Eric Joyce Resignation Letter in Full
Gordon Brown MP
10 Downing Street
LONDON
3 September 2009
Gordon
As you may know, I told Bob Ainsworth some weeks ago that I intended to step down as Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Defence Secretary before the start of the new parliamentary term. This seems to me the least disruptive time to do that. I have been privileged to work as PPS to four senior Labour ministers in four government departments and now feel that I can make my best contribution to the Labour effort in parliament by concentrating on helping, as a regular back-bencher, to show that Labour remains sound on matters of Defence.
Labour was returned to power in 1997 on the back of your great success in turning the Economy from a weakness into a strength for Labour. Our continuing success in helping people from all parts of society become more prosperous, while helping the least well-off most, is built upon that. More quietly, during the 90′s, Labour’s then shadow defence team showed how Labour had become, after the disaster of the early 1980s, ‘sound’ on Defence. It seems to me that your personal success on the economy won the deal in 1997, while colleagues at Defence sealed it.
We are now, I think, once again at a critical time for Labour and Defence. The Conservatives, of course opportunistically, think they can convince the public that we have lost our empathy with the Defence community. We must not allow this to happen. I know that you have great commitment to our armed forces and this was clear when you visited Afghanistan this week, yet there seem to me to be some problems which need fixing with the greatest urgency.
As you know, two Black Watch soldiers gave their lives during your visit. I do not think the public will accept for much longer that our losses can be justified by simply referring to the risk of greater terrorism on our streets. Nor do I think we can continue with the present level of uncertainty about the future of our deployment in Afghanistan.
I think we must be much more direct about the reality that we do punch a long way above our weight, that many of our allies do far too little, and that leaving the field to the United States would mean the end of NATO as a meaningful proposition. The British people have a proud history of facing such realities. They understand the importance of the allied effort in Afghanistan/Pakistan and I think they would appreciate more direct approach by politicians. We also need to make it clear that our commitment in Afghanistan is high but time limited. It should be possible now to say that we will move off our present war-footing and reduce our forces there substantially during our next term in government.
We also need a greater geopolitical return from the United States for our efforts. For many, Britain fights; Germany pays, France calculates; Italy avoids. If the United States values each of these approaches equally, they will end up shouldering the burden by themselves. The first place to start is an acceptance this week by them, and by the Afghanistan electoral authorities, that there must be a second round in the elections there. I do not think the British people will support the physical risk to our servicemen and women unless they can be given confidence that Afghanistan’s government has been properly elected and has a clear intent to deal with the corruption there which has continued unabated in recent years.
Most important of all, we must make it clear to every serviceman and woman, their families and the British public that we give their well-being the highest political priority. Behind the hand attacks by any Labour figure on senior service personnel are now, to the public, indistinguishable from attacks on the services themselves. Conversely, in my view we should allow our service personnel greater latitude to voice their views on matters which make distinctions between defence and politics pointless.
I believe the next election is ours to win, thanks greatly to your personal great economic success. But we cannot win unless we grip defence. Above all, Labour must remember that service folk and their families are our people. We say that we honour them for their risk, bravery and sacrifice and we must at literally all costs continue to show by our actions that we mean it.
I intend to do what modest amount I can to help from the back-benches.
Yours sincerely
Eric Joyce MP
Typical bullshit.
Doesn’t he know that soldiers die? Is he aware of the history of warfare in Afghanistan?
I can’t stand labour but this cock is clearly just trying to make a name for himself.
Shame the rest of the rats don’t get the message and quit too. Then we might be able to vote out the vile people.
He was a major in the Black Watch. That counts for something.
Picture looks like he’s being lined up on the firing line to be shot. Just like our soldiers
Muslims are evil.
Nah, they just get told to drive down that dodgy looking stretch of road in a flimsy Land Rover.
Not so. But cowardly attacks are.
Cowardly attacks are at the heart of man-made barbarity that is Islam. Cowardly attacks are the work of evil subhuman barely literate filth, ergo…
tic tok tic tok .. Fuck your dickheaded “non so” comment. Look where appeasement got us 70 years ago.
But he seems quite dim. What a trite letter for such a momentous event as his resignation.
“Labour was returned to power in 1997 on the back of your great success in turning the Economy from a weakness into a strength for Labour”. What the fuck does this mean?
He’s well out of government. God only knows how low the average IQ of the government has fallen.
Phil, Kill – ‘cowardly attacks’?
IEDs were part of the Home Guard manual during WWII, to be used if the Nazis got over here. Not as clever as the shaped charge IEDs used by the Taliban, but good enough to fry a German tank of the era.
We have invaded these people’s country, for no good reason.
Get the Taliban out of Britain first, then worry about where they go – try Bolton, Birmingham, Leeds, Luton, Oldham….
They are not the cowards – they did not start the war.
Wankers.
WHICH SOLDIERS WILL THEY BE?
Not your soldiers heathen c’unt.
And?
Did he voluntarily sign up? I know the “boys” out there now did.
It is ALWAYS tragic when a young person dies but to claim he’s doing this for some lofty ideal is nonsense. If it wasn’t he wouldn’t have taken the job in the first place. WE invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and people have been dying there for years before and since.
Personally, I think this is shameless self promotion now that there is a general mood growing against this largely fed by the media.
Do we pull out now with the job not completed and let all those deaths be for nothing? Is that what he wants?
Perhaps he can tell us why he’s supported a this government who sent “us” in there in the first place knowing full well what the outcome would be?
Is he saving his own neck now its apparent Labour will be decimated next election?
I have my suspicions.
Are you suggesting he was press ganged into the Black Watch?
Re: The Sleeper
No, just that it isn’t relevant. Being in the forces does not automatically mean someone has a more credible argument or justification for anything.
The point i was making is he joined out of choice, as did everyone in there now. The argument about people dying is false as it can be avoided by not joining.
Like it or not, cold as this may sound it is a occupational hazard.
He’s putting the boot in before the Party conference.
The troops have died to put a world-beatingly corrupt shitbag like Karzai in power in a grossly fraudulent election while Karzai enacts Rape Laws that allow Afghan husbands to starve their wives to death or beat them if they refuse sex.
60% of those women married as children, often at age 9 or 10 and some of the women and children set themselves on fire to avoid being married to old men who will rape and beat them.
So if you think this War has achieved anything then you have been overdosing on the bullshit fed to you by Brown.
You fucking Shit head
29 But – and, I think it’s a very big But (though not quite as big as some butts…) – they signed up believing that they would be well-supported, have all the equipment and back-up they needed, would, basically, lack for nothing (ask yourselves, ‘How do the Forces recruit?’).
In the rest of the world, if you find you’ve been ‘switch-sold’ employment, you can sue: not so here. When did Kipling write ‘Tommy Atkins’ and ‘Boots’? Was it as long ago as The Crimean War that the Ministry responsible was sending out defective equipment? -as long ago as recently?
As in a few other occupations, the Forces are told that they have a better deal than any the civvy street Unions cold manage; to that, is added Loyalty. I doubt any Officer shouted, ‘Right! Listen carefully chaps. The job you’re going to do will take you away from your family for – could be months, could be years. During that time, your family will be housed in sub-standard housing: think sub-council-house. In the quite likely event of your being killed – 205, at latest figures – there will be, no doubt, very moving pictures on TV of your Widow and orphaned children: don’t expect anyone from Government, or from The Ministry to be there. Should it be your misfortune to be injured, not killed, expect to share a Ward – possibly even a bed! – with people who have an atavistic dislike of the Military( Have ready a gentle reply to a Doctor who hisses, “You and your likes are killing my brethren!”). You will need to learn new acronyms: MRSA – no Consultant would dream of washing his or her hands, still less any ‘Nurse’: “We tell all Visitors to use the Alcohol-gel…”. NILBYMOUTH: ‘Don’t you want your supper, then love?’ Alternatively, you might have both arms in plaster – have lost both arms: be prepared for your meal to be put just where you couldn’t, even with your toes, reach it: the Bell, will be equally inaccessible.
You will also
He’s jumping the sinking ship. He’s an opportunist, he knows he’ll get booted out at next election. He’s done VERY well out of his expenses. He’s a horrible bully.
If he goes now he can line himself up for a directorship in a defense firm next year. A bit like Geoff Hoon, get out now and look for a job.
I suspect he’s in Labour because, coming up from the ranks he hates the toffs in the officer’s mess, didn’t think he was one of them. A big chip, and a bit thick.
Joyce was chucked out of the Army. He was an ex-ranker who took a commission and joined the education branch.
Which gives him extensive knowledge of what happens on the front line… NOT.
More of a Darling than a Blackadder… a blunty, a REMF, whatever you want to call them. Left the service under a big cloud. Not respected by his fellow officers.
The letter is full of holes and inaccuracies. All this is about is self preservation in his own constituency, which is going to be difficult because they all fucking hate him.
Pity that the only person in government who had any form of experience of real life outside of politics let alone experience of life in uniform should be such a complete shit head hoon.
Did you delete my last reply to your comment?
Thats disgraceful.
No.
Yeah. Sorry Guido. It showed then when i refreshed it was gone.
The Taliban are currently fighting with the tenacity of the Viet Cong and seem equally committed to their cause. The idea that we should stay in Afghanistan until we “complete” the job is ridiculous.
There is no shame in cutting and running from an unwinnable war.
“Joyce” – now thats an interesting name.
Joyce is one of many who identified NuLab as the gravy train for personal advancement. A token career soldier for Labour.
Now that the writing is on the wall this boble man makes a noble sacrifice. Where was Haw Haw when Brown and Hoon were starving army of resources. Why he was completing his expenses forms.
This piece of scum has arrived too late with his bleeding heart.
We went into Afghanistan to clean out the rats nest of Al Qaeda training camps, most of which were staffed by foreigners. That was done.
Taliban are something quite different – are locals anyway – and have never threatened Europe or the United States.
ow
What is the job now?
Crackers; Joyce is a name with a long parliamentary tradition. I believe it is the traditional name used by the chief whipper at the weekly meetings of the Tory rubber and leather appreciation society.
Nit picking Guido: Not a Major in the Black Watch, commissioned into the Education Corps (is there a lesson there somewhere?) after joining up as a private in the Black Watch. Still, more military experience than that plonker Ainsworth, indeed more than most previous Defence Politicos going back decades (ex-soldier, me..). His wiki makes interesting reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Joyce
The lesson is that the UK does not require an army in a defensive capacity and that if you sign up now it is to do the political bidding of a party you may not support.
And let us not forget that 70 years ago today we declared a just war in which countless millions died.
He could have chosen a day which doesn’t interfere with that commemoration or at least referred to it if he was really thinking about other people.
Yup. Another busy Labour trougher then.
Ainsworth was an IMG Hunt, like, I think, Darling – who Poulson has just blamed for the collapse of Lehmans – Guardian front page now ; and of course, the IMG applauded the killing of British soldiers in Northern Ireland
1997 was a silent putsch. No wonder Blair got rid of capital punishment for treason, no wonder.
Up against the wall, motherfuckers.
It’s all falling apart for Labour.
41. Interesting indeed Sounds about as much use as a Chocolate Teapot or a Zobbit as we used to call them.
@ I Squibble.. that’s not nit-picking that’s germane to understanding the man, his career path and his choice to join the Labour party as a natural follow-on from the pseudo intellectualism followed by many in the teaching profession.
