Fitaloon at MicroShaft

UK Casualties in Iraq

Today a service of Commemoration honouring military and civilian  personnel who served in Iraq will be held. The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh will lead the service. Veterans and relatives of the 179 people killed will take part in the service at St Paul’s Cathedral, London. Tony Blair, prime minister when the conflict began in 2003, is due to join senior defence figures in attendance.

British combat operations in Iraq officially ended on 30 April with a flag-lowering ceremony in Basra. About 120,000 members of the UK armed forces and civilians served in Iraq.

Other senior royals, including Princes Charles and William, the Duchess of Cornwall and the Princess Royal are expected to attend the service, along with the leaders of Britain’s main political parties.

A candle will be lit on behalf of those who lost their lives by Tracey Hazel, mother of Cpl Ben Leaning, 24, from Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, who was killed when his armoured vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in April 2007.

She said she felt “privileged and honoured” to perform the task.

“The service is a fantastic idea. It makes me so proud to be British and a lot of other people should be,” she added.

Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams will bless the centrepiece of the “Basra Wall”, built by troops in front of the 20th Armoured Brigade’s Iraqi HQ to honour fallen comrades.

The wall, with its brass plaques and marble centre stone, was the focal point of the memorial service in April to mark the end of the UK operation.

It is to be rebuilt at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, with the help of a contribution from the Iraqi government.

More details of some of the people who served in Iraq can be found here.

BBC NEWS | UK | Queen to honour UK Iraq personnel.

Scottish Parliament

It was supposed to be a celebration of 10 years of Holyrood, instead we had the sight of  empty seats as nearly half of the SNP’s MSP’s failed to turn up for what should have been their celebration. As the Times puts it.

What a lamentable affair. A day that should have been rich in ceremony, and joyful in celebration turned into a limp and vacuous occasion, with more than a third of the MSPs whose role we were meant to be applauding, simply absent. The tenth anniversary of the Scottish Parliament, snubbed by its own members, turned into an ill-mannered comment on the democracy they represent.

Quite what the Queen made of it was hard to see. Her voice was distinctly croaky, her expression inscrutable. She peered through her spectacles at the empty seats wondering, just possibly, whether she had got the date right. The Duke of Edinburgh looked round him with cheerful resignation, as if to say: you chumps have made a bit of cock-up, haven’t you?

The Queen added a touch of reality to the proceedings by saying

“Your challenge … is to ensure that [the Parliament] continues to reflect the priorities and aspirations of all Scotland’s people (her emphasis) and to retain the public’s confidence and trust.”

Maybe a slight dig there at Alex Salmond and how many people really want Independence.

Alex Salmond also made a speech, according to the Times

To add insult to injury, Alex Salmond, in his speech, had the temerity to mock Westminster. He suggested that the Queen might find some “words of encouragement for another parliament elsewhere” – a bad joke at the best of times. Any suggestion that Holyrood enjoys some moral superiority over the House of Commons was wiped out yesterday. Over the Queen’s face, as Mr Salmond made his comment, there passed the merest shadow of a grimace. Some of of us felt something far worse.

All in all it sounds like a very poor celebration.

Want to know why the MSP’s couldn’t attend have a look here for the full details.

Makes for interesting reading on what our MSP’s are up to. By the way I’m interpreting Constituency Business as “Couldn’t be arsed to turn-up”.

My local MSP, Mike Rumbles, is apparently on holiday in Italy, though the Dordogne seems to be the favoured hidey-hole of MSP’s taking advantage of cheap prices before the kids are on holiday.

The SNP appear to have 7 MSP’’s who had “no reason” not to be there. An appalling indictment of their commitment to Holyrood.

Strangely it is the Conservatives who have the best attendance record, pehaps this more because of the respect they have for the Queen rather than for any other reason.

Truly a poor show from all our MSP’s on what should have been a celebration day.

Bad jokes and worse manners play to empty seats – Times Online.