Fitaloon at MicroShaft

Reuters has this.

Britain’s goods trade deficit with the rest of the world unexpectedly widened to its biggest since August 2008 in January, after the sharpest drop in exports in over three years, official data showed on Tuesday.

The Office for National Statistics said that Britain’s goods trade gap widened to 7.987 billion pounds from a downwardly revised 7.010 billion in December, and well above the 7 billion pounds forecast by economists.

The goods trade gap with non-EU countries also widened unexpectedly to 4.834 billion pounds from 3.428 billion, the biggest deficit since January 2009.

The deterioration in the global trade balance was a result of a 6.9 percent fall in exports, the biggest fall since July 2006. Imports were down just 1.6 percent.

January was an unusually icy month in Britain, which may have disrupted the transport of goods for export to ports, though the ONS said that Tuesday’s data in itself did not provide firm evidence of that.

Exports to non-EU countries suffered their sharpest fall since January 2009, dropping by 12.5 percent on the month, while imports rose by 1.6 percent.

The figures are likely to further raise policymakers’ concern that the sharp fall in sterling over the past two years has not led to the expected boost in exports — a point reiterated by Bank of England policymaker Kate Barker on Monday.

The ONS said there was a broadbased fall in exports.

January trade gap widest since August 2008 | Reuters.

Bruce Anderson takes Brown to pieces for his utter contempt for the Army.

His final paragraph is on the money sadly

As a result of Mr Brown’s malfeasance – abetted by Mr Blair’s cowardice – men have died who should have lived: men have been crippled who could have escaped with minor injuries. All war leads to a butcher’s bill. Even with the best equipment, there comes the moment when discipline, training, group-bonding, patriotism and courage must inspire flesh and blood to stand up to lead and high explosive. Flesh and blood do not always win. The gods of battles choose the best and the bravest to dine with them in Valhalla. War means heart-rending sacrifices. It is the duty of prime ministers to minimise those sacrifices: few duties more solemn. This one has treated that duty with contempt. “You’ve ruined my life” he once yelled at Tony Blair. What nonsense, what pathetic nonsense. But lives have been lost, because Mr Brown would not do his duty and Tony Blair would not make him.

There is an error in the column when he says 1000 personnel were to be returned from Afghanistan, It should be Iraq, hopefully it will be corrected, but it takes no sting out of his correct and damning indictment of Gordon Brown.

We need to see more like this on other subjects in all the Nationals. Exposing the Brown Lies or Brownies between now and the General Election is essential in ensuring this man cane never again come anywhere near to power.

Vote for Change.

Bruce Anderson: Nothing incriminates Mr Brown like his contempt for the Army – Bruce Anderson, Commentators – The Independent.

The Guardian has this on Gordon Brown’s fabled 100 million pounds for the replacement of Snatch Land Rovers.

The government is to urgently order new armoured vehicles to replace the army’s fleet of thinly protected Snatch Land Rovers, the defence secretary, Bob Ainsworth, will announce later this week.

Years after soldiers first complained about the lack of protection offered by the adapted soft-skinned vehiclesagainst increasingly sophisticated roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, Ainsworth will tell MPs that the MoD has ordered some 200 “light-protected patrol vehicles” at an estimated cost of £100m, officials said.

Yet if we have a look at history we find this tender from 17th February 2009, more than a year ago. It talks about up to 400 LPPV’s

Title attributed to the contract by the contracting authority: Light Protected Patrol Vehicle (LPPV).

The Specialist and Utility Vehicles (SUV) IPT has a potential future requirement for the supply of up to 400 Light Protected Patrol Vehicles (LPPV) to be production ready in 2010 and delivery into service in 2011. SUV IPT would welcome information from Industry on current products available now or under development that could meet this demanding requirement.

The LPPV will be a wheeled vehicle with an estimated gross vehicle weight of around 6 to 7 tonnes, capable of carrying up to 6 crew (2+4), integrated with a range of communication and electronic equipment providing protected mobility. LPPV will replace in-service light legacy platforms based on the Land Rover based SNATCH vehicle. Additionally, the platform may be used as the basis for the replacement to Land Rover WMIK.