With all due respect as former ‘canon fodder’ I wouldn’t trust 99.9% of officers. They sniff politicians arses more than Nick Robinson does.
He is right about the yanks not giving us credit for sticking with them in two shite wars though. The yanks are calling us all sorts of names for releasing McTowel Head (although the yanks still won’t send back IRA scum wanted for murder – funny that) yet mostly ignore the slaughter of our troops in their wars. Funny that yanks totally ignored the Australians slaughtered in Vietnam as well.
No, he was a Major in the Royal Army Education Corps, and resigned opportunistically to catch the Labour landslide by standing as a Labour MP and labelling the “Army is too class oriented” for not making him a general.
Sounds like a whining pussy to me…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/226266.stm
… and a mouthpiece for Government policy.
6. Guido Fawkes
Eric Joyce is a trough dwelling slug.
He is as slimy as they come.
How true!
He was an NCO in the Watch. Then got a Commission as a Schooly
If I remember, he got kicked out for writing articles for the Fabian Society – at a time when taking a political stance was REALLY not allowed
A lone voice?
Actually, he served in the ranks of the Black Watch before being commissioned and spending the rest of his service braving pieces of chalk and ducking rude comments in the war zones, er, sorry, classrooms of the Royal Army Education Corps. He was forced to resign for disobeying Queen’s Regulations after writing a highly critical attack on the Army and his class structure for some left wing pressure group. His operational experience is, shall we say, limited.
I do wish the people writing on here as ‘Anonymous’ would choose a pseudonym and stick to it. Some like the above are really interesting and some just invective. It is obvious to me there are several different people and it is hard to reply sensibly. Sorry to moan.
No, he was a private in The Black Watch. He was commissioned into the Education Corps, retiring as a major. There is an important difference.
Hey Guido
He was a private in the Black Watch (wiki !)
And after having been educated lodged fed etc and paid for years of sabattical by the Army who he later described “the armed forces as “racist, sexist and discriminatory”
He also studied religion and is a Scot (another one ..is the whole of Gordon’s Light Brigade Scottish – even after the resignation of Gorbals Mick !!)
And please close this thread quickly..You have given more exposure to a second rate turncoat ex-private in the Black Watch than he deserves..
He didn’t even merit his statutory 15 Warhol minutes…!!
I believe he is of Irish ancestry.
Major In Black Watch To Major Trougher ! ALL Credibility Lost !
He was not – Toenails is wrong. He was a junior rank in the Black Watch – and not for long by most measures. He left (why? how?) and much later did a degree and was commissioned into the Education Corps. He was then let go administratively (aka cashiered) from the Education Corps. It’s all on Wiki.
6 Guido: That would suggest that from anofficers point of view his avowed duty is to defend & protect the Realm and commonwealth countries in a defensive attitude? I can see his concern.
Ever been in the army with the black watch??
Counts for stuff all.
Guido, of course being a soldier counts, being an MP counts too.
Sadly the latter have shown themselves to be not up to the job.
BBC this morning states GB is trying to allay growing public concern over the under funded mission (hardly a war) in Afghanistan.
90% of the population know its an expensive nonsense the other 10% with growing concerns must be those at Westminster and those a sandwich short of a picnic!
BBC already [Friday Morning] not running the story on front page of web news site.
How odd.
A major in the Black Watch, eh? There is something very odd about a soldier who turns politician – look at paddy pantsdown for a good example.
And Lord West getting all twittery, bull-shittery and nothing-much-wrong-with-fuck-all this morning.
West is a complete fucknut. How the fuck he got to be commissioned let alone made a fucking admiral is a fucking disgrace to the navy. He should be fucking keelhauled.
Sound Fair enough to me. Wait till they are paying public service workers in Bags of Turnips. We all laughed out loud at the Russians after they bankrupt the State after their disaster of a forray into Afghanistan. This will be our Vietnam and it will leave us less wealthy and less forgiving of any politician who will unleash the apparatus of War for such a very unconvincing ploy in the US
Sorry to say I can;t have any respect for any NuLabber who can write the following in all seriousness: “I believe the next election is ours to win, thanks greatly to your personal great economic success”
What brown-nosing tosh, what preposterous twaddle
Should have been called the brown watch
I think you will find that he was ATTACHED to the Black Watch.I recall that at the time he was nearly courtmartialled , it emerged that he was in fact an Educator, a teacher in uniform.Joyce’s entire career had been about …Joyce.The resignation is to distance himself from the other clowns in an attempt to save his seat.Remember, he has siphoned off over £1 m in taxpayers’ money in his 9 years as an MP
Somewhat reprehensible comment that.
Nauseous pre-spun cack!
yes anonymous tory twat i feel the same as i have said on my twitters. A numpty, i have no idea what he is doing; I would never have guessed he was in a fairly high rank in the army. Why do people leave a career to go into politics. I think that if you are going to do politics then that is where your loyalty should lie right from beginning.
Army majors get a bloody good pension retiring at 40. Going into politics is just icing on the cake. I’d have some sympathy with his views if he were not so toe curlingly obsequious about “Gordon’s” “achievements”
For Christ’s sake…stop making stuff up to aid your argument. How do you know what pension scheme he was on? My guess is that he “retired” well before his immediate pension point and therefore won’t receive a military pension until he is either 55 or 65 (depending on the terms).
Officers are eligible for pension after 16 years’ service, if they elect to retire.It is not a “bloody good pension”;it is earned as part of the contract and all officers have to contribute to it.The pension scales are a matter of public record; tax at normal rates is also payable.The pension is insufficient to live on without another source of income.By the way, you have to survive in order to take it!
HELLMAND 2009
The air is thick with dust and flame, who started this? Who is to blame?
Shells and rockets rake the field yet neither side is like to yield
There’s no retreat, no going back, just blindly forward in attack
Men are wounded. Men lose limbs. And those who die we praise with hymns
Or stand to hear the lesson read, yet nothings changed, THESE MEN ARE DEAD
We strive to bring their bodies back in boxes draped in union jack
They’ve paid the price and given all but their pay is stopped from when they fall
These fathers’ lovers’ brothers sons have fallen to each other’s guns
Do politicians really care, they might if they were fighting there
They praise all those who serve our nation yet try to cut their compensation
It’s never those whom nations lead get stuck in hell to die or bleed
They just cajole our sons and brothers to go to war and murder others
Both sides’ young men fall for the trick. Greed, religion, politic
That foreign Johnny turban clad is really just an Afghan lad
Who with religious hatred filled joined the fray was quickly killed
Likewise the lad in kaki gear is just a lad from over here.
Courageous, patriotic, smart he volunteers to play his part
He leaves behind his child and wife and goes abroad to lose his life
The Commons reads his name aloud saying that we should be proud
Should we be proud when we’re to blame
NO WE SHOULD HANG OUR HEADS IN SHAME
You fucking peice of shit anonymous, you sit there hiding behind the internet saying soldiers haven’t got a greater say on matters? well we don’t see you risking life and limb for country do we??
It’s soldiers in each generation who keep and are prepared to die for people like you safe in your bed and afforded the luxury to sit their with free speech to mock us with.
Bullshit.
You have an equal voice and no more.
Nobody forced anyone to join. Conscription does not exist.
What do you want? Me to bow down before you for choosing a job? Guess what? We all work. What makes your employment more significant than anyone elses? Why does that mean we should bow down in deference to you?
It doesn’t. Get over yourself.
They are very much concerned with protecting each other once deployed and they are very brave in comradeship.
Anonymous. The volunteer military expect to be well governed and supported in return. There is a thing called the military covenant. I might give up my life for a cause that you choose, but you MUST provide properly for me whilst I “attack the enemy trench or die trying”. And you must house my family well, and you must support those that are injured.
The covenant at the moment is one sided. This is why the military are so pissed off.
You……well you can just fuck off and die.
113 You Are T. A .T The Twat Fucking Retard Crip ! And I Doubt Have Ever Served !
Actually, Ex-Squaddie: You’re a fucking liar. You didn’t join to risk anything for “the country”. You joined because you didn’t fancy doing other work and thought the Army would give you training for jobs you were unemployable for.
You also joined because they put you up, right down to providing the toilet paper. I’ll respect anyone who actually defends this country, but you’re just a duped Dipstick.
We should bring back conscription, and first for call up should be the sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, nephews, neices and cousins of any politician who voted for this war or was in the cabinet that agreed to it but did not resign within 24 hours of the cabinet meeting at which the hoons agreed to go to war. Maybe, just maybe, that would concentrate some minds. Yes, it’s vindictive, but I have had 12 years of ZaNu Lie Baaaaah to learn how to do it.
We Would See “Draft Dodging Just Like The Rich In America !
I would,nt let my kids serve this shit ole country!
Let the migrants sign up first!
Who is Eric Joyce? Why has he got a girl’s surname? What do I care what he thinks about anything?
Crush your enemy underfoot, see him flee before you, and hear the lamentation of his woman!
This is New Labour: ‘hear the lamentation of his women… men… boys… animals…’.
I have seen some pointless debates on this site but this one about who is best fitted to have opinions on military matters must be top of the list. I hate to point this out but if we are looking for politicians with the best military experience to pontificate on such matters then Paddy Pantsdown wins by a mile. At least he was involved in real action whilst many other ex-military in parliament spent their time in the regimental bars.
BEHIND THE HAND ATTACKS BY LABOUR FIGURES ON SERVICE PERSONNEL BEHIND THE HAND ATTACKS BY LABOUR FIGURES ON SERVICE PERSONNEL BEHIND THE HAND ATTACKS BY LABOUR FIGURES ON SERVICE PERSONNEL
GORDON BROWN IS DRINKING OUR SOLDIERS’ BLOOD
THEY ARE LOYAL BUT HE IS NOT
TROOPS OUT NOW
FUCK BROWN HE’S A TRAITOR
TIME TO GO
He looks liker a yobo, talks like a yobo, walks like a yobo and behaves like a yobo..
So what is he ?!
A Zanu Star of New Scottish Labour
That says is all,
God help us…
Self-interest is Eric Joyce’s middle name. As the man with the highest expenses claims of any MP he was not only an ultra labour loyalist and firm supporter of the Iraq war but also didn’t ever rock any boat until he found that he was in danger of losing his seat in Falkirk. I wouldn’t trust him to be doing this for altruistic reasons -he’s a chancer – self interest that’s what it will be.
He got a well-deserved pasting over his expenses from a Newsnight Scotland journalist a few months back – so bad it made it on to YouTube!
Just passing through this site … and couldn’t help noticing that the most glaringly obvious fact is what a truly astonishingly disgusting bunch of foul mouthed hate filled idiots you all seem to be.
OK low lifes.
You can all go back to throwing shite at each other now.
Slightly unfair but not by much. This site attracts 3 types; Dick Sniffins granny bashers, the ex-Colonel tendency of the Tories and a more sensible tendency which includes a range of views, including those of the Tories. Regrettably the latter are in a minority.
“I have been privileged to work as PPS to four senior Labour ministers in four government departments”
Sad to see such a meteoric career cut short.
Fair play to him. He’s chosen the right issue to resign on.
agree
“This seems to me the least disruptive time to do that.”
Before the Party Conference giving the plotters ample time to sound out what the backbenchers think about Brown’s continued failed leadership and the Afghanistan War as an Election issue. While paving the way for more resignations from any who might be a trifle jumpy at the prospect of a Conservative landslide.
