Thursday, July 16, 2009

Make our MPs line the road at Wootton Bassett

I WAS going to go to Wootton Bassett on Tuesday. I don't know why; I just thought I should.

But when it was clear that it was going to turn into a flower-chucking, Diana-inspired media circus - as we saw on the telly later that night - I decided to give it a miss. I'll go again, another day, when it's quieter and a lone squaddie is being brought back in a body bag.

I'm torn on this whole thing. The lining of the streets of this minor English town to show respect for our fallen has grown organically, and for the right reasons. It began when a funeral cortege just happened to go down the High Street as the local branch of the British Legion were rehearsing for a parade. From there it's grown and grown, but it's sometimes difficult to distinguish between a genuine outpouring of emotion and respect and a sort of ghoulish theme park experience.

What is certain is that not a single government minister has ever shown his face in the vicinity. Neither, to the best of my knowledge, has any representative of NuLabour, the people who sent Our Boys to war, ever attended a funeral of one of the fallen. The excuse is that "if we go to one, we'll have to go to them all". Well what's wrong with that?

Unless some of the thieving bastards have resigned in the past 24 hours, there are 349 Labour MPs across the country. There is no reason at all why they can't draw up a rota to ensure that one of them manages to don the black tie and drag themselves along to any Army funeral in their vicinity. It's the least they can do.

And if that proves too difficult to organise, then let's just send toothbrush-moustached Bob Ainworth, Minister for the Armed Forces, down to Wootton Bassett every time that coffin-laden plane flies into RAF Lyneham.

The lads who are dying are simply doing the government's bidding. So why are our politicians so desperate to distance themselves from the death toll?

13 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Barry B

Because most of the Scrotes, have never had a job, been in politics, since they left Oxford/Cambridge.

Very few have been in the Forces or Industry.

Most of them are either Wig Topped tossers, Bean Counters, or even worse got a degree in Political Studies, (Sorry WTF is that worth, like having a five stars from Ronald MacDonald school of cooking)

They come from another planet, we mere cannon fodder, they could not give a orgasm over

As you say, enough to make a cat laugh

2:47 PM  
Anonymous MP Halfwit said...

Yeah, all these politicians are a bunch of spineless farts.

(Click my name above for the latest scoop).

3:59 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What concerns me, Barry, is the onset of the flower tossing, a la Dianne.
As an ex military man myself, I hate overt signs of grief.
In my day, the stiff upper lip and doffing of headgear sufficed.

As for the politicians, especially El Gordo, words fail me. I note that he was in front of a Commons Committee today, where he produced more Government flattering figures out of his flat cap then you could possibly believe, all saying that we takers of the Queen's shilling were positively glad to be driven around in thin skinned vehicles rather than a nice chopper.
I really, really would like to see him driven in a snatch Landy around the Poppy fields.
I can dream, can't I?
PS, welcome back, were you out shooting on the estate for the past fortnight? Or perhaps at the villa in Barbados?

5:27 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Because you'd be the first, after the 'Daily Mail' to write a 'cynical bastards, intruding on the relatives' grief for political gain' column.

11:47 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

As a former soldier, I know their way of handling death of comrades. From that, I think I can say that the dead would prefer not to see any representatives of the machinery that sent them grossly under resourced into an illegal war.
WB itself is concerned that the thing is becoming a bit of a circus. The media wanting pictures of 'grieving' pollies would make it worse.

6:34 AM  
Anonymous Chris said...

Not that I am a supporter of Nu-Labour, but did any Tory minister attend the funeral of those died in the Falklands?

Also, rather rich of Cameron to condemn Gordo's lack of spending on the armed forces when Maggie's Tory Government stripped the Navy of cash in 1980 and Nott's white paper in '81 proposed further cuts...

Therefore, regardless of Goverment, each are guilty of fucking the poor sod who actually does the fighting.

10:50 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

British soldiers are short of equipment. Then blame Brown. He was was the chancellor who cut defence budgets for ten years and it was a known fact he had no time for the military. He's the one with blood on his hands.

1:08 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Royal Navy isn't fighting in Afghanistan.

3:59 AM  
Anonymous Chris said...

According to the Navy's website
(http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-events/operations-in-afghanistan/royal-navy-units-in-afghanistan/) they are.

After the Falklands, all plans to cut the military budget was shelved - funny that, though unsurprising: they helped Maggie win the '83 election.

Today, we've got a one-eyed Jock or possibly an upper-class Toff who pretends to a "common" man, who has studied Tony Blair's style of governance to the point where the two are quite indistinguishable.

Such decisions for the next election. *sob*

9:00 AM  
Anonymous a taxi driver said...

Are these 'Our Boys' & 'lads' you describe the same men who willingly accepted paid employment as the Government's killers?

They're not defending Britain in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

They could be back home polishing their buttons, painting stones white etc. like their counterparts in Europe were in not for Britain's slavish following of US foreign policy.

10:51 AM  
Anonymous Observer said...

Anonymous, you're completely wrong about the RN not being in Afghanistan. Forward Air Controllers are well up in the thick of it, directing fire onto Taliban positions. Royal Navy Harriers have also ben on ops there.

5:45 AM  
Anonymous Grimy Miner said...

MP's line the roads?
They are not fit to line the bottom of a parrot cage

1:43 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Line the roads and Tarmac over the bastards.

1:09 PM  

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