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I am not normally given to posts like this and with the credit crunch, the price of fuel and the looming (or already present) recession very little news coverage is given to the ongoing fighting in Afghanistan. However, today a coroner has hit out at the Ministry of Defence for a series of failures which contributed to the death of a soldier in a mine explosion in Afghanistan.
Coroner Andrew Walker said those responsible for the lack of battlefield equipment should "hang their heads in shame".
He ruled that the blast which killed Corporal Mark Wright, 27, was caused by the "downwash" from a Chinook which had been sent to rescue a platoon of Paras stranded in an unmarked minefield in Helmand, southern Afghanistan. He recorded a verdict of accidental death but said Cpl Wright's death could have been avoided with better equipment. A helicopter with a winch was requested but none were available so instead the Chinook, which was not fitted with a winch, was dispatched but was waved away for fear of causing further explosions as it tried to land.
That the equipment was not available is criminal, in particular because the Ministry of Defence paid out £41 million in bonuses last year to civilian staff, not one of which has ever faced a Taliban bullet, or navigated a minefield, much less faced certain death and proceeded to act anyway with complete and utter disregard for their own safety. Clearly the problem is not one of money.
The problem is the MOD. It is an organisation dominated numerically, culturally and structurally by civil servants and consultants, many of whom are unsympathetic to its underlying purpose or even hostile to the military and its ethos. This is why the soldiers are so poorly equipped and the after-care is so woefully inadequate. They are anti-military. This is amply demonstrated by the ratio of civilians to service-members actually working in the MOD. It is close to six to one not including the ever-growing numbers of consultants and Spads (special advisers) or the parallel government structures in the cabinet office and the PM’s policy unit which may be driving the ratio towards 12 to one. Essentially the military has lost command of its own HQ.
Worse still, the civil servants who now dominate the MOD are a different breed from those who staffed it in the 1980s when I was trained and served. In those days there were still many civil servants who had served in the Second World War or Korea, or who had at least done national service. They respected and understood the armed services; they believed an effective military was important and had usually learnt essential skills of leadership and management. They were loyal to the Queen (then the head of the Civil Service), to the Civil Service itself and to its code and to the service arm they were working for. They have all gone.
To these idiots, war has somehow been abolished - until, of course, it returns at a time of our enemies’ choosing.
Coroner Andrew Walker said those responsible for the lack of battlefield equipment should "hang their heads in shame".
He ruled that the blast which killed Corporal Mark Wright, 27, was caused by the "downwash" from a Chinook which had been sent to rescue a platoon of Paras stranded in an unmarked minefield in Helmand, southern Afghanistan. He recorded a verdict of accidental death but said Cpl Wright's death could have been avoided with better equipment. A helicopter with a winch was requested but none were available so instead the Chinook, which was not fitted with a winch, was dispatched but was waved away for fear of causing further explosions as it tried to land.
That the equipment was not available is criminal, in particular because the Ministry of Defence paid out £41 million in bonuses last year to civilian staff, not one of which has ever faced a Taliban bullet, or navigated a minefield, much less faced certain death and proceeded to act anyway with complete and utter disregard for their own safety. Clearly the problem is not one of money.
The problem is the MOD. It is an organisation dominated numerically, culturally and structurally by civil servants and consultants, many of whom are unsympathetic to its underlying purpose or even hostile to the military and its ethos. This is why the soldiers are so poorly equipped and the after-care is so woefully inadequate. They are anti-military. This is amply demonstrated by the ratio of civilians to service-members actually working in the MOD. It is close to six to one not including the ever-growing numbers of consultants and Spads (special advisers) or the parallel government structures in the cabinet office and the PM’s policy unit which may be driving the ratio towards 12 to one. Essentially the military has lost command of its own HQ.
Worse still, the civil servants who now dominate the MOD are a different breed from those who staffed it in the 1980s when I was trained and served. In those days there were still many civil servants who had served in the Second World War or Korea, or who had at least done national service. They respected and understood the armed services; they believed an effective military was important and had usually learnt essential skills of leadership and management. They were loyal to the Queen (then the head of the Civil Service), to the Civil Service itself and to its code and to the service arm they were working for. They have all gone.
To these idiots, war has somehow been abolished - until, of course, it returns at a time of our enemies’ choosing.
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