BBC News reports (12 Nov 2010) that Downing Street has rejected calls to protect the armed forces from cuts to public sector pensions:

The Cabinet Office today issued the list of proposed reforms to the Government's Public Bodies, or quangos. The following MoD-sponsored bodies listed below are all slated for retention. BAFF particularly welcomes the retention of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body (AFPRB).

The Daily Telegraph reports that State funding for the children of Armed Forces personnel to attend independent schools is at risk from last-minute cuts in the defence budget. While CEA is a major expenditure item about which there is inevitably a range of views amongst our serving members and supporters, the Telegraph story is a welcome corrective to some recent media reporting of CEA as no more than a "lavish perk" of "pampered military chiefs".

Labour Party leader Ed Miliband has appointed the new Shadow defence team. Shadow Secretary of State Jim Murphy will be supported by former Defence Minister Kevan Jones, along with Russell Brown, Michael Dugher and Gemma Doyle.

This is a transcript of the 'essay' by an anonymous serving officer which was read by an actor on The World This Weekend on Sunday 10 Oct 2010:

An article by the BAFF Chairman appears in the Defence section of the Sep-Oct 2010 edition of Government Gazette magazine, which was available at the recent party conferences. The full article can be downloaded below.

BBC News Defence Correspondent Caroline Wyatt says that amphibious forces have played a major role in British military operations for centuries. Now there are fears the Royal Navy could lose much of that capability, as the National Security Council meets to review the country's defence strategy.

Wyatt visited assault ship HMS Albion returning from an exercise in Scotland with young Royal Marine commandos aboard. She also interviewed the Commandant General of the Royal Marines and Commander Amphibious Forces, Maj Gen Buster Howes, as 40 Commando RM returned to the UK from Afghanistan on Wednesday.

Thousands of troops should be forced into the reserves and hundreds of weapons mothballed for Britain to make defence savings, according to a think tank study by a professor of defence engineering. The Daily Telegraph reports that:

The House of Commons Library has produced a useful note on recent developments affecting inquests and fatal accident inquiries (Scotland) into the deaths of service personnel.

The Goverment has announced that families of servicemen and women killed on active duty will benefit from publicly-funded higher education scholarships.The new scheme will apply to the children of servicemen and women killed on active military service since 1990, giving them the chance to take up university scholarships. The Government also announced the continuation and expansion of a scheme to pay tuition fees for Service leavers undertaking level 3 further education or undergraduate higher education courses for the first time, funded by the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills and the Ministry of Defence. These announcements implement two of the commitments given in the Conservative - Liberal Democrat Coalition Agreement.

BBC News reports that new measures to help soldiers who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan deal with the symptoms of post-traumatic stress are due to be unveiled at the Conservative Party conference:

As Republican senators rejected attempts to reverse the so-called "don't ask, don't tell" policy which prohibits openly gay personnel in the US armed forces, a decade after similar rules were abolished in the UK the head of the British Army's diversity unit confirmed it had been consulted by its military counterparts across the Atlantic.

As part of budget cuts the entire Ministry of Defence is to be dismantled and replaced by four soldiers of fortune sent to prison for a crime they didn't commit.

The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), The Royal British Legion and Combat Stress have launched guidance to support GPs in identifying and meeting the healthcare needs of veterans more effectively - including accessing the priority treatment to which all veterans are entitled for Service-related conditions.

From one of our earlier articles about Manning Control, a policy used by the British Army to dismiss soldiers who are considered to be "not fit for a full army career":

A Polish pilot who led his squadron into battle from RAF Northolt has been reunited at the airbase with the same Spitfire he flew 67 years ago.

Footnote: BAFF highly values its friendly links with today's Polish Armed Forces personnel through Konwent, the Council of Senior Officers of the Polish Professional Soldiers.

After she died alone with apparently no-one to pay for her funeral, it has emerged that SOE heroine Eileen Nearne MBE had struggled with money because her war pension was stopped by the Government.

Following recent confirmation that an independent review will be conducted into the 1994 crash of RAF Chinook ZD576 on the Mull of Kintyre, the names of the members of the review have now been announced.

Author Patrick Bishop, writing in The Daily Telegraph, argues that apart from the debate about equipment, the defence review is about people – the remarkable men and women who make up the three Services, with whom the public has a warm but ambivalent relationship.

The BAFF Chairman was invited to the unveiling today of a bronze statue of Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park, Commander of No 11 Group, Fighter Command, which was responsible for the protection of London and the South East of England during the Battle of Britain. The statue in Waterloo Place, London has been presented by the Sir Keith Park Memorial Campaign, following on from the temporary display of a statue of the same design on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square for six months from 4 November 2009, and marks the culmination of a campaign set in motion three years ago, on Battle of Britain Day 2007. It has been said of Sir Keith Park that "If any one man won the Battle of Britain, he did."

16 Sep 2010 - 100 days to go to Christmas Day! The Ministry of Defence is urging people not to send unsolicited gifts and packages in the pre-Christmas period, becauses it increases pressure on the in-theatre postal system and can delay mail from family and friends.