Okay, I admit, i'm not a fan of old Gordie, and his idiotic government - if it wasn't for the fact that I find the majority of the Conservative Cabinet greasy, apart from a few, i'd probably vote for them instead.

Anyway.



Quite frankly, this is hideously stupid. In total, this measure cuts £20,000,000 - this is minute compared to the rest of the defence budget, and even the budgets of some bizarre departments in the rest of Government that quite frankly could do with either being axed altogether, or have heavy cuts. Not to mention, theres numerous other areas within the army that could do with being axed, such as dress parades, and removing the jobs for the sake of creating jobs.

To be quite frank, the main problem here is the fact that its effectively only paying those who are going on ops - no training otherwise, meaning, no real reserve. In Afghanistan, the TA provides a large proportion of the British medical personel that are out there, so what happens when you get something like this happen? You lose those who might have signed up, and as a result, one hell of a lot of manpower. To say the least, by the end of these 6 months, its very likely that a lot of TA lads and lasses are going to have gone - and it'll certainly cost more than £20,000,000 to get the group back up to strength.

This is also one of the bizarre announcements, particularly as its been made on a friday - so, no reporters to pester the MOD about it over the weekend. Hmm - call me a cynic, if you will.

Either way, thank you Liebour, you've further eroded what little trust i've had in you, you bureaucratic !@#$%^&*.

4 Para are still being paid but that is because they are about to deploy on Op Herrick. University Officer Training Corps aren't getting paid as a result of this which is annoying, I was looking forward to earning some money. Hopefully training will still go on though. However if any part of the armed forces needs to be cut, OTC and CCF is deffinately the place to start. The rest of the TA however is probably quite unfair as I would assume quite a few people join it to earn some extra money.

Shame all the big projects take up a lot of extra time and money.

Sounds monumentally stupid, personnel should come first.

To be honest, I think a good chunk of the higher officers could get booted - from what I understand theres a lot of "Surplus to requirements" Majors and above in both the regular, and territorial forces.

Mind you, I bet the permanent staff are probably crapping themselves about this one. =/

Plus, no mention of the Naval, or RAF reserves, so can't be too certain how extensive it is.

Of course, i'm always a bit dubious on defence cuts when you've got £1,000,000,000 going on Foreign Aid - but that would lose voters, of course! I've a feeling someones thought "Sod it, we're not going to get the votes from the Armed forces, so we may as well do the majority of the cuts there".

Rather than say, the consultants hired to tell us exactly what 5 a day vegetables we should be having.

Oh for the days of the Iron Lady.

Unfortunately, Whitehall and a lot of other MOD departments can be noted for living in an ivory tower as it were. Along with a lot of the current cabinet, it seems - don't get me started on the Bob Ainsworth, nevermind Phil Woolas.

It is interesting to know that the army is currently at full capacity. However this is not as good as it sounds, full capacity in terms of budget I think. So it would take a year to apply and join the army apparently.

Wonder what this will do for my bursary application.

Don't let yourself be fooled, I may don the wardrobe of an Englishman but an Englishman I am not. No idea who Bob Ainsworth or Phil Woolas are.

Most likely screw it over - my mate applied for a bursary, did all the work, got to the final interview and got told "by the way, you'll have to wait between 1-3 years to join the Fleet Air Arm." - needless to say, he wasn't impressed, as his recruitment officer, erm, neglected to inform him of that minor point.

In regards to budget, i'd agree - in terms of manpower, far from it. Its scary that the MOD employs more people than the RN and RAF combined, isn't it?



Bob Ainsworth is the current Minister of Defence, and completely useless at his job - and not pushing for more cash from the treasury, that the armed forces need to do anything properly, following Gordon Brown's idea that the Army can fight on the budget required for a packed lunch, a cigarette, and harsh language.

Phil Woolas is either the former, or current, Minister of Immigration, and was the one that came up with the godawful idea of excluding the Gurkhas from being allowed to settle in the UK if they'd served before 1997, or something bizzare. Fortunately, got reversed after a lot of people kicked off, along with Joanna Lumley - thankfully got reversed, allowing all former Gurkhas to immigrate to the UK if they needed to.

The TA does an amazing job, as do all of the reserve forces. Being a reservist is some what harder than being a full time employed soldier as they have many other commitments such as a job and family they have to look after. While a full time soldier obviously may have a family it is probably harder for the family to deal with their father, son or brother suddenly going to Afghanistan for 6 months. Some of the reservists do a better job and certainly as good a job as the other units. They are trained to the same standard and blend in perfectly well with full time soldiers. To have been out to Afghanistan, come back and be told "sorry chaps, you are not getting paid" is a right kick in the teeth.

Ah, both sound stupid. I do remember that Gurkha thing being in the news.

Well the governments performed a massive U-turn again and dropped all plans for cuts in the TA