Ashcroft Again
After a very good day yesterday and many opportunities popping up for them through Labour’s difficulties and the forthcoming Budget what is the news from the Tory camp?
More Ashcroft disclosures! This time putting Hague on the spot. I am not sure how much voters care any more about Ashcroft, but the media love it and while this stuff is flying about nothing else gets through.
There is just one single message for the Tory High Command.
Get a grip!
Labour Prangs
Yesterday was bad for Labour. At first it looked good with better than expected unemployment figures. Then came PMQ and the overstated expenditure figures on defence to add to the problems of the BA strike. By the end of the day Cameron had reclaimed the initiative. This was a much better performance with much better aim than recent Tory efforts.
The defense issue is something of pile up for the Labour campaign. It is nothing like as bad as it seems, but unfortunately in a General Election how it seems is bad. This is because the troops fighting first Iraq and now in Afghanistan have been given hero status by the ordinary people of this country who turn out in huge numbers to mourn for each and every soldier who makes that doleful homecoming through the silent streets of Wooten Basset. Never in our history has there been a comparable spontaneous demonstration by the people for their fallen, one by one, as they fall.
There are many reasons. At the core of this common grieving is enormous respect. In the age of ferrel youths, knifings, binge drinking and greedy bankers, these young people, highly disciplined, supremely motivated and very brave, daily risk their lives for us. It does not matter whether we believe the war is just or should be fought at all. They, on the front line do believe it. They believe that we are in danger and are willing to go all the way to save each other and to save us. In an age where so many cherished values appear to have gone, where even our leaders cannot be trusted over their expenses, where politicians never tell the truth, where family breakdown is everywhere, these young people show what is best in all of us. Politicians make us feel tainted. These brave young people show us what it is to be clean.
Moreover they lack helicopters and fighting vehicles and other essential items. Yes these gaps are being filled bit by bit, but how many lives could have been saved? The Generals say it is all down to money. Gordon kept saying he gave them more and more. Now he discovers, we all discover, that is not true. Oh dear. Oh dear.
In military terms this blog continues to blame the Generals and the Ministry of Defense. This is not a matter of money or for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Vast sums of money were squandered on internal incompetence by a Ministry which has all but lost control of its accounting and despite being given over £17 billion extra and above the defence budget for Iraq and Afghanistan, most of it for the Army. The Generals did not have a war plan prepared, they did not organise procurement of the right equipment and as inquests have shown, at times did not even organise proper training. To emphasise this, it is worth noting that the Admirals have recently taken delivery of the first of the Type 45 Daring class destroyers, described as an air defense system so advanced it is the best in the world and scares the Americans because they have nothing to match it. Yet the Generals could not get beyond a Safari car as a weapons platform, organise some helicopters or kit out their troops.
However that is a military argument. Gordon’s problem is that the prang is a political one. It upsets the core Labour vote, the Sun and the Mirror readers. Often it is their children who arrive at Wooten Basset. Or if they survive, return to live in substandard accommodation which is an utter an absolute disgrace. All down to money. All down to Gordon.