Nothing better exemplifies the ineptitude of this decaying Government than its handling of the Territorial Army training issue.
Faced with a strongly pro-military national sentiment, when thousands of British troops are serving in Afghanistan and many are wounded and losing their lives, Gordon Brown and Bob Ainsworth decided it was a good idea to do a bit of cheese-paring and save the relatively small sum of £20 million by cutting the TA’s training budget.
The fact that they made the decision is itself astonishing, but what beggars belief is that they clearly didn’t anticipate the storm of outrage it generated. It was wholly predictable that serving members of the TA, their families and comrades’ associations would be appalled at the prospect of TA soldiers being subject to possible deployment to Afghanistan without proper training.
It took John Reid, a former Defence Secretary, to tell Gordon Brown just how daft an idea it was. No doubt Mr Reid was characteristically forthright in the terms of his advice.
Now the Prime Minister has climbed down, but has been left to look weak, indecisive and foolish. An utter disaster for him and his Government, and one that was entirely avoidable.
After seeing Andrew Marr’s programme last night on the making of modern Britain, and the ineptitude and skullduggery by our leaders, all from the upper classes in those days during the Boar War, it seems that representitives of the working classes in the form of New Labour are little better in the way they deal with our armed forces.