Gordon Brown : liar liar pants on fire

[Tony]

Yesterday Gordon told the Chilcott enquiry that he gave the army everything that they wanted for the Iraq War.

... within hours the defence chiefs came out to say he was lying.

 

He said that he was at the heart of Blair's Government.

.... but he also said that he knew nothing about any important decisions.

 

 

 

It was a shameful performance. I listened to most of it and frankly it was just a party political broadcast with almost no straight answers to the panel who had the investigative prowess of a damp flannel.

 

What was obvious though is that he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of everything that he wants us to know but can't remember anything that he wouldn't want us to know. Such a selective amnesia cannot convey any trust in him, or he has other issues going on in his head. Either way he's not fit to lead.

[The Manager]

get him out is the only way forward !!!!

[Uptowngirl]

It was quite shameful to attempt to spin the truth to an inquiry. Claims about increased defence spending were a total joke when you are comparing years of peace with years when we are fighting 2 wars.

 

It is quite evident that Brown's performance was aimed at the electorate and covering his backside rather than enabling the inquiry to establish the truth.

[NoddyHolder]

By all means get Brown out,who is going to replace him ?and more importantly who is going to be the next P.M certainly not Cameron I hope.The labour Party is still the way forward albeit with a new leader,voting the Tories in would be a backward step for the people of this country especially with Cameron in charge.

It seems the public has to decide which is the lesser of two evils and by all the opinion polls they are deserting the Tory party en mass

[Bloomdido]

The only reason the Labour Party stayed in power was because it became the new moderate Tory Party. I detest them all.

[Wildcat]

Yesterday Gordon told the Chilcott enquiry that he gave the army everything that they wanted for the Iraq War.

... within hours the defence chiefs came out to say he was lying.

 

Actually what the two ex-chief of staffs said was that his responses were technically true but 'disingenuous'. Their reasoning is that defence inflation is higher than real inflation..... Now that sounds like the sort of argument anyone would make when they are trying to claim more money, a rhetorhical argument not a factual one.

 

General Dannatt, who is now an advisor to the Conservative Party, told the BBC: 'What the Prime Minister yesterday said about funding narrowly and precisely was correct, in so far as under Government rules agreed between the Treasury and Ministry of Defence the additional cost of operations has to be funded from the UOR (Urgent Operational Requirements) process.

 

'That was done, and indeed it would have been an outrage if it hadn't been done.

 

'What Gordon Brown didn't address yesterday and what Lords Boyce and Guthrie are getting at was the underlying underfunding that goes right back to the outcome of the defence review in 1997-98, when the Treasury didn't fully fund the outcome. It has gone on since then.

 

'Defence inflation runs higher than normal inflation so when additional money has gone to defence over the years, the spending power of that money has reduced.

 

So far as I can see the only people being 'disingenuous' is the Tory adviser and the Chiefs of Staff.

 

He said that he was at the heart of Blair's Government.

.... but he also said that he knew nothing about any important decisions.

 

You mean the decision's Blair said never happened? Not being privy to something that didn't happen doesn't undermine what he said.

 

It was a shameful performance. I listened to most of it and frankly it was just a party political broadcast with almost no straight answers to the panel who had the investigative prowess of a damp flannel.

 

What was obvious though is that he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of everything that he wants us to know but can't remember anything that he wouldn't want us to know. Such a selective amnesia cannot convey any trust in him, or he has other issues going on in his head. Either way he's not fit to lead.

 

He answered the questions given directly and his performance was just what anyone would expect of him and any other politician.

 

If there is any meaningful criticism to be made of what happened it was the weak questioning of Chilcott and his team.

 

Your condemnation is misdirected.

[esme]

By all means get Brown out,who is going to replace him ?and more importantly who is going to be the next P.M certainly not Cameron I hope.The labour Party is still the way forward albeit with a new leader,voting the Tories in would be a backward step for the people of this country especially with Cameron in charge.

