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Category: Forces personnel news
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From Gordon Brown's speech to the Labour Conference:
... and let me talk today about how we will do more to support the great British institutions that best define this country.
The first is the one I spoke about in detail on Sunday when I talked about the mission of our brave men and women in Afghanistan.
The heroism of our fighting men and women is unsurpassed and we owe them a debt we can never fully repay. And let us on behalf of the British people pay tribute to them and their courage today.
The British armed forces truly are the finest in the world. And let us say to them – all British forces will always have all the equipment they need and the best support we can give.
And conference let me say, Britain will work with President Obama and 40 other countries for peace and stability for the people of Afghanistan, and to make sure that terrorism doesn’t come to the streets of Britain.
From Harriet Harman's speech to the Labour Conference:
The lives of women today - and their hopes and ambitions are different from our mothers’. And that is the case
whether you are a girl school leaver in Scotland
or a young mother in Wales
whether you are one of the thousands of wives of our armed forces.
The wives of our servicemen have always held things together at home. And their task has become even more demanding with the men away fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Just like every other woman, service wives want to, and need to, get training, get work, find childcare. But that’s hard if your family has to move regularly and if you are on a base miles away from your parents and in-laws. That’s why Bob Ainsworth, the Secretary of State for Defence, and I are working with ministers across government to make sure that as well as doing all we can to support our armed forces, We are helping our armed forces wives’ so they don’t lose out on new opportunities to get on in their work. Our navy, airforce and soldiers make a great sacrifice for our country and we back them up. Their wives, too, make an enormous personal sacrifice for this country and we will back them up too.
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Category: Forces personnel news
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Iraq Inquiry: operational equipment.
British forces went into Iraq without enough body armour because planning for the war took place “at the last minute”, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup told the inquiry into the conflict.
By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent, The Daily Telegraph
Published: 12:35PM GMT 01 Feb 2010
Sir Jock, the head of the Armed Forces, also told the Chilcot inquiry that military aircraft programmes were not properly funded in the run-up to the war.
He was in charge of defence equipment in 2002 and 2003. He told the inquiry that several mistakes were made in the years and months before the war.
Sir Jock admitted that some troops sent into Iraq did not have the proper desert combat clothing and boots, because supplies did not reach the right units.
He also said that some troops did not get the body armour they should have had.
“The other area where we could have done better is Enhanced Combat Body Armour. We didn’t have enough of that in theatre at the time," he said.
“It was all being done so rapidly at the last minute so no one knew who had what.”
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Category: Forces personnel news
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from Martin Givens, More guile needed in the Afghan game, Sunday Times 24 January 2010:
No visitor to the British army base in Lashkar Gah, Helmand, could fail to be moved by the quiet sense of purpose of the officers and the cheery idealism of the men and women — hard to appreciate back home when the news is a daily diet of explosions and death. Soldiers spoke of the villages they had helped, the wells dug, the bridges built. Winning hearts and minds on their lips sounds less a tired old slogan, more a vocation.
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Category: Forces personnel news
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Almost the entire contingent of Britain’s 10,000 troops in Afghanistan have been told they could be sacked within months. BAFF Chairman Douglas Young writes about the issue on the Telegraph.co.uk website:
Of course the threat of redundancy will affect morale on the front line. How could it not?
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Category: Forces personnel news
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UPDATE: The Westminster Hall debate on "Participation of Scottish armed forces personnel in a referendum on Scottish independence" , which was due to be held on Wednesday, 25 January, did not take place as the proposer of the debate was not present. This can often indicate that the Government has managed to persuade the proposer that, for one reason or another, the debate would not be timely.
The cancelled debate and BAFF's stance on the issue is mentioned at:
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Category: Forces personnel news
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From a Liberal Democrat press release:
MP LEADS CALL FOR A FAIR DEAL FOR OUR FORCES
12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 22nd Sep 2009
Hampshire MP, Sandra Gidley, has led Liberal Democrat calls for a fair deal for the men and women of Britain's armed forces at the party's conference in Bournemouth.
Sandra, whose father served in the army, and whose constituency is home to the School of Army Flying, urged delegates to the Liberal Democrat conference to back a motion for better housing for our soldiers, and better access to education for their children.
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Category: Forces personnel news
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Today (21 September) the Liberal Democrat Conference 2009 at Bournemouth will be debating a policy motion about reaffirming the military covenant. The motion will be moved by Liberal Democrat Shadow Defence Secretary Nick Harvey MP.
- Text of the motion: Reaffirming the Military Covenant
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Category: Forces personnel news
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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.
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Category: Forces personnel news
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A Conservative Shadow Minister asked the Government if it will review the prohibition on insulin-dependent diabetics joining the armed forces. The Minister's reply indicated that there were no plans to review the policy whereby the services do not recruit or commission personnel with existing medical conditions which require regular access to medication, such as diabetes. The single services do, however manage individuals who develop diabetes during their service careers "according to their specific operational requirements" and "each case will be considered on an individual basis":
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Category: Forces personnel news
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There may well be questions to be considered in light of the ruling which was issued by the Appeal Court on 18 May 2009: for example, to what extent there are implications for decisions about the equipping and management of bases, or whether in fact the ruling does not alter the existing military requirement to consider force protection.
BAFF Executive Chairman Douglas Young was concerned that rather than the ruling itself, it was "ill-informed" criticism of the ruling which could lead to "dangerous confusion" amongst junior commanders required to make split-second decisions.