Ever since man discovered he had a penchant for war, there has been rivalry between the services. This is all to do with pride and tribalism and, generally speaking, it's a good thing. However, when a
leaked e-mail from an army officer describes the RAF as "utterly, utterly useless", you get the distinct impression that this is far beyond good-natured teasing. You have visions of him lying in a ditch
desperately calling for air support and hearing nothing over the radio but the sound of a Harrier's starter motor whirring uselessly.
The problem, of course, has nothing to do with the people who fly or service the planes and everything to do with those grinning buffoons in Westminster who've spent the past five years unable to see what's going
on due to the fact they're all deep inside George Bush's bottom. You read about billions being shaved from the budget and squadrons being merged to cut costs and, frankly, it doesn't mean anything at all. Not
when you've just been startled out of your skin by a Tornado that has flown between your chimney pots at 4 million knots. However, I've done a bit of checking and it seems the RAF can field five strike attack squadrons that must share 60 Tornados. Then there are the offensive squadrons, which have 26 Harriers and some Jaguars, which may as well be Sopwith Camels. And that's it. In total, with the air
defence Tornados, they have just 150 aeroplanes that can actually do fighting. The Luftwaffe has more than twice that. So do the cheese-eating surrender monkeys. In an air war we'd struggle to beat the Bubbles. Of course 150 fighting planes is fine when all we have to worry about are a handful of mad Irishmen, but since Mr Blair realised that his retirement fund relied on being popular in the land of the brave, we're now fighting what seems like half the world. It is an extraordinary scandal and what makes it just so shiversomely hideous is that Blair and Brown and all the other useless fools who preside over our wellbeing know full well they can get away with it. Strip the NHS of funds and pretty soon you'll have a bunch of nurses on television sobbing. Decimate the fire brigade and immediately the streets will be full of men in donkey jackets, standing round braziers. But the forces? You can squeeze their gonads until their eyes pop out and still they won't moan. When asked recently if the British Army could cope, its new top man General Sir Richard Dannatt replied: "Just". He can't come out and say: "Are you joking?" Because this is not the army way. Even though he's waging war on two fronts using US helicopters that shoot themselves down and Sea Kings that have a top speed of four knots if it gets hotter than 57C - which it does in Iraq, a lot - he still has to stiffen his upper lip and tell the world that everything is tickety boo.
It's not just the top brass, either. Back at home, quietly, soldiers may tell their loved ones that things are pretty bleak. But have you ever heard one say so publicly? Were they at the Trades Union Congress in their apple-green short-sleeved nylon shirts banging on the tables demanding more money and better equipment? No they weren't. They were out there, far from the television cameras, in a Sh*t-awful part of
Afghanistan fighting with pointed sticks. I do hope Blair can sleep easily at night knowing that the blood of a thousand British soldiers and airmen is paying for his lecture tour pension fund. And I hope, too, he realises that if the RAF really is "utterly, utterly useless", it's all his fault.
leaked e-mail from an army officer describes the RAF as "utterly, utterly useless", you get the distinct impression that this is far beyond good-natured teasing. You have visions of him lying in a ditch
desperately calling for air support and hearing nothing over the radio but the sound of a Harrier's starter motor whirring uselessly.
The problem, of course, has nothing to do with the people who fly or service the planes and everything to do with those grinning buffoons in Westminster who've spent the past five years unable to see what's going
on due to the fact they're all deep inside George Bush's bottom. You read about billions being shaved from the budget and squadrons being merged to cut costs and, frankly, it doesn't mean anything at all. Not
when you've just been startled out of your skin by a Tornado that has flown between your chimney pots at 4 million knots. However, I've done a bit of checking and it seems the RAF can field five strike attack squadrons that must share 60 Tornados. Then there are the offensive squadrons, which have 26 Harriers and some Jaguars, which may as well be Sopwith Camels. And that's it. In total, with the air
defence Tornados, they have just 150 aeroplanes that can actually do fighting. The Luftwaffe has more than twice that. So do the cheese-eating surrender monkeys. In an air war we'd struggle to beat the Bubbles. Of course 150 fighting planes is fine when all we have to worry about are a handful of mad Irishmen, but since Mr Blair realised that his retirement fund relied on being popular in the land of the brave, we're now fighting what seems like half the world. It is an extraordinary scandal and what makes it just so shiversomely hideous is that Blair and Brown and all the other useless fools who preside over our wellbeing know full well they can get away with it. Strip the NHS of funds and pretty soon you'll have a bunch of nurses on television sobbing. Decimate the fire brigade and immediately the streets will be full of men in donkey jackets, standing round braziers. But the forces? You can squeeze their gonads until their eyes pop out and still they won't moan. When asked recently if the British Army could cope, its new top man General Sir Richard Dannatt replied: "Just". He can't come out and say: "Are you joking?" Because this is not the army way. Even though he's waging war on two fronts using US helicopters that shoot themselves down and Sea Kings that have a top speed of four knots if it gets hotter than 57C - which it does in Iraq, a lot - he still has to stiffen his upper lip and tell the world that everything is tickety boo.
It's not just the top brass, either. Back at home, quietly, soldiers may tell their loved ones that things are pretty bleak. But have you ever heard one say so publicly? Were they at the Trades Union Congress in their apple-green short-sleeved nylon shirts banging on the tables demanding more money and better equipment? No they weren't. They were out there, far from the television cameras, in a Sh*t-awful part of
Afghanistan fighting with pointed sticks. I do hope Blair can sleep easily at night knowing that the blood of a thousand British soldiers and airmen is paying for his lecture tour pension fund. And I hope, too, he realises that if the RAF really is "utterly, utterly useless", it's all his fault.
