Yep, I agree with all of that.  I think we should be throwing money at defensive equipment, such as armoured troop carriers and body armour.  Whatever's required really.  The state has a duty of care to these people ... to the extent of providing them proper safety equipment anyway.

What I meant was that their job spec is not just defence of the realm.  If that was really under threat then we'd have universal conscription like in WW2.  The existence of the armed forces is the deterrent but that's mostly it these days thank goodness.  The fact that some of the armed forces are killed in war zones is pretty much inevitable.  If the people who sign up can't accept that then they shouldn't sign up.

Daniel, I agree with you that when young men sign up to become soldiers they have a duty and responsibility to fulfil their role.  The older men make a career out of it but some of the 18yr old boys sign up because there really isn't anything else for them to do, career-wise.  I am not doubting that most of them want the adrenalin rush of danger that comes with being a soldier.  But the reality may be quite a different story for some. 

You are very knowledgeable about the UN and the different agreements.  I admit I am not.  All I know is that it was a joint decision to go into Afghanistan and that Britain could have abstained.  The reasons for going in are obscure, bearing in mind the involvement of Britain in Afghanistan in the past and the subsequent results.  So many countries have tried to tame Afghanistan in the past and it is an impossible task.  The Afghan people are tribal people, having their own chosen tribal warlords.  That makes the task the impossibility I mention. 

Would the streets of Britain not be safer had Iraq and Afghanistan been left to settle their own affairs?

The powers that be suggest that Afghanistan was a huge problem before they invaded. Their intelligence suggests that a great deal of terrorism was exported from within.
Iraq  was a different scenario. For reasons  best known to them, allied forces invaded a comparatively well functioning secular state, and set it back by decades.

I reluctantly agree with that as well. My son signed up 10 years ago. We argued about it and he said there'll never be another war. Now that it's come to it, he seems to rejoice in going off to Iraq and, shortly, to Afghanistan, doing 'his' job. I've had short shrift when I asked him what I was supposed to do if he died. The answer, just be proud of your son. I've had the same attitude from his mates, although they all feel that they should be better equipped.

I'm not that knowledgeable.  UN resolutions are available in google and there's been lots of stuff recently about why our armed forces are there so I read the relevant ones.  The thing is, Afghanistan is and was an entirely legal war.  I very much doubt the second Iraq war was legal at all.  The Falklands was, obviously.  Whether the armed forces can leave Afghanistan with some sort of victory is a moot point.  I sort of agree with the reasons for going in after 2001.  I'm not at all sure we can nation-build out there though.  I very much disgreed with going into Iraq.  I remember at the time though that plenty of people on the forums were arguing that we had a moral duty to force a regime change because Saddam Hussein was evil.

Well, quite.  For the infantry in particular.  The irony is that probably a fair few of the army personnel would be thugs on the streets of the UK, much moaned at by the same people who proclaim that all soldiers are brave heroes, if the army hadn't given them an opportunity and built up their self-respect.  That's a double-edged sword as I think working class teenagers from deprived areas are conditioned and exploited by the military.  And then when they come out, a fair few of them can't hack civvy street or deal with the PTSD and turn to drugs, alcohol, or crime and end up on the streets.  About 1 in 10 of the prison population are ex-military when the regular military form about 1 in 300 of the general population.  Society lets them down afterwards, I think.  Well, some of them.  Others I imagine are basically brutalised by their experiences.

I think most people knew that Afghanistan was always going to be a huge challenge, because of the Russian withdrawal and the past history where so many nations tried to moderate that country.  I really believe that Afghanistan is ungovernable because of the tribal culture deeply ingrained in the national character.  All my information really comes from one book - The Kite Runner - written by a born and bred Afghan who emigrated to America.  He explains the culture and the difficulties within the country, whilst still managing to write a poignant story about two small boys who fly kites.  It is more of a history book tbh. 

Iraq is oil-rich, it was worth the taking crossy.  Hence the war.  The Iraqi people are also tribally religious and most of their internal strife (even under SH) was always religious.  Democracy will never stamp that out.  Most of these countries do not want democracy, they want to be left alone to sort their own affairs out.

Daniel, your second post I entirely agree with.  I can't post two quotes (don't know how).  The Army takes a young lad and moulds his body and his mind.  He learns discipline.  If his RSM tells him a black crow is white, he will eventually believe that.  It is a form of brain washing.  But that is also a necessary ingredient in war because indiscipline can lose wars.  When a young man leaves the Army, he is separated from the discipline.  He has to think for himself again.  I'm not surprised with what you say about the prison population comprising ex-military. 

