Tory Party declares war on British servicemen and women
There is nothing new in this post; it merely draws threads together to make a coherent argument that the Conservative-led Coalition government couldn’t care less about people who have been injured while serving in our armed forces.
Arguments that Labour sent them off to get those injuries seem strange – our armed forces exist to do the will of the government of the day; it is the current government’s unwillingness to honour its obligations to them that is at question here.
Is there any line they won’t cross!?!
No!
I don’t know why anyone is surprised: Despite their protestations to the contrary, the Tories DO NOT support the Armed Forces:
• 1981 Defence White Paper (also known as the John Nott review): his review proposed extensive cuts to the Royal Navy including the sale of the new aircraft carrier Invincible to Australia.
1982: Falklands War
• 1990 Options for Change :Among the changes implemented was the cutting total manpower by approximately 18% to around 255,000 (120,000 British Army; 60,000 Royal Navy; 75,000 Royal Air Force). Another major casualty of Options for Change was the UK’s combined nuclear civil defence organisations — the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation and its field force the Royal Observer Corps (a part-time volunteer branch of the RAF), both of which were wound down and disbanded between September 1991 and December 1995.
• 1991: Gulf War 1
• 2006: QinetiQ (the part of Defence Research that wasn’t kept in Government control) was floated on the Stock exchange – Carlyle group ended up owning a large proportion of the shares – a major investor in Carlyle was John Major
In November 2007, the NAO reported that taxpayers could have gained “tens of millions” more and was critical of the incentive scheme given to Qinetiq managers, the 10 most senior of whom gained £107.5m on an investment of £540,000 in the company’s shares. The return of 19,990% was described as “excessive” by the NAO. The role of Qinetiq’s management in negotiating terms with the Carlyle Group while the private equity company was bidding for the business was also criticised by the NAO. Carlyle bought a third of the business for £42m, which grew in value to £372m in less than four years.
• 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review All three services would take cuts in manpower Overall, the largest overseas deployment was expected to number no more than 30,000 personnel, including maritime and air force units. This compares to the 45,000 involved in the invasion of Iraq.
Joint Force Harrier retired and sold to the Americans at Rock-bottom prices – leaving the new Queen Elizabeth-Class carriers with no aircraft until F35B Lightning II enters service – if it ever does
All these cuts have been under TORY Administrations