I spotted this via St Crispin's Day blog. £5 million pounds of cuts over the next two years.
Let us just put this into perspective. The TA are busier and more heavily committed than at any point in the last 40 years. They have provided front line and support troops to all of the major conflicts and have done so against the backdrop of an unsupportive government and an, at best, apathetic employment market.
The TA are soldiers on the cheap, they don't need accommodation, they don't need feeding 365 days a year, they don't get the same medical and dental support, they don't get paid while they are on leave and they don't get military pensions. Yet they are being put into the same situations as their regular counterparts with only a fraction of the training.
The regular army is stretched to breaking point and the TA have provided the support that has prevented the whole system falling apart. Despite this the government is seriously considering cutting the funding to one of the most financially efficient parts of the armed forces.
Every time that I think that this Labour cannot show any more contempt for our armed forces they pull another stunt like this.
17 June, 2007
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3 comments:
Isn't the TA suffering a serious recruitment problem because as soon as people sign up they get sent to Iraq?
Apparently they are also sending people on such long tours that civilian careers are being ruined.
I can remember when early in the Labour government, their MPs were muttering that the TA was "just a Tory drinking club". How they need them now, but don't appreciate them.
Perdix, I suspect that what you say is still true, and Labour lok badly on both the TA & the Regulars for 1. being a tory drinking club, ans 2. being the arm of government that created that most eveil of things the British Empire! Thirdly, they don't like the fact that the Army is still class based, in that it has an officer class, and an NCO class. This system is the ONLY way a military can work, and they hate it & want to dismantle it. Sadly they were assisted by that idiot who took over from Thatcher when he removed seperate honours & medals that NCO's & Officers had got previously!
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