Fitaloon at MicroShaft

Gordon Brown’s statement that the Defence Budget has gone up every year is Fiction. That is the fact. Cathy Newman also describes Brown’s use of  “near cash” terms as “Fiscally Illiterate“.

So during PMQ’s Gordon Brown has uttered yet more Brownies and yet again he will get away with them unless both Cameron and Clegg hammer him again and again at PMQ’s about this.

It is time to get the gloves off and call a Liar a Liar, none of the pissing about, some direct straightforward words that any Tommy, Dick and Harry will understand, no more disingenuous, no more being  economical with the actualité, no more revelation of a totally fissured and dysfunctional government, no more Brownies, call them what they are in reality LIES.

Only then will the public begin to understand what this man has done to Britain, He has turned this one geat nation into Broken Britain, and he wants, by any means, to have Five more years to destroy it totally. He tried to tell us this morning that he wouldn’t let us down, sadly this is yet another of his reworked phrases, he told us this back in 2007 at his first Labour Conference as Prime Minister, and even more sadly he has not just let us down, he has totally bankrupted this Country, to try and say he won’t let us down down  is beyond belief.

This is no time for a Broken and Discredited Prime Minister and his Broken and Discredited Government.

Let’s just look at a it more of what Cathy Newman tell us about Gordon’s Lies:

The analysis
In real terms – i.e. taking account of inflation – Gordon Brown is wrong. Figures given to us by the Ministry of Defence (see table below) show the defence budget fell year-on-year in real terms on four occasions since 1997 when Labour came to power – in 1998, 1999, 2002 and 2007.

Worse, the defence budget also fell below 1997 levels (again in real terms) on four occasions – 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2002.

“Near cash”
The MoD says Gordon Brown wasn’t talking about real terms growth, but was instead referring to “near cash” rises in the defence budget. “Near cash” is the simplest form of the military budget, the most basic cash figure – without inflation or depreciation taken into account.

According to the Institute For Fiscal Studies, inflation has to be factored in to make spending comparisons meaningful. So Brown was at the very least playing fast and loose with the figures by ignoring inflation.

Wrong again?
However, Gordon Brown also stated today in the Commons that the “expenditure of the Ministry of Defence has been rising in real terms under this government”. Taking him absolutely literally, “this government” was elected in 2005. But here he is also wrong. As we’ve seen just now, spending fell in real terms in 2007.

FactCheck likes a belt and braces approach, so we called several experts – including Mark Stoker, a military economist at the International Institute For Strategic Studies.

He pointed out NATO also provide accounts on defence budgets, and he reckons these numbers are more accurate.

Still falling
Looking at the NATO figures, the defence budget fell from £34.4bn in 2007 to £32.8bn in 2008.

“If you look at Nato’s figures Gordon Brown’s statement is incorrect,” says Stoker. “Either way, both sets of data indicate that the budget has not risen every year.”

Cathy Newman’s verdict
Defence spending has gone up in “near cash” terms, but it’s fiscally illiterate to use this measure, and the former chancellor knows it. The government is on firmer ground when it points out that the departmental budget is 10 per cent higher this year than in 1997, but FactCheck has established that Gordon Brown’s central claim that the defence budget has gone up every year is fiction.

This is Cathy Newman checking the facts, what she doesn’t mention that these are using figures compared against standard inflation, Sadly Defence Industry Inflation is much higher (5-10%) than normal inflation.

Vote for Change.

via The FactCheck Blog – Brown gets defensive about budgets.

Below is the BBC video of the tourist trip that Gordon Brown took to Afghanistan, and where he yet again re-announced money and supplies to our Armed Forces.
During his vist Gordon promised 100 million pounds to replace 200 “Snatch” Land Rovers, money that had already been promised and vehicles that had already been promised as this extract from Defence Questions and Answers from 11th Nov 2009 shows.

Andrew Gwynne (Denton & Reddish, Labour)

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what recent assessment he has made of the use of Snatch Land Rovers in Afghanistan; and if he will make a statement.

Quentin Davies (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Ministry of Defence; Grantham & Stamford, Labour)

The use by our armed forces in Afghanistan of all equipment types is kept under constant review to ensure that they continue to meet operational requirements. This includes the use of Snatch vehicles. Operational commanders have repeatedly stressed the importance of having a range of vehicles from which they can select the most appropriate for specific tasks. This includes a lighter, smaller and more agile patrol vehicle, such as the Snatch 2A and Snatch Vixen Land Rover. But to ensure that our personnel have the best possible protection, a strengthened variant of the vehicle, Snatch Vixen-Plus, is being procured for delivery to Afghanistan next year. This will be followed shortly thereafter by the new lighter protected patrol vehicle.

