Gordon Brown : liar liar pants on fire

[Tony]

What I am saying is that MoD is responsible for the allocation of resources not the Treasury. If Geoff Hoon didn't spend the money in the right place prefering to buy destroyers or eurofighters rather than armoured cars and shoes with the increased funding made available by the Treasury, it is the MoD's fault not the Treasury's.

 

So, not only are you saying that everyone apart from Gordon Brown is a liar, but that he and his government are serial incompetents?

 

I honestly don't know where you are going with this one wildcat.

 

Everything Brown said yesterday was at odds with everyone else in the Chilcot enquiry. Brown is either in a world of his own or the only person telling the truth, but it can't be both.

[Bigthumb]

That is not at all clear. I could just as easily point out the mobile phones cost around £100 ten years ago and you can now get them for £30. Comparisons like that are pretty meaningless. The military has always wanted cutting edge technology, t have an advantage over their opponents. That has always been the same. The technology they have been short of like shoes and armoured cars though are hardly cutting edge in any sense that would justify claiming a 10% inflation cost, if anything it should be lower than RPI because the technologies are not new.

 

What am absolutely idiotic comment.

 

At the time of the Vietnam war the cost of a military tank was around $200,000 now they cost around $4 million. That is the way with military equipment. The things that are fired at you get more powerful so you need upgraded armour to protect you and a bigger gun to knock holes in the enemy's equipment. Similarly troop carriers need to be armoured because of the power of the blasts they have to take.

 

Even systems already in service increase in cost every year because of necessary upgrades.

 

In world war 2 you could build a battleship for the real terms price of a destroyer today.

 

Stop trying to delude yourself.

[Longcol]

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

 

 

But the extra spending on the wars has been met from the Treasury Reserve rather than the Defence Budget.

 

http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/AboutDefence/Organisation/KeyFactsAboutDefence/DefenceSpending.htm

 

I think we are entitled to ask the top brass what they have done with the additional money. We still have more than 20,000 troops (and therefore billions of pounds worth of equipment) tied up in Germany - what is that all about?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Forces_Germany

[Wildcat]

What am absolutely idiotic comment.

 

At the time of the Vietnam war the cost of a military tank was around $200,000 now they cost around $4 million. That is the way with military equipment. The things that are fired at you get more powerful so you need upgraded armour to protect you and a bigger gun to knock holes in the enemy's equipment. Similarly troop carriers need to be armoured because of the power of the blasts they have to take.

 

Even systems already in service increase in cost every year because of necessary upgrades.

 

In world war 2 you could build a battleship for the real terms price of a destroyer today.

 

Stop trying to delude yourself.

 

The cost of a packet of cigarrettes at the time of the vietnam war was a matter of pence, it is now £6.

 

My point is such comparisons are meaningless.

 

Besides which what the soldiers are most in need of are the same armoured cars we used in northern Ireland 25 years ago, whatever inflationary technological advancements there have been are irrelevant when considering what has been lacking.

[Wildcat]

So, not only are you saying that everyone apart from Gordon Brown is a liar, but that he and his government are serial incompetents?

 

I honestly don't know where you are going with this one wildcat.

 

Everything Brown said yesterday was at odds with everyone else in the Chilcot enquiry. Brown is either in a world of his own or the only person telling the truth, but it can't be both.

 

Except there is no evidence that Gordon Brown lied the fact his critics including the Tory adviser are saying Gordon Brown was being misleading with the truth, appears to have escaped you.

 

We already know MOD spending has been incompetent, they have been spending money on destroyers when they could have bought armoured cars. My point is that blame should go to where it is deserved.

[Tony]

Its not eluded me at all, in fact I quoted lots of different people, including a former defence secretary of state. You could take another look, it's on Page 1.

 

That have been buying armoured cars. If we take Gordon Brown at his word (!) that the forces had everything they asked for we can do a small comparison on a high profile example.

 

A Snatch Land Rover costs around £50k. The replacement Mastiff vehicles as requested by the forces are (with spares) $625k each.

 

10% inflation doesn't go far.

[Wildcat]

Its not eluded me at all, in fact I quoted lots of different people, including a former defence secretary of state. You could take another look, it's on Page 1.

 

That have been buying armoured cars. If we take Gordon Brown at his word (!) that the forces had everything they asked for we can do a small comparison on a high profile example.

 

A Snatch Land Rover costs around £50k. The replacement Mastiff vehicles as requested by the forces are (with spares) $625k each.

 

10% inflation doesn't go far.

 

You are comparing apples with pears.

 

Besides which the £10billion made available could have bought nearly 20,000 Mastiffs!

[Tony]

So who is lying? Gordon Brown or absolutely everyone else?

[Wildcat]

So who is lying? Gordon Brown or absolutely everyone else?

 

You are.

 

His critics say he has stretched the truth. You are the only one saying he has lied.

[Tony]

Requoted for truth

 

 

 

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

 

Are they all lying or is Gordon Brown? It can't be both.