With regard to Afghanistan, again, my knowledge is flimsy about why it was necessary to go in there.  I know there were/are supposed training camps for Al Quaida and the Taliban and that the supposed instigator of 9/11 was hiding in the mountains there.  I also know about the drug trade and the growing and cultivation of drugs in that country.  But why did that warrant Britain getting involved?

Daniel, I agree with a lot of your post but I am wondering where you got these statistics from?

Sorry - I went out for the evening



I think it is in the public domain because the mistakes within it hurt the mother terribly. Had it been checked before it went out the mother would not have been so upset and the Sun would not have been involved.

I felt sorry for him he made an error I can undertand her being upset, I dont think the publicity it caused was very fair to him IMO

Do you not think that the very fact that it hadn't gone through tiers of red tape ensuring that every t had been crossed and every i dotted makes it that more personal. Surely to God it was a heartfelt response that GB had taken time out to write - not as in previous years a stock standard, computerised response.

I am quite sure the mother is distraught at the death of her son (any mother would be) but .......in all honesty I think a very personal response such as this should be welcomed. The PM wrote it by hand .........his eyesight is poor (as is his handwriting) - he is very poor sighted and not a Literary Graduate - maths and economics is his game. I think the mother is misguided in attacking him for spelling issues ..................the sentiment was there regardless of the spelling mistakes - it was a handwritten response FGS!

I know I'm alone on this sooz - we've had a long discussion about it in the pub tonight and no one agrees with me ... I just think that it is wrong that one of our most senior ministers can write something that is so wrong and no one checks it - he must have a personal PA or someone that deals with his private correspondence.
I'm not attacking the man personally - I just think it is wrong that he has been laid open to such critism and ridicule when something as simple as a bit of proofreading would have avoided it all.

TBH Rexi, I don't think any of those bozos around him knew the boy's name was Janes and not James. As for the rest of his letter, it was private and, let's be honest here, from somebody who is well aquainted with loss of a child. That might have been considered before jumping on him.

Gordon Brown does seem to have some rather bad advisors.  You only have to look at his Youtube clip earlier this year.


However I do think that Mrs Janes has been exploited by the media for a whole load of Brown bashing.

I think that is my point though Cologne ... they SHOULD have known the boy's name, they really should. And, though I wasn't going to bring it up, he should have known how important letters after a bereavement are.

And, so should his staff, and it should have been checked.
Honestly, I'm not knocking him - I just think it is bad that his clerical system let him down.

Rexi, he sits in a room with six or seven others, unless they are all poor spellers like me and the PM there is no excuse, or they were all busy digging up dirt on someone on their next hit list.

If I had to write to anyone I would check my written letter a hundred times and in most cases have someone else check my letter,It's not as if (thank god) he had to write hundreds of these letters. It is the lack of care that has got to this grieving mother, the fact that she has lost her son and as far as she can see it to lack of support and equipment for the troops and then his name is not even being written or pronounced correctly. I can see how this well intended letter has fueled her anger.

My point exactly BD - if the letter had been written correctly, no doubt she would have cherished it forever - so sad that through lack of a bit of proofreading it has all come to this.

I agree - it was a personal heartfelt response IMO .........if it had gone through umpteen levels to be checked and edited it wouldn't be quite the same would it? It's not something that is mandatory and I'm sure it would have been far easier to pass it on to someone to send out a standard computerised/automated response.The fact that it was a personal letter is what I find so disturbing about the whole thing.I'm in no doubt that the lady in question is hurting so badly at the loss of her son that she just wants to kick out at anyone ...................the Sun involvement and subsequent taping of phone calls etc is despicable IMO. They are exploiting one womans grief in order to make a heartfelt gesture look bad. Regardless of the spelling - how could a personal response like that be turned around to make GB look like a bad guy? It beggars belief IMO.

I too would question both the legality and morality of the taping of the phone call.


My point is that if someone had checked his letter, especially knowing about his poor eyesight and spelling, the poor woman would never have got to that stage.

He called him Jamie James at PM question time on Wednesday last week. I think the reporters at The Scum listened to that and alerted Jamie's mother to it. Then the letter comes and looks a bit shambolic and so it goes on. On this occasion, I feel sorry for him.

I think it's an assumption that it was part of his official duty and therefore there were people around (secretaries/PA's) etc. available to correct his mistakes. He is a very busy man - maybe (maybe I'm naive) he did it in his own 'off duty' time and it was a truly personal response.


He has his faults I know but he is fundamentally a 'good guy' IMO................I'm sure he felt a personal response was better than a stock/standard response.

Most of the supposed "mistakes" that the mother chose to find fault in are, by most standards, incredibly trivial. Many of them are almost certainly not mistakes at all, but the result of Brown's poor handwriting.
Of the others, the majority involve nothing more than Brown failing to dot his "i"s - a mistake which Mrs Janes claims to find offensive and disrespectful...