“least disruptive”. Right Mr Joyce.
Watch closely who is more or less hawkish on Afghanistan from now on.
There may be a few speeches at the Party Conference that advocate a pull out or “phased withdrawall” and to use that as an Election issue.
It hasn’t escaped some on the Labour backbenches or the aspiring Leadership hopefuls that Afghanistan is playing very badly indeed as an issue with the British public now.
We will be pulling out of Afghanistan soon. Either due to:
(1) The increasing cost of our brave soldier’s lives
(2) The increasing political costs
(3) The increasing costs to support the war which clearly we cannot afford
Either way, we’re gone and we will lose as did any other country that tried in the past.
I don’t know much about Eric Joyce but it’s a brave letter. He’s absolutely shagged now…..
Agreed. There’s the usual pro-Gordon shite there to make it clear that it’s not a leadership challenge, but he tears into the current defence situation. As he should.
If he were brave, he would have told the truth: we have no mission in Afghanistan, we have an army not fit for the task, we have a political leadership that has a sociopathic disdain for the lives of soldiers and we have a government that throws soldiers into the meatgrinder of American hubris purely so that Gordon Brown can get photo ops with politicians in Washington ahead of the next election.
That would have been brave. What we get instead is mealy-mouthed equivocation about how a party that has murdered British soldiers by starving them of equipment is somehow entitled to govern, that the leftist scum who have betrayed this nation over the last twelve years should start telling prettier lies to hoodwink an imbecilic public. Joyce is a Hoon and a disgrace to the Black Watch.
Hear Hear!
“he’s absolutely shagged now…..”
No, he’s free
Truth Sir, Truth.
Hear hear
Brave? Are you out of your mind? EJ said: “… thanks greatly to your [Brown's] personal great economic success.” The only personal economic success Brown has had is his fiddled expenses. That’s not brave of Joyce, it’s brown nosing.
“we will move off our present war-footing and reduce our forces there substantially during our next term in government” – so that’ll be their next term in about 2050, then?
Well they did say that the war will probably last for 40 years
!!!
“I believe the next election is ours to win, thanks greatly to your personal great economic success. ”
Is Joyce mad?
Yes.
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm20dU5O9MU
Brilliant video.
Interviewer: “have you paid capital gains tax?”
Eric Joyce MP: “You’re asking about my personal relationships”.
Budgie, in a way Joyce is right as most of his personal relationships seem to revolve around expenses and tax.
Why does he conflate his financial affairs with his personal relationships? A no-holds-barred investigation of his private life by the News of the World is required, I think.
A sadly typical example of a chippy Nu Labour specimen. The dishevilled look comes across as edgy to him and just plain scruffy to the rest of us. The interviewer allowed Joyce to squirm and disemble, he didn’t need to pin him down as Joyce effectively threw himself on the skewer.
All that money claimed in expenses. Does he not realise that money originally came from the taxes of “hard working families”, many of whom are struggling to make ends meet? What a true Fabian he must be.
After seeing that interview, would you buy a second hand car from Eric Joyce?
Well let’s be generous he is an ex army major – and clearly not an economist.
In fact economics seems to be something most scots in this government struggle to understand the basics of not spending more than you earn.
Joyce was the top-claiming Member of the House of Commons for the 2005-06 Parliamentary Session, claiming £174,811 in expenses, of which 62% was for staff and office costs. After the 2005-06 Parliamentary Session, he made a public pledge to cut his expenses. Subsequently, during the 2006–07 Parliamentary Session, he moved down to 11th on the list of MPs’ expenses and allowances. However, he once again rose to the top of the expenses list for the 2007-08 Parliamentary Session with £187,334.
Joyce was the first MP to claim more than £1 million cumulatively in expenses.[ In October 2007 Joyce claimed £180 for three oil paintings. When asked why he had used taxpayer’s funds in such a way he replied “because they look nice.”In May 2009, tabloids reported Joyce was seeking advice from HM Revenue and Customs regarding £40,000 in unpaid capital gains tax on the sale of his London home, which he had designated as his second home under the Second Homes Allowance scheme. The tabloids wrote that when asked what he would do were he asked to repay the money, Joyce stated he would “suck it and see.”
wiki
Bladder man,
Whether or not he actually believes that nonsense, he has to say it otherwise what he has to say about defence will be buried.
Yes, Joyce may have resigned but he ensured he ‘bigged up’ the planks he works with….not brave, not brave at all….
My Dad was in the Black Watch, becoming a pow on the Burma Railway and when he eventually returned he was broken spiritually and physically suffering a complete breakdown 2 years after returning. He only read a handful of books in his life having left school at 14, however, he knew who was manipulating the world even without ever having seen a computer – and he predicted much of what’s happening today….including holograms!
Whenever we asked Dad for a few bob, he’d say:
“who do you think I am, Lord Rothschild”? Nuff said.
RIP Dad and all those brave boys and girls who have given their lives for. . . ?
As General Smedley Butler said: “war is a racket”.
Thank you for that perspective Sukyspook, May they Rest in peace. It’s politicians and bankers who start wars. The brave miltary are just pawns.
Pawns who, if they joined within the last 8 years, did so knowing they’d participate in two illegal wars of occupation, ie: not blindly.
Please try to be specific, rather than giving HM Armed Forces a mass blowjob. It’s not pretty.
172 you live in a strange world – and you are a rather unsavoury character –
soldiers don’t join up knowing what their political masters are going to do.
And know one could have predicted how unstable this current labour government was going to be in pursuing unwinnable wars.
Respect.
Count me in there too .. I served my time with the Colours ..
Is Joyce mad?
No, he’s deluded just like the rest of those tribalist, non-thinkers that follow the great gordo who simply agree with what they’re told.
As soldiers, it’s the way the army to carry out orders without questioning.
As people affected by political dictat, it’s not.
No..he’s just another one of my clients…
I’ve been supplying almost the whole government for years now..
But they are going onto the hard stuff now..
So please understand and don’t disturb my trade…(free trade as Guido would call it)
Your Friendly Supplier Rasta Bob
Christ, has the “embarrassing sycophant” Joyce finally grown a spine?
No. He is leaving the trench.
Some fucking soldier.
Bullshit.
He’s going over the top, just like millions of Tommies did in WW1. Full credit to him.
Over the top?
He’s going back via the communication trench
FFS this opportunistic ladder climber can see the writing on the wall – he will be out of office and a job in 6 months anyway. If he had balls or principles he would have called Brown-Hoon to account long ago.
Some sacrifice. Desk wally soldier.
BTW he has the highest expense ratio for travel amongst MP’s. Trougher.
As a PPS, he wasn’t a soldier; he wasn’t fighting; he did not go over the top; he is not like the Tommies in WW1. So what credit is there in being deluded about Gordoom?
If he was just leaving the trench then he’d have stood down for personal reasons. He hasn’t he’s chosen to destroy his career and cause a shit blizzard.
He still keeps his army pension and six figure haul as a backbench MP. Hardly “going over the top” or falling on a sword.
Just remembered the words to a song my old mucka Geezer Butler wrote, sums it all up I think:
Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of deaths construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds, oh lord yeah!
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor
Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait till their judgement day comes, yeah!
Now in darkness, world stops turning
As the war machine keeps burning
No more war pigs of the power
Hand of God has sturck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan, laughing, spreads his wings
All right now
Joyce suffers from being a brown arm boy. He must have it up Gordons bottom with his eulogy on how Gordon has saved the world. What bollocks.
The problem here is Brown and it always will be until he is gone. This odious man has somehow got it hands on No. 10 and is now making as a big a mess of the country as he has of the economy. Anyone who thinks this man was the saviour of our economy and the best man to run our country should also belong in the funny farm. There are not many labour politicians I respect but lets face it Blair knew this man Brown was a train wreck and lets also be honest like him or loathe him Blair was a leader and head and shoulders above Brown in every category you care to compare. Afghanistan is a big mistake and brave soldiers are dying for nothing. Its bollocks to say we are keeping this war from our streets by fighting it there and insults the british publics intelligence. To call this a war is wrong where are the soldiers we are fighting? Soldiers where uniforms how can we fight an enemy were one does not exist. The taliban is loathesome that is a given but its a culture not an enemy. You cannot destroy or beat this in a conventional manner and I fear we are going to come away at some point leaving it no better than how it was when we arrived. Bring our boys home now and leave the afghanies to kill themselves. We have enough problems of our own right now and we need a fresh look and a fresh government. Brown is the biggest wanker I have ever had the privilege to come into contact with and its about time the rest of the public saw this he is a loser, a liar and a completely failed leader. The man has absolutely NO credibility in any quarter and needs to get the biggest bloody nose from an electorate that needs to send the biggest possible message to a failed government and a failed party. LABOUR IS DOOMED OR SHOULD BE!!!! And I pray this is so. Let me add this is not about labour, tory, lib dem etc its about change and anyone who gets in will be better than this bunch of low lifes and anybody would be better than Brown and I mean anybody. Its now about time to give a fresh bunch a fresh mandate to govern. Lets clear away the toxic policies of this labour government and give a new mandate to a new government that can command support from a majority of the public at a GE that needs to be called sooner rather than later.
I see that Gordon Brown was in Birmingham yesterday and a job launch. I don’t suppose he bothered to go a few miles across town to visit the soldiers in the hospital at RCDM Selly Oak. I don’t suppose he has ever visited the injured in hospital to see how they are doing. But then he would not have the BOTTLE to do so as we know he is famous as a bottler.
Bang on about most of our floppy Euro non fighting Nations in the Eric Joyce letter!!
Copy and pasted from my lunchtime addition into another topic.
You’re quite right – Brown doesn’t have the balls to face up to the men he sent into action – mind you, not one of the Defence Secretaries have bothered to look at their handywork either.
The only person of note to have visited the troops there and at Headly Court has been the Prince of Wales.
Prince of Wales – he isn’t “a person of note” – he’s a barmy, over privileged, useless, descendant of the robber barons who have this country by the throat.
He is no better, as a person deserving “respect”, than the meanest citizen of Britain.
The royals are the biggest thieving troughers of the bunch, who achieved their wealth and so called position by subjugating the ordinary man.
A Republic – and an end to hereditary & life titles and meaningless OBEs et al, NOW.
At least he visted them. But then, he never sent them there in the first place, unlike Brown and Ainsworth,
What a sad little c’nt Headless Nick is, so sense of style. What world would you like to see, a President like Sarkozy or Berlusconi, you fat tit.
A Republic NHN? An end to titles and gongs? If you scrapped the Monarchy tomorrow they would be replaced by another ruling hierarchy within 24 hours.
King Idris of Lybia was deposed by Muammar Gadhaffi. One absolute ruler replaced by another.
Then there is Kim Il Jong, Kim Jong Il followed by Kim Blah Blah Mk. III. All in a socialist workers’ republic.
Then there is Cuba where Fidel gets sick so brother Raul takes over as absolute ruler.
Or the, lets do away with British rule and gongs in Uganda and replace it with…….. a whole room devoted to the display of Idi Amin’s medals and awards.
Not forgetting Mugabe’s medals of freedom given to any dodgy kleptomaniac that sort of supported ZANU during the “War of Independence”.
But the icing on the cake goes to Emperor Bokassa. Mad as a box of frogs but had a snappy line in golden thrones.
Sneer at the Queen if you will but at least she is there to stop us having President John Prescott and First Lady Pauline.