It seems the public has to decide which is the lesser of two evils and by all the opinion polls they are deserting the Tory party en mass

 

vote for whoever you voted for in the council elections they must have had something going for them at the time, vote for anyone other than labour or conservative, vote for anyone who will listen to you rather than the party line

 

just don't abstain, nearly twice as many abstained as voted for the winners last time, it had absolutely no effect on the outcome

[Tony]

Wildcat, you've just defined the word "disingenuous" with your last post. Let me give you the full quotes rather than your selective version, including the one where the "disingenuous" quote is made, just before he says "simply not true"

 

 

 

 

 

General Lord Walker, chief of the defence staff from 2003 to 2006, has said that defence chiefs threatened to resign over the cuts they had to make because of the 2004 settlement.

 

Mr Brown insisted that the chiefs had been happy with that budget.

 

"The spending review of 2004 was welcomed by the chiefs of our defence staff,” he said. “They were satisfied at the end of the review that they had the resources they needed.”

 

That claim has been challenged by senior military figures, with one former head of the Armed Forces calling it “disingenuous.”

 

“To say Gordon Brown has given the military all they asked for is simply not true,” Lord Guthrie, a former chief of the defence staff, writes in The Daily Telegraph.

 

“He cannot get away with saying I gave them everything they asked for, that is simply disingenuous.

 

A senior military figure involved in the 2004 spending talks said Mr Brown’s claims were “nonsense.”

 

The commander said: “To say it was ‘welcome’ is to use a great deal of poetic licence.

 

“To say the outcome of that process was ‘welcome’ is frankly hyperbole.”

 

Major General Patrick Cordingley, a commander in the first Gulf War, said: “The real truth is the Armed Forces are underfunded.”

 

The inquiry has also heard from Geoff Hoon, the former defence secretary, that he had to make “difficult cuts” as a result of the spending settlement he received from Mr Brown’s Treasury in 2004.

 

And Sir Kevin Tebbit, the former permanent secretary at the MoD, has said Mr Brown “guillotined” his budget and left him operating a “crisis budget”

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/7378681/Iraq-inquiry-Army-big-guns-attack-Gordon-Browns-defence-budget-claims.html

[Wildcat]

Wildcat, you've just defined the word "disingenuous" with your last post. Let me give you the full quotes rather than your selective version, including the one where the "disingenuous" quote is made, just before he says "simply not true"

<snip>

 

But there weren't cuts because of the 2003/4 spending review. Spending has gone up by nearly 25%.

 

From Table on Page 21:

 

2003-04 £35.9

2004-05 £37.5 +4.42%

2005-06 £38.5 +2.66%

2006-07 £38.9 +1.11%

2007-08 £42.4 +9.05%

2008-09 est £44.6 +5.27%

2009-10 plan £46.2 +3.46%

 

http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/0981769C-D30A-469B-B61D-C6DC270BC5C5/0/mod_arac0809_vol1.pdf

 

Describing nearly 25% increase in spending as cuts when the reality is such a large increase in investment is not exactly honest is it?

 

If the Chiefs of staff have a criticism about allocation of resources it should be directed at the MOD not the Treasury.

[foxy lady]

But there weren't cuts because of the 2003/4 spending review. Spending has gone up by nearly 25%.

 

From Table on Page 21:

 

 

 

http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/0981769C-D30A-469B-B61D-C6DC270BC5C5/0/mod_arac0809_vol1.pdf

 

Describing nearly 25% increase in spending as cuts when the reality is such a large increase in investment is not exactly honest is it?

 

 

But as we went to war you would expect spending to increase.

 

The word disingenuous could certainly be attatched to your posting. Perhaps you should consider that inflation over the period was as follows

 

2003 2.3%

2004 2.7%

2005 3.4%

2006 3.2%

2007 2.8%

2008 3.8%

 

Inflation of 19.6%... so claiming a 25% increase in investment is not exactly honest is it?