The vehicle must provide the optimum levels of protection against a number of known and emerging threats of a varied nature including Ballistic, Blast, Mine and Fragmentation. As a guide the requirements for protection should be a minimum of level 2 ballistic and level 2 blast as detailed in STANAG 4569.

LPPVs are principally required for a wide range of patrol tasks and are normally expected to operate on roads and rough tracks and trails in urban, semi-urban and rural environments; they need to be sufficiently agile to provide high cross country mobility. To achieve the desired levels of urban manoeuvrability the vehicle will ideally have a width less than 2m and a turning circle less than 12m.

A pre-qualification questionnaire including draft requirements document will be made available to Industry following an initial down selection activity, which will provide more details of the requirement. Certain details within the document will be protectively marked (e.g equipment to be integrated into the vehicle) and will therefore only be available to potential contractors or their sub-contractors who hold, or are prepared and able to obtain, appropriate UK or equivalent national security accreditation.

The LPPV programme is currently funded to identify and develop solutions that have a potential to meet an Urgent Operational Requirement in mid 2010.

Depending on the technical feasibility of responses to this advert a programme will be formalised under normal UOR procurement procedures.

This advert is a risk reduction measure to investigate the possible options available to replace in-service legacy vehicles.

Expressions of interest may be submitted in writing and should include comprehensive vehicle technical specifications.

So whilst the order may now be urgent,  they have taken over a year to finalise the tender and select a vehicle.

Government to place £100m order to replace maligned Snatch Land Rovers | UK news | guardian.co.uk.

The Times has a report on some damning reports on the state of the NHS. According to the Times:

They diagnose a blind pursuit of political and managerial targets as the root cause of a string of hospital scandals that have cost thousands of lives.

The harsh verdict on the state of the NHS, after a spending splurge under Labour between 2000 and 2008, raises worrying questions about the future quality of the health service as budgets are squeezed.

One report, based on the advice of almost 200 top managers and doctors, says hospitals ignored basic hygiene to cram in patients to meet waiting-time targets.

Apparently the three reports were commissioned  by Lord Darzi, the former health minister from international consultancies to assess the progress of the NHS as it approached its 60th anniversary in 2008. They have come to light after a freedom of information request.

The reports show such things as:

A damaging rift between doctors and managers: “The GP and consultant contracts are de-professionalising, and have had the peculiar effect of simultaneously demoralising and enriching doctors. We’ve lost the volitional work of the doctors and far too many of us are now just working to rule.”

Pointless new structures. “Stop the restructurings. The only thing they generate is redundancy payments.” One body responsible for improving standards reported to five different ministers and had three different names in the space of 30 months.

A culture of fear and slavish compliance. “The risk of consequences to managers is much greater for not meeting expectations from above than for not meeting expectations of patients and families.”

Do read the whole article to get a feeling of how much of YOUR money Labour have pissed against a wall.

Labour hid ugly truth about National Health Service (NHS) – Times Online.

Gordon Brown’s cuts ‘cost lives of soldiers’

So says General Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank who adds

Soldiers’ lives were lost in Iraq and Afghanistan because Gordon Brown failed to fund the Army properly when he was Chancellor, a former chief of the defence staff said yesterday.

The Prime Minister is due to appear before the Iraq inquiry today at 10am.

General Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, who led the Armed Forces from 1997 to 2001, told The Times: “Not fully funding the Army in the way they had asked . . . undoubtedly cost the lives of soldiers. He should be asked why he was so unsympathetic towards defence and so sympathetic to other departments.”

The families of servicemen who died on the front line in lightly armoured Land Rovers are already demanding to know why the Government did not send troops out with more helicopters and stronger vehicles.

More questions to be answered by Gordon Brown today at the Chilcot enquiry.

Gordon Brown’s cuts ‘cost lives of soldiers’ – Times Online.