
It was the same show to which The Daily Telegraph print edition devoted a full page , complete with three photographs and a headline to a commentary piece which reads: "Repellent, crass and trivial: now this show has even become significant."
However, if you want something "repellent, crass and trivial", all you need to do is turn to page 18 of the print edition of the newspaper.

For sure, the fiction was actually originated by the MoD itself which, in its own press release claimed that "four troops were strapped to the small side 'wings' of two Apaches, two to each helicopter." Interestingly, the MoD held the account off its website until the media had been able to chew it over.

The procedures has been carried out before, in the heat of action, at least twice, in April 2002 in Afghanistan and again, in Iraq, November 2004, the latter report complete with a photograph of how it was done (above left).

Wearily we find ourselves again repeating that, if you cannot trust the media on the small details, how can you trust them on anything. There is no magic filter that allows small-scale error but somehow ensures that other issues are treated with scrupulous accuracy. Accuracy and attention to detail is as much an attitude - a frame of mind.
More importantly, though, the space given to the graphic and the accompanying story (which was not found in the online edition), completely missed the point, the one which we so obviously asked in our own piece - why were there no proper troop-carrying assault helicopters to convey troops in what was a pre-planned attack?

To give it its due, for once, that issue has been picked up with a vengeance by the unofficial Army forum, which has been hosting a serious debate about the use of lightweight "cheap and cheerful" organic helicopter support, based on the MD500 series (pictured above).

That British forces are being deprived of this fundamental tool is nothing short of a scandal yet the media cannot bring itself to discuss the issue in anything that even approaches an adult manner. Either it is gossiping about the "repellent, crass and trivial" or it is falling, uncritically, for the MoD "Boy's Own" spin and ignoring the substantive issues.
As for the Conservative Party... where art thou Gerald?
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