Personally - i'd rather receive a handwritten letter than a word processed/spell checked/sanitised piece of paper. Surely it's the sentiment behind it - I feel for any mother that has lost a child but - what satisfaction is she getting from this political football?

I can't believe I'm defending GB, but alas, I am. The man appears to work for 20 hrs every day and he has written a personal letter in response to every death in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nobody else has complained about it. This is a concerted effort by the newly converted Scum and I think they've shot themselves in the foot on this occasion. Take him up on his policies by all means, but let's get a bit of perspective please.

How many of us, at a time of bereavement, have struggled to say the appropriate thing?
Not sure what to say or how to say it. When we do say something we may feel it was not quite right and will be of little help.
Many of us feel inadequate when we offer condolence. When we receive it we are grateful that someone has tried to be comforting.
It rarely feels right, but we are comforted that the person has tried to help.
Apparently not on this occasion.
A written spelling mistake would not bother me.
If spoken, a wrong word would not bother me.
What would bother me more, is if the other person had not even tried.

Absoloutely ...............what are the right words? And do they have to be spelt correctly?

Like most of my statistics, I make them up. 

Actually, I think you're the first person to ever ask me to justify them!  I'm always surprised that more people don't.  The number of regular forces in the UK is about 192K (source Wikipedia) and the population of the UK is about 61M so that's the 1 in 300.  The 1 in 10 in prison figure was from memory and is a rough figure. However, I think it came from NAPO, the probation officers thingy, reported in the Times a month or so ago.  There's about 8500 veterans in prison and the prison population is between 82K-96K I think.  Hence my 1 in 10.  It's a similar proportion in the USA, I think.  The figures might be a bit hazy as Scotland is often treated separately in criminal justice figures as it has its own legal system, separate from England and Wales.

If only she had said at the start: "This call may be recorded for, ahem,  quality and training purposes" then she'd have been all okay. 

I've found a link:

http://www.napo.org.uk/about/veteransincjs.cfm"

"A survey conducted by Napo during the summer of 2009 found that 12,000 former armed service personnel were under the supervision of the Probation Service in England and Wales on either community sentences or on parole.

Research published by Napo last year found that 8,500 former veterans were in custody at any one time in the UK, following conviction of a criminal offence.

There are therefore twice as many veterans in the criminal justice system than are currently serving in military operations in Afghanistan. Indeed the total number of men and women in active service in all locations on 31-05-09 was 13,400 (not including Iraq)."

and from the report's conclusion:

"The current and previous briefings produced by Napo suggest there are at least as 20,000 former Services personnel, either in jail, on parole or on community supervision. This is twice as many as on active service in Afghanistan. Indeed the numbers in the entire criminal justice system exceed all soldiers on active service by some 6,000."

All credibility from the mother has gone now that that scum rag is involved,also taping a personal call is not on.

Is anyone watching the Remembrance service on BBC?  Aww, the camera keeps focusing on Gordon Brown as he's nearly falling asleep.

I was just interested, and I never thought for a second that you made them up.,

The last thing I would do if I'd lost a loved one, would worry about spelling mistakes.

From the Sun (allegedly) via Popbitch.  Dunno if it's a fake, I can't navigate (or care enough to learn) the Sun site to find this section.

Looks like they spelled her name wrong in that little clipping of yours, Leccy...

I've been reading this thread as it's been going on and watching all the coverage on the tele. Kinda in the middle with it. I can understand the mother's anger, her son died due to lack of equipment, but while this seems to be the root cause of her anger, the poor grammar letter is being used as a scapegoat to get more media coverage.

I feel sorry for GB in this case. Yes he should have ensured he got the name correct, but to be pedantic enough to whinge about dotting i's and spelling on a guy who is partially sighted is bloody ridiculous. He didn't have to personally write the letters, but he took the time to do it.

I dont agree with the taping of the phone call, and I think this is where she has let herself down badly. He could have not bothered at all with any of this, and just got his aides to send a standard letter (albeit with correct grammar and names)  but thanks to the Sun on a witchhunt he has been dragged through the mill. Seems he cant do right for doing wrong with it all.

I do feel for the mother and I cant imagine anything worse than having to bury your own child, least of all if the death could have been prevented, but she's used to worst medium possible to get her point across.

I see someone on the paper's website accused Mr Brown of lack of empathy, which I think is very unfair.  Have they forgotten that he lost his beloved daughter a few years ago?  He does know how it feels to bury a child.

Had a million and one reasons to detest that rag....now I have a million and two!