MOD waste £2.5 billion pounds

[Scott]

Read this one fellas, this just shows my Goverment is absolutly shit here.

let me explain alittle , we've just purchased 1 or 2 air craft carriers costing billions of pounds, yet our troops lack of armoured vehicles supplys and equipment, its absolute bollocks oh i didn't even mention that the families of the soldiers are living of charity food
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8137257.stm See here

The problem is exacerbated when regiments are sent overseas on tour as spouses are hit with unexpected extra expenses such as childcare and bigger phone bills.

Foodbank, based in Salisbury, Wiltshire, has handed out food parcels to 245 struggling military families in three years.

The charity's network manager, Jeremy Ravn, told The Sun newspaper that wives and families resorted to the parcels when they were hit by unexpected expenses.

"There is always the cost of extra child care and travel and bigger phone bills," he said. "But because the lower ranks are not paid well, often just a large bill or a hiccup in the pay system is enough to push them over the edge.

"Speaking as an ex-soldier, it is very distressing to see forces people in this state. It is heartbreaking when you see them come in. But it's nice to be able to help them immediately."

Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox said the news was an "outrage".

"For a government that can find billions for bank bailouts, service families going hungry is a betrayal of Britain's finest," he told The Sun.

"This would have been a scandal in the 19th century. It's an outrage in the 21st century. What does it say about our country?"

Heres the Video
YouTube - MOD waste £2.5 billion pounds

[bobdina]

All I saw was some asshole reporter continuing to speak over a Defense official sorry I tried to replay the video but it stopped working so I don't know his name, about a report that isn't due out till next year. No where in that newspaper article does it mention about the families getting assistance, it mentions the Army and the RAF are against the carriers . The same thing happens here in the good ole U.S. every defense budget time. If it is in fact true about the families I have to be honest with ya 245 over 3 years is a low number , I know and knew service members over here that at one time or another were on food stamps, does it suck sure it does but once your in for a little while your pay increases at least it does here, and they got off assistance, as for the land rover snatch and viking vehicles they have both been ordered to stay in the rear with the gear which I don't know if that's being followed / or if the order came out after the tragic lose of a commanding officer in Afghanistan. After reading lot's of U.K. defense articles they are now (a little late just like us with the unarmored humvees) pushing lot's of MRAPS in theater. Both our countries were slow on the uptake with IED's and there is no excuse, but I would wait till the report comes before slamming anyone. This sounds just like typical politics over here .Sorry forgot to add FTM looks like you guy's have the same media over there as we have here. FTM

[Scott]

yeah you are right, but they are still asshats, we have 11 Viking vehicles in Dubai which are ready, they still sit today on the lawn waiting to be transported over for action... the MoD or RAF should i say never had any planes available. i can understand about them both being late with the vehicles on the case about IED's my question is, couldn't the us and the UK ask some foreign country to ship some more vehicles over in the war ? that would certainly help, they are helping alot but they could do more to win the war on terror.

[nastyleg]

If it takes me 2.5 hours to see a person at the DMV to solve literally a 5 min problem (proof of insurance). What makes any sane person think that the great dumberment's like ours and the UK's can react quickly to a problem that has been around for years?!

On the whole pay thing for families. It is an outrage that our troops, defenders of freedom, are not paid enough yet the people who bash them(Senators) make more than $125,000 a year.

[Bisley_Bob]

I feel a massive rant coming on!
That video was pretty funny, ministers all say the same thing which is "Everything is fine, we're now doing better than ever, look at this cool statistic I have for you". In reality its utter bollocks. The defence budget is being strangled, I believe we need the new carriers, but not at the expense of lives in Afghanistan which it may well equate to. The biggest problem I see at the moment is all these UOR vehicles like the Mastiff, Husky, Jackal etc.... are being bought for the Army, money for UORs comes from outside the main defence budget i believe, so that's good. But what about maintaining those new bits of kit? How can we keep more kit in good order with a budget that's standing still or falling?
Ministers say they care but in reality I dont think they give a toss, as long as they get their money and fame. Tony Blair brought in a good rule in order to gain votes as the president of the united states of europe or whatever his hidden agenda was, new equipment must be procured from Europe first and only if it can't be bought from a European country can we go elsewhere for the stuff. So if we want a bit of yank kit I'm not sure what happens. That's how we've ended up with this fleet of new MAN lorries, they are good but have had to have a lot of costly modifications done to them to make them suitable for us. The procurement system is utter crap, look at some of the massive flops we've had, SA80A1 springs to mind, and those famous SF chinooks that never flew! Helicopters! Well there's a good story here, Gordon Brown cut the helicopter budget a few years ago, I mean really, what the hell was he thinking when he did that? Oh, I've got another good one, the forces have to pay tax on all assets they own every year out of the budget. So if we get a new bit of kit, guess what, tax has to be paid back to the government every year, this includes buildings and land as well. What is the point of that? The system appears to me (bear in mind I'm a Private!) to be ridiculous. Guys are getting killed because of ministers cock ups, but they only give a fuck when fingers get pointed at them and there is a chance of them losing their jobs.
What it all boils down to is that the issue of Defence doesn't win many votes, especially among the ever growing immigrant communities, and that's all any democratically elected government cares about.

As you can see, this topic makes my blood boil!

[Scott]

Bisley_Bob i couldn't agree more, it makes my blood boil to, its a big fuck up and disrespect to the troops out there fighting.