Follow the money.
Who is making money out of the slaughter of innocent civilians in Afghanistan – the rich who have shares in BAE systems, politicians who get kick-backs from the arms dealers, privatised mercenary criminals companies, and the evil jews.
Dirty animals. Dirty evil filth.
What have jews got to do with it? You mean jews in Israel, jews in New York, Greater London???
The ones in his head. With the lizards.
ARRGH! THE JOOOS! Good grief, what on earth have the Jews got to with the utter incompetence and mendacity of our Government?
Ursury!
142 – Ursury must be to do with Bears (l. ‘ursus’ a bear cf. ‘ursus minor’ ‘the Little Bear’). Now Usury, the taking of a profit on Money (‘a barren commodity’) either by lending or borrowing…
Ivor, presumably you disdain a Mortgage, have no interest-bearing Savings, would be content, if someone had been able to borrow £20 from you, to accept £20 as full repayment several years later?
Or are you suggesting that all the people in The City of London, all the people in HSBC/HBOS/RBS/Lloyds/Barclays/Nationwide/… are of one ethnic and/or religious group?
Jethro. You are brainwashed: You don’t need to make a profit by lending money-you make a profit by selling goods at more than you paid for them or more than for the ingredients. That pays the salary which buys the house. Do you get it? Cheques are ok if you don’t wish to carry metal or seashells or your goods need to be delivered with (IOU/cheque)payment in advance. There is nothing to stop those who deliver the goods or the IOU’s from taking a cut of the profit or for that matter in limited tax. What need for bankers except for the use of their vaults?
Oh, No! Sandy is David Icke in a lizard suit!
Your anti-semitism is beneath contempt, but it has encouraged me to buy some more BAE shares and I’m not even rich or Jewish.
The man getting richest from this is Israeli (ex-mossad) billionaire Yosef A. Maiman who owns or controls much of the gas and oil in the region and wants to build pipelines through the place. Google the scumbag.
Another useless Scottish Hunt that has spent more expenses on his house than a soldier has gets in pay being duplicitous.
When will politicians get a backbone, surely, if he had these feelings then he should make a statement to the house in parliament and allow a debate on the points. If he believes EU partners are not pulling their weight, then this should be voiced and a motion of lowering our financial commitment to the EU should be debated to ensure our troops who are fighting for each western capital are funded 100%.
Amazing that these Hunts have to attack Conservatives even in a resignation letter, he should resign from the Labour party, as they have never supported our soldiers even after sending them on five Blair glory wars.
Oh, fuck off. Just take this paranoid bullshit about Scottish this and Scottish that and fuck right off, you cowardly bigoted prick.
A little ironic your post you Hunt, hiding behind anonnymouse.
Tell you what if you fancy meeting up and we can see what bottle you have, you fkg Laptop commander. And Scottish cints are Hunts Hunts Hunts and have destroyed my country, I fkg hate them and would love to nuke the fkrs when the wind was blowing towards Iceland.
tit
the majority of the troops fighting and dying in afghanistan are scottish
you fuckwitted twat
Bigoted twat.
G-G-GRAWWWK!!! (flutter) SKRAAARRK!
Grow up, you fucking mongoloid. Take your Internet Tough Guy schtick and shove up your jacksie, you absolute tool.
Get back to driving your black cab or packing frozen chickens at the factory and leave political comment to those of us with an IQ that actually goes into double digits.
Incidentally, tough guy, the word is “fucking” not “fkg”. If you’re old enough to use, you’re old enough to type it.
Am I the only one who, upon reading this, had visions of that moustachioed twerp from On The Buses? (“I ‘ate you, Blakey! I ‘ate you!”)
Thanks for making the entire English nation look mentally deficient.
I know you think you’re doing good for your fellow Englishmen by defending England’s honour but do your fellow Englishmen a favour: don’t defend our national honour any more.
Also die in a fire.
217 it was “I hate you Butler” Blakey was the supervisor. You were clsoe but no cigar…
I’ll meet you; anytime any place. A dull thud on the side of the jaw for you I think. Stupid wee, half-witted, twat.
A double tap for you, you fat useless twat, would be so…
Fucking delicious!
Ducking, diving, slinking, swerving, equivocating, lying, smearing, traducing, fornicating, adultering, sodomising, abominating, corrupted, corrupting, peculating, pilfering; treasonous, larcenous, egotistical, monomaniacal, psychotic, schizophrenic, sociopathic, psychopathic; double-dealing, back-stabbing, weasel-worded, sanctimonious, arch-hypocritical, hollow, vindictive, shallow, shiftless… and, as for the ‘Government’…!
I think he’s got a point, their does seem to be a disproportionate amount of Jocks making an arse of things. How many English are in the Scottish Assembly?
A few.
Buz off . If I am a bigot then I am proud to be one.
Time for the Scots to be given full independence and passports to return to their promised land.
The re-build the wall and make sure not one escapes back here. Plus we save 22bn a year.
How many?
Do you mean Hadrians Wall or the Antonine Wall? If the former it means they get almost all of Northumberland. As Tacitus would say: Fuck that.
Plenty of us happy to leave you FEB ‘s to fight your own wars. I always figured the reason you held onto us and the Irish is because we are daft enough to be your shock troops. Who suffered most casualties in your family disputes with the krauts last century? Why the Irish and the Scots.
I wish to Christ we could leave you to wallow in your own shit.
120 – Purpleline, you seem to have stirred up a hornets’ nest of anger and angst! I notice that none of your opponents actually tries to controvert what you said: ‘he spent more in expenses on his house than a soldier gets in pay…’
Reply:” Oh, fuck off. Just take this paranoid bullshit about Scottish this and Scottish that and fuck right off, you cowardly bigoted prick.”
Purpleline: “When will politicians get a backbone, surely, if he had these feelings then he should make a statement to the house in parliament and allow a debate on the points. If he believes EU partners are not pulling their weight, then this should be voiced and a motion of lowering our financial commitment to the EU should be debated to ensure our troops who are fighting for each western capital are funded 100%.”
Reply “Grow up, you fucking mongoloid. Take your Internet Tough Guy schtick and shove up your jacksie, you absolute tool.
Get back to driving your black cab or packing frozen chickens at the factory and leave political comment to those of us with an IQ that actually goes into double digits.
Incidentally, tough guy, the word is “fucking” not “fkg”. If you’re old enough to use, you’re old enough to type it.”
As Corporal Jones used to say, ‘They don’t like it up them, Captain Mainwaring.’
And the small matter of the troops being a majority of Scots Jethro ?
Do you think they will agree with the deranged twatty insults of a self confessed “proud bigot” ?
Why does he want to fund these scottish troops 100% then ? moronic trolls.
Dearie me little lad, if you think objecting to petty snide bigotry is somehow an automatic defense of troughing you have much to learn.
At least Joyce is admitting the obvious.
That Afghnistan is a quagmire and we need to start withdrawing as soon as possible.
Only little poodles who swallow their shit wholesale from Brown believe otherwise.
“They” being the scots troops fighting and dying, “don’t like it up them” by fuckwitted bigots and morons. They would have a swift and direct response for anyone foolish enough to try such stupidity within their earshot.
Err… Seorsa, The first British troops to land in occupied France, the night before the D Day landings were the Ox & Bucks Light Infantry. Out of a glider. Other Scottish and English units followed shortly after.
The unit that has taken most casualties in ‘Stan are the Anglian Regiment.
I have every respect for the fighting prowess of the Scots, Welsh and Irish but don’t forget the English. That’s why it is called the British Army.
By the way, during part of the Penisular campaign, only two of Napoleon’s imperial eagle standards were captured. One by the Royal Scots Greys and the other by an infantry regiment from Essex.
@Jethro
This is fascinating. You contend that if one takes offence at a Keyboard Warrior laughing at and belittling the deaths of Scottish soldiers in the British Army, one is actively defending troughing.
One which planet do you spend most of your time? Also what drugs, exactly, are you smoking and where can I get them?
I’ll echo Anon at 9:30 pm and say that while I know you think you’re helping Engerland but, please, for the sake of all the English nation: stop helping Engerland.
First, there’s quite a few English in the Scottish Assembly and far more who are active in other aspects of Scottish politics (e.g., Ian Ruffell, the local Green noisemaker, and the two English councillors, one LD and on Labour, whose constituencies border mine).
Second, the London Parliament is not and never has been an English body. It is the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Nob.
Eh? I think you’ll find the parliament at Westminster was the, ahem, English Parliament before the act of union, dear boy.
@English Heretic
You’re deeply, deeply confused. The English Parliament was suspended in 1707 and never sat in the Palace of Westminster (largely because the Palace of Westminster wasn’t actually completed until 1860).
No English parliament has sat in over three hundred years. This is fact. No English parliament has ever sat in the Houses of Parliament in the Palace of Westminster. This is also fact.
Interesting that you mention Act of Union which nicely reminds us that its purpose was to bail out Scotland owing to the fact that one of its sons, William Paterson, had bankrupted the country owing to his ill-judged Darien adventure.
Brown’s always telling us of his heroes. Paterson?
BANG !!!
What a tit. Does the right thing and screws it up by sticking his tongue up Gordo’s arse
What a sadly deluded man Joyce is if he believes what he writes!!!!
He’s a Labour MP ! Of course he does n’t actually believe what he says or writes !!
“… your great success in turning the Economy from a weakness into a strength for Labour … continuing success in helping people from all parts of society become more prosperous … helping the least well-off …”
God, what a load of sycophantic wank.
MOD sources try to rubbish Joyce and Liam Fox attempts to attack on channel 4 news right now.
kevan will be in there with his stiletto trying to infer that eric joyce is suffering from some sort of stress related disorder.
I wonder whether bob ‘aintbustinagut’ has crawled out from under the cabinet office table yet .
And where has gordon gone to ground ? We shan’t see him for days now.
A lot of people will listen to someone who can’t even spell Kevin correctly. What a tet!
What a tosser! labs next session in government will be when hell freezes over cos gordon truly is a moron.
The chances of that are even slimmer since global warming.
“Labour was returned to power in 1997 on the back of your great success in turning the Economy from a weakness into a strength for Labour.” Did he actually read what he wrote there?
He’s a scot . Let’s face it the scots we have in the labour government here don’t understand economics.
Ock aye we dooo. We need our benefits. Keep paying your taxes you sassenach twats.
They certainly understand being economical with the truth our nellie.
The Scots in England who do understand econoics are Tories, praying that they referendum will vote for Scottish independence
65 Nell, I think that the more important point Unixman is drawing our attention to is that, up to and including 1997 Gordon Brown had nothing to do with “the Economy”, and so Labour’s 1997 success could have not been “on the back of” his anything.
Before WW1, the Imperial Forces and we people here knew that, generally, they would be doing the following:-
They would take an ongoing level of light (ish) casualties all the time, fighting the anti-liberal and anti-emancipatory fuzzy-wuzzies of all types, but latterly (say post 1872?) principally those who had read some kind of a “book” (?) which purported to be a religious text, but actually was a pre-capitalist-barbarian-desert-survival-guide-about-what-to-do-with-and-how-to-distribute-the-other-tribe’s-animals-and-women-after-killing-of-the-adult-males-who-of-course-would-resist.
The problem today in Afghanistan is that it can’t now just be left. Now then, other libertarians (not me) say forthrightly that “Britain has no important and crucial interest as a nation in what goes on in Afghanistan or elsewhere unless some vital British INterest Is Threatened”. I do not agree.
