but they discovered that toward the border with the North, that the forward ‘fire’ camps had the effect of drawing the VC to attack the base in waves. With the advantage of the new sensor technology that was then being applied to the Ho Chi Min trail they could sense the VC approaching. The areas around the fire camps became VC killing fields. It didn’t work though because like the Chinese in the Korean war they still kept coming regardless of casualties. Iraq & Afghanistan are different because the British presence is too small to hold large areas of ground again we build compounds which we patrol out from. In Helmand these have in past come under heavy attack Also the forward operating bases are pretty hairy too.
DR DAVID KELLY
Slightly o/t. The Torygraph reports today that 13 doctors are starting a legal campaign to demand an inquest. The original inquest was stopped by Lord Falconer 6 years ago and replaced by the Hutton whitewash.
Well we went to war in Iraq on a lie concocted by alastair and tony which Dr David Kelly exposed.
And we are remaining at war in Afghanistan on the lie that we are keeping terrorism off our streets here by sacrificing our poorly resourced troops out there.
Interesting that those 13 medical experts say Dr Kelly could not have died from the wound to his wrist and had so little coproxamol in his system that it could not have harmed him. Interesting that they are also saying he was ‘very likely assassinated.’
I’ve never had any doubt about Dr Kelly’s assination. Bliar and Co have a lot to answer for – and when the time comes……the biggest terrorist threat is from our own government
Is this why Bliar ‘does’ God now ??
Has he confessed his vile sins in the belief that a Pope can absolve him ??
This is good news! Dr Kelly’s widow and family deserve to know what really happened to him. He sounded to me like a decent and honest man who did his job diligently and to the best of his ability.
I rmember reading that a friend of Dr Kelly spoke to him on the ‘phone just a few hours before he was found dead, and said he did not sound like a man just about to take his own life.
It is very sad that Brown sees success where everyone else sees under-resourced underequipped troops being sent to their deaths. Arguing in public with our Generals about what resources are needed rather than providing them is shameful.
He is like King Canute trying to hold back a tide of bodies with his words. Deluded is an understatement.
Arrrgh
Canute (Knut) was trying to show his English ministers that he could NOT control natural events. A man who was King of Norway and England at the same time was no fool and was considerably more successful than the creepy McDebt.
Kipling had it about right too.
I went into a public-’ouse to get a pint o’ beer,
The publican ‘e up an’ sez, ‘We serve no erd-coats ‘ere.’
The girls be’ind the bar they laughed and giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again, an’ to myself sez I:
Oh, it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Tommy, go away’:
But it’s ‘Thank you, Mister Atkins,’ when the band begins to play -
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
Oh, it’s ‘Thank you, Mister Atkins,’ when the band begins to play.
I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but ‘adn’t none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-’alls,
But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls!
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Tommy, wait outside’;
But it’s ‘Special train for Atkins’ when the trooper’s on the tide -
The troopship’s on the tide, my boys, the troopship’s on the tide,
Oh, it’s ‘Special train for Atkins’ when the trooper’s on the tide.
Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap;
An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.
Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Tommy, ‘ow’s yer soul?’
But it’s ‘Thin red line of ‘eroes’ when the drums begin to roll -
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
Oh, it’s ‘Thin red line of ‘eroes when the drums begin to roll.
We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints;
While it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that , an’ ‘Tommy, fall be’ind,’
But it’s ‘Please to walk in front, sir,’ when there’s trouble in the wind -
There’s trouble in the wind, my boys, there’s trouble in the wind,
Oh, it’s ‘Please to walk in front, sir,’ when there’s trouble in the wind.
You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires, an’ all:
We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ‘Chuck him out, the brute!’
But it’s ‘Saviour of ‘is country’ when the guns begin to shoot;
An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
An’ Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool – you bet that Tommy sees!
O/T Ann Clwwwwyyyyd Cynon Valley talking to Times Online (2004) about what she calls ‘My hols’.
I must mention India, because I’ve had fantastic holidays there, particularly at Christmas. My holidays abroad are usually at Christmas. One year, a group of us went to the south on an organised tour, in a convoy of six cars. It was the area around Mysore, which is run by communists, where women are very much the community leaders. It was fabulous. There was so much of interest to see ; the old Mogul palaces, for example, which make European architecture pale into insignificance.
Doesn’t it just make you want to throw up!
Is the woman really worth over 200k a year!
