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.

The Telegraph will have Blairs’ testimony to the Chilcot Inquiry Live with the added attraction of a Public Lie detector. Viewers will also be able to vote throughout the hearing on whether they think the former PM is telling the truth or not using an on  screen ‘lie detector’.

Note to Telegraph it’s easy to tell when Tony’s lying, he has his mouth open.

It is sad to see how little we trust our politicians when we have this sort of  addition.

Video: Watch Tony Blair live at Iraq war inquiry – Telegraph.

More on this later but according to the BBC

The highly critical report, by Charles Haddon-Cave QC, said the Afghanistan crash occurred because of a “systemic breach” of the military covenant.

A safety review of the Nimrod MR2 carried out by the MoD, BAE Systems and QinetiQ was branded a “lamentable job”.

Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth apologised to victims’ families.

Mr Haddon-Cave condemned the change of organisational culture within the MoD between 1998 and 2006, when financial targets came to distract from safety.

He quoted a former senior RAF officer who told his inquiry: “There was no doubt that the culture of the time had switched.

“In the days of the RAF chief engineer in the 1990s, you had to be on top of airworthiness.

“By 2004 you had to be on top of your budget if you wanted to get ahead.”

Mr Haddon-Cave’s report also criticised two RAF officers.

Answorth is the man who told us the Nimrod was airworthy. He lied then and should go.

BBC NEWS | UK | Nimrod review reveals ‘failures’.

Vector is based on a 6 x 6 Pinzgauer chassis and is a Light Protected Patrol vehicle developed for 8-hour patrol missions over varying terrain.

Richard North has picked up on yet another sneaky bit of censorship or as he more aptly describes it lies and deceit. It appears that  the RAF Regiment Senior Aircraftman  Marcin Wojtak who was killed on Thursday 1st October whilst “commanding his vehicle” was actually in a  Vector Armoured vehicle.  As Richard says:

These “killer machines” were supposed to have been withdrawn. We all thought they had been. In fact, we had an announcement in May that the Vector was to be withdrawn from operations in Afghanistan.

Obviously they haven’t been withdrawn and despite the assurances of John Hutton, the then defence minister, they have continued in use, albeit in what was supposed to “safe” regions. When will the Military and MOD learn there are no safe area in this type of War, I thought it was bad enough to learn that the Taliban had managed to plant an IED near Bastion but to learn the patrol was using what can only be described as an “inadequate” vehicle is beyond belief.

This waste of young lives is truly stupid and defies the thought that we have smart people running the war in Afghanistan. If they can’t do better than this then we should not be fighting this type of war.

Read more on this at Defence of the Realm

Defence of the Realm: They lie and deceive.

It had to happen, Gordon Brown having been caught out with his Brownies or lies all over the place is now starting to alter the facts to meet his version of the truth. Fraser Nelson calls it back-pedalling, I just call it the typical dishonesty of Gordon Brown. Fraser has this to say in his article

Keep your eyes on this, because we could have a new distinction. Soon we’ll be told that Brown misspoke in the Commons when he listed those spending totals, and in fact they’re not spending totals at all. In fact, those Labour cuts – he’ll say – were all imaginary. The problem for Brown is that he can’t change anything until the Pre-Budget Report. And, by then, everyone will have stopped listening.

As I said earlier today,

the Brownie is then used for long enough, often enough and against all the facts until the lie appears to become the truth

Now it has started  to come true as the truth is altered and facts are changed to attempt cover-up the fact that we have a lying toad for a Prime  Minister.

When the Government attempts to alter the facts and attempts to rewrite history you know that your country is really up shit creek without a paddle, and in our case we have a dangerous and dishonest helmsman who is ignoring all calls to change direction to get us pack onto the right course.

The back-pedalling begins in earnest | Coffee House.