There are no “Faraway Countries of which we know little” any more, if what is going on there is arranged by the following dudes: hyperactive and aggressive chappies with explosives and IEDs, probably paid for and given chemicals and copper melt-plates by Russians or even others closer to home, such as the ******, and who are cheerfully and alarmingly frank about our civilisation’s failings in their eyes, and are also happy to opine on Western Wireless Tele Vision about what they plan to do to us here.
The level of casualties is unacceptable in today’s liberal globalised media. I also cannot accept it, for it ought not to be possible that a heavily-armoured, technological and first-world Army (The Real Thing, as one Israeli General called it, and he should know) should have its individual soldiers blown to bits by flying dsutbins.
If properly armoured, I should expect about one of our deaths to about 12,391 of theirs.
The fact that nothing is done about this, and that nothing is done about the thugs who give the anti-election-thugs these IEDs, and that poor sad Wootton Bassett is going to HAVE TO DO IT ALL AGAIN, in a few days’ time, is inexplicable unless it is deliberate.
NUKE ‘EM!
form orbit, it’s the only way
Form it, or from it? Either way, I’m in!
Well strangely enough this is a bit of a redemption story.
I believe, incredibly, that he is the only member of the Parliamentary Labour Party ever to serve in HM armed forces. If you ignore all the claptrap about Gordon Brown economic guru, economic genius, savour of the world, then this is actually someone who has FINALLY done the right thing and lined up with the good guys, and the injured, the dead and the serving members of HM armed forces.
And I applaud that.
He’s the reverse of Quentin Davies. And that’s a good thing.
That’s one way of looking at it. But considering his record it could be that he’s getting out whilst the going’s good and playing to the stalls.
Exactly. He’s trying to distract from his expenses in time for the election.
“savour of the world” ?
Gordon’s stench is that bad?
So the british (Brown’s) government are trying to rubbish Eric Joyce!!!
Just How Low can they Go????
Much lower than this I fancy – just watch the next nine months.
This government is going to go down in history as the most corrupt and repulsive government we have ever had. Bliar’s will be a close second.
And let’s face it they have taken vicious smearing and lying to a high art that will now forever be associated with the labour party.
Mud sticks but usually to the person that’s throwing it.
There’s so much mud around these bastards, it’s hard to spot where the mud ends and they begin!
Or should that be – where the mud ends and the shit begins.
Let’s cut the crap and get out now instead of who-knows-how many years and dead people down the line with our tails between our legs.
Oliver Stone must be counting his pension at the thought of this pointless bloodbath.
‘I believe the next election is ours to win’
The Twat is obviously deranged.
not sure I agree with you – surely what would be deranged is if he said “the next election is ours to lose..’ ?
They have already lost it – all that’s left for them is this slow descent into the pits of oblivion.
It reminds me of the darkest part of John Bunyan’s religious novel but I’ve forgotten what’s its called.
Pilgrim’s progress. Perhaps you could also try Dante’s Inferno. I am sure that God has got a special place for Gordy and all his NWO mates. Unless he repents.
Thank EV – Yes of course. More years ago than I care to remember I was given it as a school prize – tonight I couldn’t remember its title – early alzheimers!!!
If he does he’ll still get his pension. And the rest. Hardly sackcloth and ashes.
@ 146
If he truly repents, he would donate all his ill-gotten gains to a the poor and disappear into anonymity, keeping a clean heart and hands and eagerly awaiting the return of the King. Don’t hold your breath.
I’ll gladly hold his breath.
Nell. It’s called The Slough of Despond. Not to be confused with the Slough of Berkshire which I am told is far worse.
At least he’s shot gordon’s nonsensicle excuse for being in Afghanistan ie ‘to prevent further terrorist attacks on our streets’ – to bits.
Now gordon’s going to have to find another excuse for being there.
He won’t be able to use the excuse that we are helping to bring about a democratic election since that experiment is falling badly apart as we speak and it’s now clear that there has been massive fraud over the vote – not to mention a total failure of voting in some areas.
“I believe the next election is ours to win, thanks greatly to your personal great economic success.”
WHAT! You’ve got to be fucking joking right?
What a complete fucking prick. How can Liebour be so delusional ??
“Great” is a weasel relative term. Think Great Yarmouth.
Or Great Grimsby
Or great god.
Grate Cheese?
It’s possible to see flattery like this as intentionally ironic you know, which would make the real statement he’s making to his party colleagues become: “We are going to lose the election, thanks greatly to your personal great economic cock-up.” Very much in the “For Brutus is an honourable man” mould.
Gordo doesn’t seem to get/do irony or humour very much but many others in the government and the party will see that irony and be sniggering too when they read this stuff. After all, they can see the writing on the wall, are shitting bricks and *want to get rid of Brown too, even if they haven’t got the guts to do it. They all know, just as we do, that’s it’s merely a form of words, the cloth to wrap the bloody dagger in.
“Labour was returned to power in 1997 on the back of your great success in turning the Economy from a weakness into a strength for Labour.”
Is he stoned out of his gourd?
Follow the gourd. The gourd is the Messiah.
The Tuscan is disturbed most of all in this letter by the capitalisation of “economy”.
Hear hear T.T. I noticed, but forbore to comment.
On the other hand – he WAS in the Royal Army Education Corps, so perhaps that explains his lack of grammar.
R.A.E.C. was always a soft option to escape the rigours of the service whilst enjoying the dressing up in stiff shirts, bow ties and mess jackets for good living in the officer’s mess.
Oh my Gourd.
Sorry, I think you will find the sandal is the Messiah
The truth is the NuLiebour inherited a surplus and then set about destroying it in very short order.
Magicians – making our economy vanish. Hugely successful. A class act and no mistake. Unlike Tommy Cooper, however, the joke has worn a bit thin.
As thin and yielding as the metal of a Spitfire bonnet?
Regrettably this will only make sense if you are joined at the hip with Mr. Jardon
BTW
Is there a retirement home for failed Zanu Labour politicians in Tuscany ?
Bonnet? Jane Austen’s heroines had bonnets. Spitfires had cowlings, engine covers and casing panels.
No Tuscan
He spent the weekend near you with Polly Wally Doodle all the Day..
Didn’t you notice all the smoke coming out of her house ?
“your personal great economic success”!!!!!!
What a Hunt.
I’d often wondered why “Hoon” appeared in so many comments. Now I know.
I stick by my first description of the man (began witn a “c”. Ended with a “t”. Only four letters in it).
Clot? Cyst? Cret?
Conlyfourlettersinitt?
Go back through the archives. You will soon discover the etymology of “hoon”
Barnaby Todger.
The use of the word СUNT is for subscribers only.
CLINT ??
That’s 5.
Rats, ship, glug glug glug……..
Do rats drown?
Yes With Your Foot On Their Heads !
They do if you shoot the fuckers !!
I think that by “personal great economic success” he means that Gordon’s done very well for himself through his time in office. It’s clearly not an observation of Gordon’s ‘contribution’ to the wider UK economy.
It could be read either way, but given the state of the UK economy, the author is clearly talking about Gordon’s personal success.
If you read that sentence in a sneering, sarcastic tone it makes a lot more sense.
Well let’s face it, most mp’s have had ‘personal great economic success’ with their expenses claims.
Brown’s “personal great economic success” can only have come from his plundering of other people’s pockets ..
Cos as a Prime Minister or as an Author .. he’d make a shit-hot Prima Ballerina ..
I take it then Cap’n Haddock that you think that gordon’s a bit of a failure??!!
Don’t you think , at least, that he would make a decent dustman or maybe an efficient night soil collector in china?
…Dustman, perhaps, Nell, but isn’t he more of a night-soil distributor, than collector?
Nice To See One Lie-Bore Party Member Has A Conscience And Can Tell The Truth ! Is He The Last Of The Honorable Gentlemen ?
Just Watched The Video Clip Below Please Ignore The Above Post .This Git Is One Of The Biggest Troughing Bent Scumbags That The Lie-Bore Party Has To Offer !
I think I will make a bet that UK PM Gordon Brown will be out of 10 Downing Street by Xmas. The economy is in the toilet, the political polls for Labour share the same water, Afghanistan makes Suez and Iraq look like a good idea. Tony Blair I am sure will be laughing his socks off that this is the fate for Gordon Brown.
What you mean quote “Britain is best placed to handle the recession’??? You mean the countries that have been more sensible are out of recession whilst we fall ever deeper downwards? You mean the financial genius “no more boom and bust” will lose his job?
Not as long as he has the BBC backing him up. The BBC are pissed that Sky want to humiliate the one eyed twat in a 3 way debate. The BBC like to manage the politics of the General Election so they can spin it positive for Liebour vermin.
I saw a report on BBC World News today which said that the economic fallout in Iceland would be worse than ‘most’ other Western nations. Who do you think could be in a worse condition than Iceland?
Britain to stay in recession as world recovers… but Darling says we must keep on spending
OECD: UK’s will be last major economy to recover
Britain to shrink in 3rd quarter as others bounce back
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1210862/We-carry-spending-recession-warns-Darling.html#ixzz0Q4shZbM9
Whatever the sentiment the whole credibility of this letter is shot to pieces by this one phrase alone:
“I believe the next election is ours to win, thanks greatly to your personal great economic success.”
Unless, of course, he is taking the piss, in which case top marks.
Expect by the time of the BBC 10PM news for Toenails to be spinning a positive line for Liebour. Then Newsnight will start rubbishing Joyce and bigging up the one eyed gay lying coward.
No doubt that dreadful interview with Newsnight Scotland will be rolled out…
Is he a botty-boy?
“…..while colleagues at Defence sealed it”. Sealed “it” by killing thousands of innocent Serbian, Iraqi and Afghani civilians. Verily, a Hoon of the first order.
Fuck them they would of been killed by their holy taliban brothers sooner or later anyway. They get there 72 virgins also regardless of who kills them so why waste tears.
The Christian Serbs were murdered in Blair’s vanity war in support of Moslem Albanian drug dealers, organ traders and pimps, many of whom now live on your street.
In mindless opposition to our real and necessay ally against the forces of islam – Russia Blair with his support of the moslem foces allowed the establishment of the first islamic state in western europe.
You are become death – destroyer of worlds.
I like this comment from Joyce “For many, Britain fights, Germany pays, France calculates, Italy avoids,”
I thought he was talking about Euro2008 but England of course didn’t make the finals.
Isn’t the Regimental motto of the 1st Battalion Berlusconi’s Bersaglieri .. “We’d rather fuck than fight” ??
Berlusconi’s too old for all of that . He just like’s to pretend.
Pity he’s such a rubbish politician as well.
I dunno so much Nell .. He seems to attract more fanny than a bog seat in a Convent .. Lol
Money and power – not charisma!!!!
And the Grrek army’s motto is “Never leave your buddies behind”
The italians just stand around looking for someone to surrender to
A long time ago, Britain and France were at war.
During one battle, the French captured an English colonel. They took him to their headquarters and the French general began to question him.
Finally, as an after thought, the French general asked,
“Why do you English officers all wear red coats? Don’t you know the red material makes you easier targets for us to shoot at ?”
In his bland English way, the officer informed the general that the reason English officers wear red coats is so that if they are shot, the blood won’t show, and the men they are leading won’t panic.