Ann Clwyd is a warmongering bitch
The Eyesore of Mysore!
I wonder which part of her holiday we actually paid for? MP’s don’t even have to pay to park their cars at the airport.
Pass me the bucket.
“the old Mogul palaces, for example, which make European architecture pale into insignificance”
WTF??? Why is self-hatred so fundamental to these people? “Everything Western is rubbish, we’re sinners, we’re sorry, you’re so much better and nicer and cleverer than we are.”
Drivel. Two traditions of architecture, both interesting, both impressive. Stupid ****.
Now what word(s) in my post triggered modding?
You can understand why the operation in Afghanistan is a failure, it is because Brown and his Brownies are in charge of it. The military get little say. The Military are as tired of asking Brown for more troops and better equipment as the British public are tired of asking for a general election. Imagine if there had been no Iraq war or operation in Afghanistan how many good soldiers would still be alive and how much money the government would have saved. Wars cost a lot of money and countries suffer the consequences for years.
Some good comment at the Coffee House.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5122953/so-whos-really-playing-politics-over-troop-numbers.thtml
I don’t think David Crausby is too popular there either! General Sir Dannat, on the other hand…
I’ve sent Mr Crausby an e mail – CRAUSBYD@parliament.uk as requested on Coffee House. I was particularly incensed by his comment in the Sunday Times:
“After the conflict, if there are lessons to be learnt, we should do so in a considered manner.”
I’ve had an e mail back requesting my address, which I’ve given him, but told him to save taxpayers’ money by not writing back.
WHY ARE WE THERE? WHERE IS THE PROTEST?
Afghans turn to Taliban in fear of own police
By Peter Graff
Reuters
Sunday, July 12, 2009 9:57 AM
PANKELA, Afghanistan (Reuters) – As British troops moved into the village newly freed from Taliban control, they heard one message from the anxious locals: for God’s sake do not bring back the Afghan police.
U.S. and British troops have launched a campaign to seize control of Helmand province, about half of which was in Taliban hands, and restore Afghan government institutions.
But as they advance, they are learning uncomfortable facts about their local allies: villagers say the government’s police force was so brutal and corrupt that they welcomed the Taliban as liberators.
“The police would stop people driving on motorcycles, beat them and take their money,” said Mohammad Gul, an elder in the village of Pankela, which British troops have been securing for the past three days after flying in by helicopter.
He pointed to two compounds of neighbors where pre-teen children had been abducted by police to be used for the local practice of “bachabazi,” or sex with pre-pubescent boys.
“If the boys were out in the fields, the police would come and rape them,” he said. “You can go to any police base and you will see these boys. They hold them until they are finished with them and then let the child go.”
The Interior Ministry in Kabul said it would contact police commanders in the area before responding in detail.
When the Taliban arrived in the village 10 months ago and drove the police out, local people rejoiced, said Mohammad Rasul, a toothless elderly farmer who keeps a few cows and chickens in a neatly tended orchard of pomegranate trees, figs and grape vines.
Although his own son was killed by a Taliban roadside bomb five years ago, Rasul said the fighters earned their welcome in the village by treating people with respect.
“We were happy (after the Taliban arrived). The Taliban never bothered us,” he said.
Before the Taliban arrived, the police had come to his house with a powerful landlord he called a “tyrant,” who put a rifle in his face, searched through his compound and demanded money.
“If (the British) bring these people back, we can’t live here. If they come back, I am sure they will burn everything,” Rasul said.
MINES, SNIPERS
The British effort, Operation Panther’s Claw, has focused on the Babaji district north of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, an area of lush fields, vineyards and orchards, watered by carefully tended streams and canals fed by the Helmand river.
Taliban fighters have sown the area with homemade mines and sniper nests, inflicting the worst casualties of the war. At least 15 British soldiers have been killed in the past 12 days.
Further south, some 4,000 U.S. Marines have met less resistance after seizing three districts of the lower Helmand River valley in an air and ground assault.
The aim is to impose Afghan government control over most of the province in time for an August 20 presidential poll.
But commanders say holding the area for the longer term will depend on bringing in credible local security forces.
The United States has spent lavishly in the past eight years to build up the Afghan National Army (ANA).
But it left training the Afghan National Police (ANP) to Germany, which spent a fraction as much, sending a small number of civilian instructors.
The result is a police force that is widely acknowledged to be unprepared for work in a combat zone: the ANP suffered three times as many deaths as the ANA last year.