This shows that not only were we replacing the Snatch’s by Snatch Vixen plus in the interim, but the new lighter protected patrol vehicle likely to be something similar to the Ocelot was already going on, so Gordon’s new 100 million pounds had  already been allocated. Note also that despite his announcement the vehicles are unlikely to be in theatre until 2011. Meanwhile our Armed Forces are still being killed in the Snatch variants and Coroners Inquiries are hearing about their unsuitability for use in Afghanistan.

I’ll repeat what Michael Yon the American War Correspondent and Photographer notes on similar visits:

WAR TOURISM: Saw this in Iraq, and see it here, too. VIPs — and journalists — come to war for short periods, then go home knowing nothing more. Yet they get on television and say, “During my five trips to Iraq and Afghanistan…” ( They leave out the part that those five trips totaled maybe 10 days on the ground, and wasted a lot of commanders’ time while same commanders could have been war fighting.) War Tourists waste US money, drain helicopter and other assets, and rob commanders of crucial time that should be spent on our troops and the enemy. War Tourists would do us all a favor by going to the Pentagon for briefings while leaving the war fighters alone.

Just substitute the UK for the US and MOD for Pentagon and you will see how it applies to the Britain as well.

BBC News – Gordon Brown visits Afghan troops amid defence row.

As I said earlier, what initially looks good for Gordon Brown tends to come back and bite. It appears that is exactly what is happening from his “performance” at the Chilcot Inquiry.

First we have this in the Telegraph, watch the video first at this link and watch the  Brownie being laid.

And then we have the rebuttals as follows

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.”

Asked if he was aware that the chiefs had threatened to resign over the 2004 budget, Mr Brown said:

“I can’t remember all the conversations I had.”

Shall we say that is convenient

Liam Fox, the Conservative shadow defence secretary, accused Mr Brown of a

“pathetic” attempt to avoid his responsibilities and said the Prime Minister’s evidence “does not add up.”

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, said Mr Brown’s claim

“flies in the face”

of the evidence.

Next we have this from another article in the Telepgraph:

Gordon was similarly absent from the key meeting on July 23, 2002, presumably busy conducting an investigation into the loss of several boxes of paper-clips from the Treasury typing pool. Most startling of all, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the second most senior member of the Government, did not even see the legal opinion written by the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, on March 7 2003, querying the legality of the war.

By the end of this catalogue of absence, abstention and ignorance it would not have been surprising to hear Gordon announce that he had learned of the invasion of Iraq from the tea lady at Number 11. There is something far wrong here. Either Gordon is being economical with the actualité, as he is economical with so many other things, or this is the revelation of a totally fissured and dysfunctional government.

How many more times do we have to listen to our Prime Minister lie ? It is time that he was shown up for the liar he is and the disgrace he is bringing upon this nation. Then again all these senior Armed Forces could be lying, In Gordon Brown’s delusional  La-La Land they are.

Iraq inquiry: Army big guns attack Gordon Brown’s defence budget claims – Telegraph.

Tom Bradby at ITV news has this:

The Telegraph tells us that:

In an excoriating report by MPs, the Defence Minister Quentin Davies was singled out for being “disingenuous” in giving evidence to the Commons Defence Committee. The Defence Equipment report also condemned the MoD for attempting to balance its annual budget by delaying projects and commissioning work it cannot afford.

In one example, the decision to make short term savings by delaying the introduction of the two aircraft carriers to 2015 has cost £674 million out of the £5.2 billion project.

The cost increases were “unsustainable in the context of a tightening budget situation and illustrate precisely the reasons why the equipment programme has become out of balance with the budget,” the report said.

Liam Fox the shadow defence secretary, said it was now clear that the MoD was

“operating in Wonderland”.

“It is nonsensical to deny the very existence of a deficit, refuse to share crucial information with the Defence Committee and consistently order equipment with no means of paying for it.”

Quentin Davies the Minister for Defence Equipment and Support, was singled out for giving misleading answers to the committee when he denied a huge funding gap for purchases existed claiming, without producing any evidence, that it was only £6 billion when it was in fact £21 billion and probably now stands at £36 billion.

So yet another department in the corrupt Government is fudging the figures and lying about it’s commitments.  You don’t need to worry though, 15 billion isn’t really a lot of money, when we are 180 billion in deficit just for this year alone.

Why any sane Political party would want to win the next  General Election is getting beyond me. When they have finally worked out that Gordon Brown has utterly wrecked our Economy, it will them who will be blamed  rather than Gordon Brown.

Vote for Change. It really is the only way of saving this once great Country

MoD ‘deliberately obstructive’ in covering up cost overruns – Telegraph.