And that is why, from that day to this, all French Army officers wear brown trousers.
With thanks to “The Remover” on http://www.arrse.co.uk
“Labour was returned to power in 1997 on the back of your great success in turning the Economy from a weakness into a strength for Labour”
Uh? He is saying Brown was Chancellor in the Major administration.
Twat.
Still, any further embarrassment for the arsehole Brown is to be welcome.
All fall down.
If you cared to read the letter closely,you might find that he meant Labours reputation on the Economy was their weakness and Browns pre election Shadow Chancellorship helped to dispel that view in the mind of the Electorate.
Don’t take that as a statement from me about his abilities….I hate the lying bastard as much as the next man.
Guido – I think he was ‘other ranks’ when he was badged Black Watch and served in the Education Corps after commission some 3 years later post graduation from Stirling, hence my referring to him as ‘the teacher’ in past comments.
Like others, I have always thought him a practiced oportunist and have been one of the first to have a go. This earns him several erm….Brownie points and I shall refrain from being at the centre of first wave for the duration of this excellent sport.
Oh, go on! You know you want to.
The late Field Marshall Montgomery once said that there were two cardinal military mistakes to avoid. One was marching on Moscow. The other was committing troops to a land war in Asia.
Britain needs to get its service personnel out of Afghanistan – just as other UN countries have done.
And let Ombama rattle the tin cup for military force contributions for this unwinnable war to prop up the odious Karzai from the likes of South Africa, Mexico, Panama, etc..
A cursory glance at the history of Afghanistan, will show the numbers of times this or that army has tried to conquer and hold the territory… and failed and had to pull
out. Monty could just as well have have singled the place out.
“The Conservatives, of course opportunistically, think they can convince the public that we have lost our empathy with the Defence community.”
Typical……., does not want to burn all his bridges. Brown will of course admit nothing, deny everything and blame the other Party”
“the importance of the allied effort in Afghanistan/Pakistan”
so when did UK & US officially expand their war of terror and declare war on Pakistan?
These psycho scum will have what they’ve always wanted, WWIII.
‘Labour was returned to power in 1997 on the back of your great success in turning the Economy from a weakness into a strength’
Whilst I agree with his attack on Labour for their disgraceful treatment of our armed services. This bit really undermines his argument, who, exactly, thinks Broon has been a great success on the economy?
I do.
Doesn’t that sound like something a frightened north korean politican would say to his leader?
Why are so many people surpised about Karzai and the rape laws??
It’s there in the Quran for all too see that muslims think this kind of thing is acceptable.
What did you expect when your dealing with intellectual inbreds, five hundred years behind the rest of the world.
Sadly, you are one of the most stupid people who ever lived.
Sorry to be pedantic, because I agree with you, but they are about 1350 years behind.
Europe in general has been incredibly short sighted and “politically correct’” in thinking that Islam could be “integrated” into European societies…
I refer my fellow conspirators to “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West”. By Christopher Caldwell. Doubleday 422 pages and Allen Lane for Chapter and Verse…
Islam in general is at war with : China; India, Russia, Europe and the United States
That is a shitload of people…in fact virtually the whole world against a backward, barbaric, anti-ratlionalist and obscurantist religion…
This is the real class of civilisations Professor Huntington should have referred to…
But we will all pay a heavy price for our blindness…
In a world of the blind, the one eyed man is King. That must mean either Gordo or Nick Griffin. I know which one I prefer.
Liberalism has crossed the politcal boundaries and secured itself in the psyche of west european minds to such a degree that plain obvoius evils are accepted and protected if they form part of some other culture. The failing in this dinner party attitude does not consider the implications of this other, or these other cultures predominating and consequently determining the nature of OUR society in future. Any civilised western society should baulk at any reverse in the hard won gains in liberty and freedom for any members of society regardless of their religion or culture.
D’accord. It is a failure of a particularly ignorant and thoughtless type of liberalism, though. I’d prefer to call it relativism. It is inexcusable. You hear it when people do excuse appallingly cruel ill treatment of women in the name of ‘honour’ or spurious ‘purity’ by saying: ‘It’s part of their traditional way of life’.
The “Major” served in the Pay Corps.
Where he clearly learned a trick or three.
When it will be recalled he headed the MP’s expenses list three years running.
Clocking up over £1,000,000 in claims.
Scotchmen everywhere will be proud of him.
True scots must be absolutely sick to death of this economically challenged, troughing scots labour crew bringing them into disrepute.
Note that although attracting over 6000 comments, this is what is says in the comments section for the video.
“Adding comments has been disabled for this video.”
WHY Is HMRC Not Chasing These C*nts For All This Tax Fraud ? Dont They read The Fucking Papers ?
I tried to watch it, but didn’t get past the first minute. I just cannot take any more mealy-mouthed, evasive bull from toss-pots like this. When I am King, he will be one of many that will have to go.
Just Try And Watch All Of It Then You Will Rid Us Of Him Before Your Coronation !
he wasn’t Royal Army Pay Corps he was RAEC your mistake arises as they were both amalgamated into constituent (but separate) parts of the Adjutant General’s Corps in 1992
The overwhelming evidence that disproves Eric Joyce’s assertion of New Labour’s support and being “sound” on Defence:
The British Government’s [read New Labour] War on the British Army:
http://eotp.wordpress.com/category/the-governments-war-on-the-british-army/
This evidence speaks volumes to your effete and offensive claims.
“The Conservatives, of course opportunistically, think they can convince the public that we have lost our empathy with the Defence community.”
That shouldn’t take long then, should it??
Sorry I’d like to retract my last post, written in haste, this is what I’d like to say:
where has this Hunt been!?! This has been going on for years!
Surely you speak to your ex comrades, what were they saying to you?
you Hunt, what took you so long? you dirty little scum bag! you lived high of the hog on soldiers taxes whilst knowing they were under resourced. Do your family a favour and top yourself. At least they’ll be able to say when you realised what a scum bag you were, you did the first decent thing in your life!
of = off
Yes lofa I agree.
Did he ever see action anywhere? Does anyone know?
Depends what you mean by ‘action’ – you saucy minx.
Oh tat !!
you called?
Never heard of Eric Joyce before but if he served in the Black Watch, Gordon is trying to trash him, he embarrasses the government and he ain’t a Jock…Then Eric must be an OK kind of Guy.
Sorry Sory Sorry I take it all back. Eric is not the man i supposed he was.
From wicki
He left the army in 1999, amid controversy[1] after describing the armed forces as “racist, sexist and discriminatory,”[2] before going on to serve as the Public Affairs Officer at the Commission for Racial Equality (Scotland).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Joyce
Seems that Eric is one of new labour at their very worst.
guido you need to rethink your post.
and it turns out that HE IS A JOCK.
FEB; and your point is?
English twat…
Fucking delicious!
Unfortunately, the Conservative party seem committed to sending even more of our troops to that hopeless hellhole. Dave and the gang need to have a serious rethink about this.
Please, please understand. When you say Dave and the gang, you include all mainstream politicians of all parties. Three cheeks of the same backside. Do yourself a favour, think.
What Are The Fat Frog Faced Bastard Known As “Blob Ainsworth’s Military Qualifications Apart From Being “The Last Turkey In The Shop” ?
Don’t start attacking the Italians you lefty cock holster, they just have different priorities
Let’s face it Berlusconni’s priorities are particularly odd and worrying. Even his soon to be ex-wife thinks so and she should know.
What’s odd and worrying about a healthy interest in women? Gordon Brown pre-beard cruising the Hamptons (as it were) is buttock-clenchingly disturbing to me.
A “healthy interest” is fine, it’s the raging obsession that raises eyebrows – and possibly other things as well.
Eric Joyce – another fucking Jock twat
Keep it up bud. You do Scottish Nationalism a great service with your mongol words.
Fuck off and die you twat…
Fucking delicious!
he says …
“It should be possible now to say that we will move off our present war-footing and reduce our forces there substantially during our next term in government,”
NO – this is far from the truth. Such a policy would be a political fig leaf. If we leave on that pretext then all that we have done to date will be wasted. The Afghan Army are nowhere near ready to stand on their own.
Sorry to be cynical but re-thinking my earlier reactions I wonder whether Eric has resigned from gordon’s government using Afghanistan because he thinks such a move might save his parliamentary seat in the next election??!!
Cynicism is probably a very good frame of mind to use when trying to divine the thought-processes of a Nulab insider.
As to saving his seat – suspect he may have to try a little harder.
Cynical=Realistic
A cynic is an optimist with experience.
I hiccupped once, when trying to say ‘Sink’: does that make me a Cynic?
Only if the sink was optimistic and experienced.
A cheerful pessimist is an optimist with experience… and I guess I’m one of those…
Guido, “He was a major in the Black Watch. That counts for something.”
Long, long ago, I was a conscript G Branch soldier. (They are the ones who hold the guns.) Ask any G Branch soldier how much respect he has for an A Branch or Q Branch soldier of any rank, and he will tell you that he has none at all. This particular trougher was in Education, A (Admin) Branch. He may have been in the army, but to a real soldier Joyce was never a soldier at all.
Precisely GG ( and this is 2nd wave so as not to breach my commitment ). He was, as we say, a Shinyarse.
You’d think with their own fucking Parliament they’d all piss off back to that shithole in Scotland and take one eyed gay boy with them.
They Will All Piss Off Back After The GE Should Be fun Watching Them Fight It Out For Seats With The Existing Mp’s Bit Like Musical Chairs Me Thinks !
YES FUCKING PLEASE !
Eric Joyce – I believe the next election is ours to win, thanks greatly to your personal great economic success – wtf?
Why doesn’t he just write the truth – “Labour is fucked, the economy is fucked, you have fucked the army so I am fucking off”
He was a Private in the Blackwatch for a couple of years (1978 – 1981) before leaving the Army to go to University to gain a BA in Religeous studies. He then decided to rejoin and commission into the Education Corps only to leave, to much fanfair, in 1999 when he suddenly discovered that the Army was full of white blokes!!
So Andy McNab, he aint..
He got confused about exactly what the Black Watch was all about
I’d fight him.
“I intend to do what modest amount I can to help from the back-benches”
Help himself to more of our lolly by the sound of it, and it certainly won’t be modest judging by past experience.
Hang on a while till I get me spectacles out. I’ve just got to memorise my spontaneous response that lads at No10 have prepared for me.
Don’t panic!
He’s a rat. And we all know what rats do…
desert a sinking ship
Eric Joyce jilting Gordon is a third rate version of Claire Short jilting Blair.
This ain’t nothing to do with noble causes and all to do with Socialist dogma.
I was initially supportive thinking Mr Joyce, as an ex soldier, had a legitimate case for resigning.
Now I think he has ulterior motives.
I think this man has resigned because he wants to disassociate himself from gordon before the election so that his constituency might look at him more sympathethically.
I don’t think Mr Joyce has ever fought in a war anywhere. Has he???
And he has been a major trougher.
I don’t think this helps gordon’s case . I think it shows them up for what they are.
Fought in a war anywhere? He was in the Education Corps.
Mind you, they say some classrooms are war zones these days. Though I notice the gallant Major has carefully avoided sink school classrooms.
If you can’t fight, you teach !
“spectacles” being a Northern euphemism for gonads, Bob?
The northern euphemism for “gonads” is “bollocks” or, in Normanton, “balls”.
“Above all, Labour must remember that service folk and their families are our people.”