Washington is rushing to make up the gap, sending 4,000 military trainers to Afghanistan this year to focus mainly on professionalizing the police.
Entire police forces are being removed from districts and sent to remote locations for intensive eight-week training.
Major Al Steele, commander of Bravo Company of 3 SCOTS, the Black Watch, who met elders in Pankela, acknowledged their concerns but said foreign forces were working on it.
“We have heard a lot of complaints about the ANP, but the Coalition Forces and the ANA are working together well, and the ANP are getting better,” he told Gul Mohammad, squatting outside the elder’s mud-walled compound.
The elder shrugged and flipped his prayer beads.
“Every time we heard that new ANP would come. But the old ANP would come back and it would be just like in the past.”
“The people here trust the Taliban,” he said. “If the police come back and behave the same way, we will support the Taliban to drive them out.”
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/12/AR2009071200868_pf.html
the cartoon is the best in a long time. dare I suggest steve bell is on the money again today in………..the guardian, oops
Very tasteless cartoon, as one might expect from Mark French
Is that an opium poppy growing in the helmet?
Why are we not hearing how many of those backward wahabi taleban terrorists and their al quaeda fellow travellers have been sent to enjoy the ministrations of those virgins.
Our boys hsould be giving them hell!!!
Reporter: “The number of British troops killed on operations in Afghanistan since 2001 now stands at 184 – what have we achieved following their deaths”?
Gordon Brown: “Girls in Afghanistan can now go to school”
BBC WORLD
05.04.02
WORLD SERVICE
Britain to support Afghanistan�s bid to eradicate poppy growing, Blair tells World Service listeners
In an interview on BBC World Service, the British Prime Minister said he supported the initiative by
the Interim Administration in Afghanistan to destroy this year�s poppy crop.
Tony Blair�s statement of support follows a decree issued yesterday (Thursday 4 April) by Hamid
Karzai, the leader of the interim government in Afghanistan, which offers farmers payment to
destroy their opium crop or risk arrest.
“Something like 90 per cent of the heroin on British streets comes from Afghanistan, 70 per cent of
the world heroin does. Many of these farmers are poor people in Afghanistan who know no other
way. We�ve got to make sure that we do not just destroy the crop but also offer them a better
prospect for the future. We are prepared to fund that, prepared to put resources behind it in order
to make sure that the farmers are given an alternative, lucrative source of cultivation,” he said.
Interviewed by Baqer Moin of the BBC World Service at Downing Street today, the Prime Minister
said: “We need something that works not just for this year but also for a longer period of time. The
way to achieve that – apart from the short term step of destroying the crop – is to make sure that we
are helping the local farming communities. They don�t make big money out of heroin – the big
money is made by the drug dealers in Europe and America. But the essence is to offer those local
farmers and communities a different and better way of tilling their land, of growing things properly
in a law abiding way. They will actually find in the medium and long term that it is better for them
and their families and local communities.”
Asked whether British troops would be involved in stopping the drug trade in Afghanistan, Tony
Blair said: “These are separate operations. I won�t go into the operational details yet but we�re
working very closely with the Interim Authority to make sure that the proposal succeeds.
“The most important thing is that people in those communities where the drug crop is being
destroyed know that we aren�t just going to destroy the crop and leave them with nothing. What we
want to do is to encourage them to develop a different source of agricultural produce… the fact is
they could be growing other things. Afghanistan potentially is relatively fertile and wealthy, which is
one of the tragedies of what has happened to it over the past few years.
“September 11 showed us what happens when we don�t take action when we leave a failed state
basically living on terrorism and drugs, repressing its people brutally, when we leave that state in
place, then sooner or later we end up dealing with the consequences.”
Asked about the level of support the Prime Minister thought Afghanistan�s neighbours would offer
on ending drug trafficking from Afghanistan, he said: “Certainly at an official level they are co-
operating. What we�ve got to make sure is that we bind that official operation in at all levels in their
administration. These are countries that have a lot to lose from the drugs trade.”
This interview with the Prime Minister will be broadcast on Newshour at 9.00pm (BST) today and on
several of the BBC World Service�s language services in news bulletins throughout the day.
Notes to Editors
Please credit BBC World Service if you use this material from this interview.
END OF QUOTE FROM THE BBC 2002.
and in 2006………….
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/worldasia03afghan.html?th&e mc=th
Opium Harvest at Record Level in Afghanistan
Very well posted!