Mandrake hears that one of the Prime Minister’s officials telephoned the British embassy in Kabul before the Conservative leader visited troops in Helmand Province in December to request that it did not co-operate with him.
“The aide made clear that Cameron’s trip should not be a success,” says my man in the Number 10 bunker. “He said there should be no ‘media availability’.”
Happily for Cameron, the request was ignored by officials and he was photographed meeting troops in Helmand.
Brown has been criticised for using previous military visits for party-political purposes. In 2007, he made his first trip to Iraq as Prime Minister in the week of the Tory party conference.
A No 10 spokesman denies the claim. “The embassy provided full support,” he adds.
Sounds just like the sort of thing Gordon would do, Happily it looks like the Military ignored his requests.
WAR TOURISTS, a footnote: Gordon Brown just hit Afghanistan again. Last year, several British officers told me that when Gordon Brown visited in 2009, the British military resisted helping Mr. Brown by not providing airlift. They said US helicopters had to ferry Mr. Brown. I do not know where the truth begins and ends with those statements, other than that British officers told me this as truth. Please recall that I was kicked out of British embed last year, apparently for raking the British government on helicopter shortages. (Some little birds have told me that I’ll likely have better friends in the next British government. Did meet with a British officer yesterday about embed during summer.)
Four years ago, when the Conservative Party elected me as Leader, we made a choice about the way our Party should be.
We made a choice to be modern and radical – not to play it safe or retreat into the old comfort zone. Today, the Conservative Party is modern and radical – and that’s the way it’s going to stay.
Britain is crying out for a modern and radical alternative to this failed Labour Government. Under Gordon Brown, this country is going in the wrong direction and we need big changes to turn things around. We have the biggest budget deficit in our peacetime history. We’ve got massive social problems. And we’ve got a political system that’s been dragged through the dirt. We cannot solve these problems unless we are bold and radical.
So as I explain in this video, we have made our choice and we’re not going back. Our plans for our country are not timid, and the truth is they cannot be. The Conservative Party is a modern and radical party – and our modern and radical values are what this country urgently needs.
When Labour came into power in 1997, millions of people had high hopes that Britain would become a stronger, fairer society. Of course, Labour did have some good intentions – but, in the end, they just didn’t deliver.
But that doesn’t mean those hopes have to die. They’re now alive with us in the modern Conservative Party – as David Cameron explains in the video below:
As Cameron says
Many, many people are joining us to help make the changes we need in this country. We’re winning the argument on the economy and on building a fairer society.
So, thirteen years on, I’m asking you to go into this election with an open mind. I’m asking you to think about voting for us – even if you’ve never voted Tory before.
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