Not sure I’d bet on that….
I’d bet very large money on the exact opposite being true.
Which is precisely why NuLab have given the Armed Forces up and over to the Taleban. e.g. note the yawning difference between soldiers’ earnings and the money given (scarcely “earned”) to Labour voter hatching factory units such as Karen Matthews.
“Behind the hand attacks by any Labour figure on senior service personnel are now, to the public, indistinguishable from attacks on the services themselves”
This is the most devasating attack on the smear tactics of this Labour Government I have ever seen. You Guido were the first person to openly denounce the years of LABOUR SMEAR…
This attack comes from their own ranks…
IT AMOUNTS TO AN ACCUSATION OF TREASON on the part of “Labour figures”
You cannot sink lower than that in this world…
Labour should reign in shame NOW…
Agreed/
unlikely, they don’t know what shame is or they’d be gone by now
Sleaze and Smear….It’s in Labour’s D-N-A
One dose
Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela
Plus
One bottle
Brunello di Monticello 2001
Equals
Pleasure
Surely more than one bottle is required?
No, its after shave.
LOL
Oooh, I love a good youth orchestra. Can I have that hunky clarinet player – he’s gorgeous.
So Labour is the party of the armed forces! Who is this freak kidding?
Is Dave Cameron leading the party of the armed forces then? They are talking about defence cuts when they come to power but increasing spending on the NHS.
Well, of course they’ll need to increase NHS spending, for all the limbless, blinded soldiers whose injuries were entirely their own fault, and not at all the result of absolutely essential defence cuts…[switches off Irony Button, at this point]
The yanks have a nice reference for Pillocks like Joyce R.E.MF
Accurate and serious in this case.
For a resignation letter it’s far too long. Something pithy needing decoding would have done more damage at this point.
Dear Gordon,
I’m off.
Love from Eric.
Brown,
You’re a sick, twisted, negligent, evil lying bastard, so I’m going to leave you to stew in your own shit you fucking tosser.
Love Eric
Eric
F*ck off then you spineless, disloyal, shirtlifter.
Gordon
p.s. fancy coming round for some ‘fun’ next week? Sarah’s away – we could play that old soldier’s ‘torture’ game…..
No decoding needed there, eh Snotty?
Goodbye and thanks for all the expenses
ARE THEY ALL SHIRTLIFTERS HIGH ON CRYSTAL METH?
gordon has been such as success that the country is bust and he is the most hated man in the uk…..people prefer ian brady! (h/t f.fisher)
Well done Eric Joyce
He found a pair of balls and used them.
Took a while!
Timing hellish close to a General Election!
‘He found a pair of balls and used them’
What have Ed and Yvette got to do with it?
Ed and Yvette are troughing to the last minute…
Probably helping on the Smear Team given that Mcbride is still “on leave of absence”…
The most sordid couple British politics have ever seen…
Plus ca change as the cheese eating, surrender simians might say. The NuLabour traitors in power now are no different from the filthy scum of mid to late 70′s. A goodly proportion of the fuckwits still in the party were fully paid up Commies in the 70s.
This lot would have offered up their daughters and mothers to see the Red Army stroll up Whitehall.
And you lot wonder why these turds have have an in-built hatred of the British Armed Forces ?
No mention of the you-should-stop-smearing-the-soldiers-you-evil-piece-of-shit aspect on the bbc.
odd that.
Absolutely.
Very odd indeed.
Times seems to be suggesting that the timing is less innocent that the ‘Gordon my Gordon’ tone of much of the letter suggests:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6820789.ece
They hate each other just as much as they hate the Tories.
A lone wolf or could there be more to it?
Letter from Gordon to Eric on Sky now.
Dear Eric,
See ya.
Love from Gordon.
P. S. If you see any nasty smears about you in the media, it wasnae me.
No, more: ‘But you’re wrong! I’m right! Waaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!’ *throws toys from pram*. Plus a same-old-same-old statement from b*llocks-bot Bob.
Hmmm…..second draft.
Dear Eric,
You hoon.
Love from Gordon.
P.S. If you see etc, etc.
Guido
239 used “dear” and that bastard Joyce used “yours sincerely”.
People always copy me.
Quite a devastating letter in some ways although his praises are labours successes are innacurate “I believe that the next general elections is ours to win thanks greatly to your personal and ecnomic succeses ”
I want to view these personal and ecnomic successes, they are clearly hidden to me , perhaps I have been living in another country that must be it .
But the defence PPS (who is a former soldier) confirming that the defence personal no longer regarding the goverment as doing the right thing blows the myth that politically gordon/obama has not made the other UN forces take the clearance work seriously , it is long running saga from the “coalition of the willing” , but even so gordon has done nothing since becoming PM nor done much about the afghan forces re training . In 8 years it should have been far more advanced , let alone combat decisions made without eqipment risk assessments or restricted funding.
On a side note Benefit busters was another program , getting people work ready when there is no work and removing them from the job stats or sending them to jobs that last a week is a bit embarrasing , if it turns out to be big money spent too far infront of the ecnomic curve that is put onto the debt when a bit more healthy economy would have done more good . wonder whose rocket this one is ??
Hmmmm. A slightly bizarre resignation letter. He does not say why he is resigning, and indeed is not necessarily very critical of substance so much as style. He maintains that NuLab became sound on defense and that he intends to re-inforce that perception from the back benches. Odd. Might just be a spat with Ainsworth or could be a smokescreen for other issues entirely unrelated to defense, expenses possibly.
It would not be completely surprising if Brown’s major speech tomorrow on Afghanistan goes a long way towards support for another election round and signals a shorter timetable for withdrawal than we expect. A telling sentence is ‘It should be possible now to say that we will move off our present war-footing and reduce our forces there substantially during our next term in government’. New policy?
I have suggested before that the war will play bigger than health and the economy in the run up to the next GE.
Meanwhile if you want to know what is really going on in Afghanistan Helmand, read this http://www.michaelyon-online.com/ riveting, compelling.
Seconded. Yon is a self funded photojournalist and ex US Green Beret. His articles are very well written and should be read by everyone who posts on here who has an interest in what is going on in Afghan. He’s done a lot to open the eyes of the US to what our guys are doing over there. Reccommended.
‘eres ‘Elicopter Bobs reaction…. from Browns Bullshit Corporation
Eric Joyce is, of course, entitled to his opinion and whilst we thank him for his service as a junior parliamentary aide, it is vital that we have a leadership team that is fully committed to our mission in Afghanistan.
The defence secretary said he did not recognise Mr Joyce’s view
“The picture he paints is not one that I nor many people within the MoD recognise, whether military or civilian.
“Everyone in Defence, and the wider government, is fully committed to ensuring that our forces succeed in the operations on which they are engaged in Afghanistan, and that they have the necessary equipment and support to do the job.
“Our mission in Afghanistan is vital to our national security. We will not walk away from that responsibility.”
just how many afghani atrocities have there been in the uk?
Haven’t you seen their hounds ?
Dear bob
We know you and gordon are the most famous cowards of all time.
Afghanistan is going down the pan. You know it and we know it!!!!
The afghanistan democratic election rubbish you tried to peddle to the british public has failed.
Get our troops home before things get even worse.
It would be far simpler, and in the long run more humane, to nuke Afghanistan. And while your at it turn most of the Middle East into a large car park and nick the oil. Any views?
I’m a brilliant defence secretary, dontcha think ?
By all means criticise the way the war has been conducted, but let’s not pretend that the war in some form is necessary if we are to prevent it becoming an international Jihadi base.
That’s how it started out, but they scuttled off across the border when the daisycutters started dropping.
Then when our troops move across the border they scuttle back again
Pardon? Have you omitted a “not” in that statement?
Certainly, if you refer to Afghanistan, we should “not pretend that the war in some form is necessary”.
We need to put our own house in order and stop the conversion of the UK into an international jihadi base first.
The bloke said “I believe the next election is ours to win, thanks greatly to your personal great economic success.”
What’s he on? Best laugh I’ve had all week. Brown didn’t cock the economy up completely immediately because he followed Tory spending plans for the first few years (indeed that was why they got elected the first time). But now the economy is in the worst state it’s ever been. You can’t blame it all on the Yanks. Did the Yanks force Northern Rock to give 125% mortgages with no security? I don’t think so.
Brown’s grasp of economics is about the same as mine of brain surgery – i.e. a rough idea of what you’re trying to achieve but only the vaguest idea of how to actually do it.
You have to remember that there are two schools of thought on Gordon’s economic genius;
1) Members of Gordon’s Bunker Team, who think he is a genius.
2) Everybody else in the known universe, who don’t.
and it doesn’t take a genius to realise that if you send under-trained, under-supplied soldiers with insufficient helicopter support into Afghanistan then you are as good as sending them on a suicide mission.
some of our guys never had a fucking chance.
troops out now
the troops are brave and loyal, brown is not.
time to go, innit.
and furthermore it also does not take a genius to realise that it is our occupation of Afghanistan, america’s occupation of Iraq and israel’s occupation of Palestine that are the catalysts for terrorism.
our illegal presence and our allies illegal presences in these territories are what make us a terrorist target at home.
all of which means brown’s chain of terror is a load of tosh and that gordon brown is a blatant and accomplished liar.
it is in the essential and immediate national interest that he be deposed as quickly as possible, before events deteriorate even further under his failed and untrustworthy leadership.
it is time for us to leave Afghanistan: it is in the national interest.
Don’t forget the ‘I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I’m willing to have a stab at it’ attitude displayed by recent Home Secretaries and Foreign Ministers, et al.
Sorry, that should read Foreign Office Ministers. I will leave it up to the reader whether they think these people are ‘Foreign’.
“Labour was returned to power in 1997 on the back of your great success in turning the Economy from a weakness into a strength for Labour.”
I know this has already been said above. But I want to say it. And I think it bears saying again. But WTF?
Its a bit like a kiss and tell in the Sunday papers. You get all the sordid details about what went on, but you never hear about premature ejaculation or impudence. They have to temper the story whilst letting you have the juicy bits. Joyce had to temper the resignation, whilst telling the truth……..in part.
Is resignation before the election premature evacuation?
” or impudence.”
???
lol
Read the letter..it doesn’t say what you have interpreted it as saying.
Lord West on news night – floundering fool, may have been a good sailor but a shit politician, probably seems like a genius in his party
Yes, another NuLabour attempt to downplay by not putting up anyone of substance
Well done Eric Joyce.
Lord West came across as a very shabby figure on Newsnight just now while trying to stand up for Brown on this.
Sod Joyce, see 145 above
There’s more to his letter than meets the eye.
It’s far more damaging than appears at first sight.
Hopefully the media has picked up on the salient points..and will crucify Brown and Ainsworth.
If he is so wound up why doesnt he force a by-election ?
because he’d lose
Sir that sums up Labour = Losers
well it would be nice to know if he’d put his money where his mouth was, so lets ask him,
http://findyourmp.parliament.uk/constituencies/falkirk/messages/new
He’ll either resign, or it was all a load of bollocks for internal consumption, designed to destabilise Brown before the conference.
Labour =cowards
******EXCLUSIVE********
Great shot of Bob ‘the knob’ Ainsworth’s face when he found out that Joyce had resigned.
http://www.sitcom.co.uk/on_the_buses/images/char_blakey.jpg
I ‘ate you Joyce
Now find your clippie an’ get that ‘elicopter hout!
