bobdina
12-08-2009, 03:12 PM
The quiet town which has become synonymous with the deaths of British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan has urged Gordon Brown and other politicians to stay away from its tributes.
Organisers of Wootton Bassett’s poignant repatriation ceremonies fear they will be hijacked by politicians as the BBC prepares to film Question Time in the town this week.
Hundreds of people have lined the main street of the Wiltshire town more than 100 times over the past two and a half years as the cortèges pass with flag-covered coffins flown into the nearby RAF Lyneham.
The Prime Minister has been urged by some supporters to attend the ceremonies to counteract a string of bad publicity about military casualties which included a report yesterday that he had been “snubbed” by injured veterans during a visit to their hospital.
Related Links
* Town salutes war dead for 100th time
* More sad homecomings in Wootton Bassett
Question Time, BBC One’s current affairs programme, is expected to be dominated by the conflict in Afghanistan during filming at the town’s high school on Thursday. The Ministry of Defence is braced for the announcement of the 100th fatality in Afghanistan this year.
David Dimbleby, the host, will be joined by Bill Rammell, the Armed Forces Minister; Sir Richard Dannatt, the former Chief of the General Staff, who is now a Tory defence adviser; William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary; and Piers Morgan, a fierce critic of the Iraq war when editor of the Daily Mirror.
Anne Bevis, in charge of repatriation liaison for the Wootton Bassett Royal British Legion which organises the ceremonies, said: “This is about the soldiers who have died and their families. We do not want it to become a political battleground.”
Ms Bevis said she would not be attending the filming. “It is a free country and we cannot stop Gordon Brown and other politicians from attending the repatriations, but we do not want to make this a political campaign,” she said.
Steve Bucknell, the Mayor of Wootton Bassett, said that he feared that the selection of the guests showed the BBC had deliberately chosen the town to concentrate on the controversy over the military campaigns.
“It seems to cheapen the whole repatriation efforts to use it for political effect,” he said. “I think it is wrong to use what happens here, the deaths of the soldiers and the repatriations, for political ends.”
Ed Havard, editor of Question Time, announced details of the episode saying: “Wootton Bassett has come to symbolise the nation’s respect for fallen servicemen and we have already had a huge number of people apply to take part in this programme and debate the issues.”
Mr Brown has faced calls to attend one of the town’s repatriation ceremonies. An article on LabourList, the influential website founded by Derek Draper, Labour’s former adviser on internet campaigning, advised Mr Brown “to go to Wooton [sic] Bassett... His bowed head as the hearses go past will go a long way to demonstrate the personal sadness and responsibility we know he feels.”
The Prime Minister has recently apologised to the families of two casualties of the Afghanistan conflict after one of his letters of condolence appeared to be littered with errors while another was sent two years late.
Yesterday it was reported that some injured veterans had asked for the curtains around their beds to be closed when Mr Brown visited the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine at Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham three months ago, Sapper Matthew Weston, 20, who lost both legs and his right arm in an explosion in Afghanistan, told The Sunday Times: “Half the lads didn’t want to speak to him and those that did pretty much blamed him for everything.”
Selly Oak Hospital yesterday said that it had refused a donation from the British National Party following a collection to raise money for a burns unit for injured servicemen and women as it was from a political party.
John Walker from the BNP said: “If Selly Oak won’t take the money, we will find a soldiers’ charity that will.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/system/topicRoot/Military_matters/
Organisers of Wootton Bassett’s poignant repatriation ceremonies fear they will be hijacked by politicians as the BBC prepares to film Question Time in the town this week.
Hundreds of people have lined the main street of the Wiltshire town more than 100 times over the past two and a half years as the cortèges pass with flag-covered coffins flown into the nearby RAF Lyneham.
The Prime Minister has been urged by some supporters to attend the ceremonies to counteract a string of bad publicity about military casualties which included a report yesterday that he had been “snubbed” by injured veterans during a visit to their hospital.
Related Links
* Town salutes war dead for 100th time
* More sad homecomings in Wootton Bassett
Question Time, BBC One’s current affairs programme, is expected to be dominated by the conflict in Afghanistan during filming at the town’s high school on Thursday. The Ministry of Defence is braced for the announcement of the 100th fatality in Afghanistan this year.
David Dimbleby, the host, will be joined by Bill Rammell, the Armed Forces Minister; Sir Richard Dannatt, the former Chief of the General Staff, who is now a Tory defence adviser; William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary; and Piers Morgan, a fierce critic of the Iraq war when editor of the Daily Mirror.
Anne Bevis, in charge of repatriation liaison for the Wootton Bassett Royal British Legion which organises the ceremonies, said: “This is about the soldiers who have died and their families. We do not want it to become a political battleground.”
Ms Bevis said she would not be attending the filming. “It is a free country and we cannot stop Gordon Brown and other politicians from attending the repatriations, but we do not want to make this a political campaign,” she said.
Steve Bucknell, the Mayor of Wootton Bassett, said that he feared that the selection of the guests showed the BBC had deliberately chosen the town to concentrate on the controversy over the military campaigns.
“It seems to cheapen the whole repatriation efforts to use it for political effect,” he said. “I think it is wrong to use what happens here, the deaths of the soldiers and the repatriations, for political ends.”
Ed Havard, editor of Question Time, announced details of the episode saying: “Wootton Bassett has come to symbolise the nation’s respect for fallen servicemen and we have already had a huge number of people apply to take part in this programme and debate the issues.”
Mr Brown has faced calls to attend one of the town’s repatriation ceremonies. An article on LabourList, the influential website founded by Derek Draper, Labour’s former adviser on internet campaigning, advised Mr Brown “to go to Wooton [sic] Bassett... His bowed head as the hearses go past will go a long way to demonstrate the personal sadness and responsibility we know he feels.”
The Prime Minister has recently apologised to the families of two casualties of the Afghanistan conflict after one of his letters of condolence appeared to be littered with errors while another was sent two years late.
Yesterday it was reported that some injured veterans had asked for the curtains around their beds to be closed when Mr Brown visited the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine at Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham three months ago, Sapper Matthew Weston, 20, who lost both legs and his right arm in an explosion in Afghanistan, told The Sunday Times: “Half the lads didn’t want to speak to him and those that did pretty much blamed him for everything.”
Selly Oak Hospital yesterday said that it had refused a donation from the British National Party following a collection to raise money for a burns unit for injured servicemen and women as it was from a political party.
John Walker from the BNP said: “If Selly Oak won’t take the money, we will find a soldiers’ charity that will.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/system/topicRoot/Military_matters/