I think you highlighted the wrong comments. Try this one:
“I think we must be much more direct about the reality that we do punch a long way above our weight, that many of our allies do far too little, and that leaving the field to the United States would mean the end of NATO as a meaningful proposition.”
Is he really saying that we are in Afghanistan to prevent the US from doing all the work, and thus keeping EU/NATO in existence as a counter-weight to the Americans?
Just what sort of game are we playing here? Is our presence in Afghanistan just a sort of extended photo-op designed to prove to the rest of the World that Europe counts for something in military terms?
Just how does this match Labour’s claim that we are in Afghanistan to preserve Britain’s “vital national interests”? Is this it; our vital national interest? Just to be visible enough to prevent the US from seeming to run the whole show?
“The British people have a proud history of facing such realities. They understand the importance of the allied effort in Afghanistan/Pakistan”. I am not sure what planet Joyce is on. I think he’ll find that most Brit’s haven’t got a scooby what we’re doing in Afghanistan, don’t think a war there is winnable and certainly don’t think we should be wasting lives and tax payers hard-earned there. Get the lads back. Sod NATO. Sod the US. Beef up the Border Agency and keep the Taliban out.
“I believe the next election is ours to win, thanks greatly to your personal great economic success.” – What utter crap!
He was just stating that which the deluded Brown wanted to hear. That way he knew his letter would get read and remembered. No brown nosing and its straight in the bin.
Simples.
I was keeping an open mind on this guy’s ramblings until I got to this: “….reduce our forces there substantially during our next term in government.”
Has he got a shrapnel injury to the brain that is playing up?
He’s just thinking ahead…
…like 2080
Hmmmm………. has he cried “wolf” once too often? From his website:
IMMEDIATE RELEASE FROM ERIC JOYCE MP
17 September 2008
There are reports in the media that I plan to resign my post as PPS to The Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.
Guido can you do a thread on this please. If Gordon Brown refuses to take part in the Sky News debate with Cameron and Clegg what should Sky put in the empty chair ?
My vote goes for a pile of steaming shit.
How about a cardboard cutout. They did the same with Tom Baker for the Five Doctors photo-op
Na! Pile of shit is better
would anyone notice the difference?
A cardboard cut out has more intelligence than old one eye
Has this idiot been sharing the same dimension as us? I don’t remember Labour ever being good at the economy in 1997 they took over an economy which was strong they have proceeded to waste every last penny, destroy the housing market, allow the banks to screw us over, rob the pension pots, and sell all the country’s gold for a handful of magic beans. We are now in the worst recession since the stone age and whilst the rest of Europe is struggling free we are busy borrowing more money to pay for a war which protects a leader who thinks it’s alright to starve his wife to death if she wont sleep with him.
I don’t understand why he’s in Labour. Everyone I’ve ever met in the army can’t stand Labour at all.
More importantly though, Gordon Brown simply doesn’t “get” the military. It’s an unimportant issue from him, about 1000 notches below the NHS, schools and the like. Just look at the funding it receives and who he appoints as defence secretary and it’s immediately clear what he thinks.
The only time he ever gives the military the time of day is when it serves to glorify him. Regardless of your opinion of our intervention in the middle east (personally I’m apposed so call me biased if you want), if you can’t support the troops properly don’t send them into battle in first place.
The man is a brainless fuckwit,
“I believe the next election is ours to win, thanks greatly to your personal great economic success.”
Perhaps he was on the same medication as Brown when he wrote this rubbish.
BBC this morning states GB is trying to allay growing public concern over the under funded mission (hardly a war) in Afghanistan.
60% of the population already knew many months ago that its an expensive nonsense, 30% did not give a fuck the other 1% with growing concerns must be those at Westminster and 9% those a sandwich short of a picnic!
I love the BBC crap at propaganda good at nature programmes.
Agreed, BBC still lives in a time when people believed their propaganda and moderated out dissenters.
Times have moved on.
No, they haven’t – even this site only allows certain kinds of freedoms the one that the msm all subscribe to too. 99% of people must still believe the crap that is peddled or there really would be bood on the carpet, and in the rivers.
Look at the front page of the beeb website today force feeding the canard that muslims and therefore islam is really the religion of peace – what a load of bollocks – muslim tommies what a fucking insult, the cheeky bastards. Hitler had a muslim army in wwii trained by the ss fighting against us. Fucking bastard minbending bbc, get to fuck.
How unbelievably ignorant of you. FACT – the number of “Muslims trained by the SS” was never more than a couple of battalions, and they were used against the godless Soviets who had given them every reason to prefer the Nazis, for all their own godless and evil ways. A few Arabs fought with the Afrika Korps’ special recce units, but that was all about opportunistic siding against the current imperial master, nothing to do with their religion. FACT – The Indian Army, which served the British Empire so well in the Second World War, remains the largest volunteer army in history. Multiple Victoria Crosses won by Muslims. Ever heard of Noor Khan, George Cross? A Muslim Princess who volunteered for SOE and ended her days tortured to death in a concentration camp. One of the greatest of British heroines – someone who saw it as her duty to serve the Empire in the most suicidally dangerous of roles.
I fully agree that there is a lot of simplistic nonsense spouted about Islam, and a reticence by the likes of the BBC to comment on distasteful aspects of the faith that is never shown to the equally flawed and shameful legacy of two millennia of Christian history (and I say that as a good churchman). But people like you are an utter disgrace to this country.
Fuck off anonymous, The muslim grand mufti himself was present at wannase house in Berlin drawing up the ”final solution” plans for the jews with Goebells and Hitler like the scum muslim he was.
Hitler and his muslim army is just a small drop in the ocean, why not talk about EL CID, VLAD TEPES, CHARLES MARTEL etc. etc. who had to drive back the ‘religion of peace’ from conquering Europe time after time.
History shows they’ve been snakes in the grass since day one of their existence.
Go suck their cock elsewhere your not fooling people who actually know history.
Fuck off anonymous you leftie scum, Vlad Tepes, El Cid and Charles Martel would beg to differ.
Dear Gudrun,
Being seen with you is like going for a papal audience with a shanker on the chin.
I’m off to posteriors new.
Love
The fitter’s assistant’s clerk.
An infantry officer dumb enough to be labour in the first place!!!!!
Agreed Derek – how can ANYONE who has observed the last 30 years of “politics” (he’s too young presumably), or even the last 12 years NOT REALISE that a coup has taken place and that zanuliebore has shed it’s old skin to become the fascist wannabee’s of today.
Most didn’t see the signs that zanulab was morphing (me included) until 1997 as fascism usually looks like Mussolini not someone with a faux smile in a suit…
However, zanu’s agenda is blatantly obvious to all who want to ‘see’, so how ANYONE can vote for them is like turkeys voting for Christmas.
PLEASE do not refer to Joyce as an infantry officer.He never was.In fact, he was a schoolie, member of the Royal Army Education Corps,teaching soldiers to read and write.
Something that REALLY worries me about these ‘comments’ is that so many display such a high level of intolerance.
Post some contradictory replies, then, Uncle John. Moderation tries to be fair according to what comes in, I’d guess.
Lemmy’s Warts #354 might get this more than most:
Recalling a recent Net ‘rumour that fizzled’ – that *Barry’s m-i-l has ALLEGEDLY been practising Santeria (voodoo) in the White House, I remain disturbed by the number of times “reporters”, “presenters” and “politicians” repeat the word SACRIFICE when talking about the deaths of our troops in Afghanistan. (*Barry carries ‘lucky charms’ in his pocket).
The selling of ones soul is apparently real, so too, allegedly, the sacrifice of others for success, power, money and control in this life…
And Bob Ainsworth, in his typically gracious mannner, dismissed Eric Joyce as: “a junior aide.”
When I was a child growing up in Birmingham, I always wondered why the expression: “Being sent to Coventry” originated, and where it came from. There are many theories.
Now, having seen the vacuous, churlish, jack-a-napes, boorish behaviour of Bob “Coventry man” Ainsworth, I now realised that being sent to live anywhere near Bob Ainsworth would be a great and terrible punishment.
That is an insult to the rest of us in Coventry. The majority don’t rate him either but you could put a Labour Rosette on a Donkey in the Constituency he represents and even now they would elect him.
They fucking did, thats how that dodgy Hunt Robinson has been in a Coventry seat for as long as he has. And he’s as bent as fuck.
Good reason not to be in Cov. What they, the great unwashed electorate of Foleshill, Radford, Hillfields and Willenhall know and understand about politics you could write on a fucking pinhead and still have room for the complete works of Shakespeare (Large Print Edition). Theres no other explanation for keeping on returning these troughing Hunts for as many years as they have.
Fucking welcome to each other.
Now thats one place where they should take off and nuke the fucker from orbit. I’d buy that.
A simple ‘I quit’ would have done.
Instead of padding the first half out with outrageous lies about Brown’s economic competence.
Another useless fucking wanker.
While I laud Eric for his stand against Labour’s woeful stance on supporting troops, the statement “the next election is ours to win, thanks greatly to your personal great economic success” is seriously deluded.
Gordon Brown has built the greatest personal and government debt in our history and not put anything by from the good times to help in the bad times.
History will remember Gordon Brown as the worst economic pariah ever inflicted on this country.
Here’s one for ‘elicoptor Bob.
Check this: Joyce doesn’t care about our soldiers either.
Eric Joyce doesn’t give a shit about the Army. He was thrown out of the Army for endlessly criticising its “snobbery”. He was described as “unemployable” by the Army, so who better to be a Labour MP? He hates the Army, so who better to work in Defence?
His letter to Brown was all about how to help the Labour Party, not how to help the poor bloody Army.
Just found this on wikipedia – I guess he is jumping to look good before all this comes out:
Expenses claims
Joyce was the top-claiming Member of the House of Commons for the 2005-06 Parliamentary Session, claiming £174,811 in expenses, of which 62% was for staff and office costs.[20] After the 2005-06 Parliamentary Session, he made a public pledge to cut his expenses. Subsequently, during the 2006–07 Parliamentary Session, he moved down to 11th on the list of MPs’ expenses and allowances.[21] However, he once again rose to the top of the expenses list for the 2007-08 Parliamentary Session with £187,334.[22
Ahhhhh. The smear operation swings into action.
OFF topic but… Farrage is on TV now… live… on Euroscepticism, at the UKIP conference, and he is being very upbeat and amusing…
I’m going to enjoy the coming General Election bout: Farrage in the red corner v Bercow in the blue corner… or maybe that should be the other way around.
“I believe the next election is ours to win, thanks greatly to your personal great economic success.” And there you have it. They are all living in la la land.
[...] Eric Joyce Resignation Letter in Full [...]
Up until now Eric Joyce has been a Labour sycophant of the first order rivalling Lord Foulkes for the biggest crawler on two legs in Labour’s ranks. The only life he is interested in saving is his own political skin, he hopes that his actions now will blind the Falkirk electorate that up until this false Damascian conversion he has 100% supported Labour in every way, thats how he got to be a PPS.
I think this rat deserting the sinking ship will find that voters in Falkirk have longer memories and will deal this gutwrenching display of self-preservation in with his exploitation of MP’s expenses to the Nth degree, (the first MP to break the £1,000,000 benchmark) and boot him out at the next election.
I think you will also find his departure from the Black Watch involved a stay under (house) arrest and a Dishonorable Discharge. Perfect (New) Labour stock.