The hand of the censor

To my certain knowledge, whenever an RAF aircraft crashes, it is news, even if the crash is an accident. And, under normal conditions, the BBC agrees, giving the accidental crash of the Tornado in Afghanistan in July full coverage. Even training accidents in the UK are fully reported.

But, having just watched the BBC main evening TV news, with lengthy coverage of Afghanistan, one could not help notice a rather striking omission – there was absolutely no mention of the downed Chinook. A British helicopter gets shot down by the Taleban and this is not news?

The incident was covered briefly by the BBC website when the story broke early this morning – before it was known that the helicopter had been shot down. There has been no update and the link to the original story is now dead. The lead story on the website is "Afghan poll hailed a success".

No one is going to convince me that this is accidental. A clue as to what is going on comes from The Guardian which reports that the Afghan government had ordered a "clampdown" on reporting poll violence.

It also cites a BBC spokesman saying that it would proceed with its plans for covering the presidential election. "We have a duty to our audiences to report on the situation in Afghanistan fairly and accurately, and we will continue to do so," says the spokesman.

Indeed the BBC does have that "duty", but with the hand of the censor so rampantly obvious, it is very clear that the term as interpreted by the BBC is highly elastic. This is not healthy.

COMMENT THREAD

Mea culpa

Inevitably, with my focus on Afghanistan, other issues are falling by the wayside. I wish there was a way round this, but there are only so many hours in the day and, for some time, I have found it difficult to do even this one subject justice.

However, my co-editor is covering some of the issues on her blog and you would certainly enjoy the last four posts on Watts up with that.

A Very British Dude has a pop at yours truly on his blog – it is a point of view and he is entitled to it. Apparently, I am "obnoxious on a heroic scale". It takes years of practice to be that good and it is encouraging to see my skill finally being recognised. You might enjoy the exchanges on the comments section.

Old Righty is doing some interesting work, but he isn't the only one. The lesser-known blogs often provide more value than the "big names", not least this one and this.

A thought occurs that, if any of our readers want to send me stories for publication, I could act in the manner of an editor and place them, with due acknowledgement. It is worth a try, I thought.

COMMENT THREAD

Chinook shot down

The four-strong crew were picked up, unhurt, by another Chinook immediately after the incident, north of Sangin, but the machine had to be destroyed by an air strike "to prevent it falling into Taleban hands."

UPDATE: It is now confirmed by the MoD that the aircraft was shot down - a combination of "RPG and small-arms fire". More on Defence of the Realm.

COMMENT THREAD

The last throw of the dice?

In March 2007, soldier turned journalist Anthony Loyd thought the war in Afghanistan was "winnable". The tide was turning against the Taleban, he wrote.

That was from a man who was "there" and we all accord great respect to those knowing figures who have "been there", as able to divine from their very presence all there is to know about the region they happen to visit.

Well, Anthony Loyd is back "there", in Sangin actually, where on the eve of the presidential election he is reporting the official view that: "Helmand locals too scared of Taleban to vote in presidential election".

There was little to show yesterday, he writes, for the copious expenditure of British money, bullets and blood over the past three years in Sangin. With less than 24 hours to go before the start of voting in Afghanistan's presidential election today the streets were all but empty and the bazaar was, in effect, closed.

Driving through the middle of town with a combined patrol from 3 Company, Welsh Guards, and the Afghan National Army, he saw only two small children and a man on a motorbike. The centre of Sangin resembled an abandoned film set, with even the nearby ferry, usually a lifeline for locals wishing to cross the Helmand river, beached on the shore, the banks abandoned.

The Taleban, who have launched a concerted campaign of intimidation to close Sangin to anyone wishing to vote, fired a handful of mortar rounds into the town soon after midday as a reminder of their presence. The lazy, jackhammer thumping of an Apache helicopter’s 30mm cannon drifted over the day's singing heat in response. For British troops in Sangin's Forward Operating Base Jackson, the day's events ended with an incoming 107mm rocket and the returning clatter of heavy machinegun fire.

The piece is worth reading in its entirety, so we won't repeat it here. But it should be noted that Loyd acknowledges there has been progress. Soldiers no longer have to fight their way out of the gates, he writes. But they die in greater numbers as a result of bombs placed at the edge of Sangin, he adds.

And, one might add, their supply helicopter got shot down so, in addition to the hurried visits by Chinooks, they have also been supplied by a heavily armed convoy. The picture shows the photographic debut of the Panther in Afghanistan, this one driving through Sangin at the head of a section of that convoy.

From the limited view of the backdrop, this does not immediately strike one as a bustling, peaceful metropolis. It rather fits Loyd's description of the town, even if the photograph was taken some days earlier.

Nor, indeed, are the problems confined to Sangin. At the centre of British power, in Lashkar Gah, according to The Independent, the Taleban are blockading the city, threatening potential voters and mining the roads.

Says the paper, the Helmand provincial governor, Gulal Mangal, hoped 75 percent of the province's 800,000 people would vote. But privately, his staff were more realistic. "We'll be lucky if we get 200,000," said a senior official.

In Kajaki, where British troops are helping on a project which will provide electricity, the Taliban has set up a radio station which broadcasts repeated warnings against voting. In Zabul insurgent commanders have commandeered mosques to threaten dire consequences for the election process.

The coalition and the British government have invested a great deal of political and financial capital in these elections, and the process of preparation has cost us a great deal of blood. It is a big gamble, writes Robert Fox in The Guardian.

Of course, we are not "there", so how can we know anything? But we would be willing to gamble that this could be the last throw of the dice. The interesting thing is that, if such a decision is made, it will be made in London, not Kabul or Sangin. And we were "there" once. I can even tell you that the fire extinguishers in No 10 Downing Street did not conform with EU regulations.

COMMENT THREAD

A short rant ...

... about the egregious Douglas Hogg, Sir Patrick Cormack and fat-cat salaries over on Your Freedom and Ours. Enjoy.

A conversation

This is what blogging is all about. Ideas bouncing around the internet, being expanded and discussed.

COMMENT THREAD

Order of priorities

"Conflicts like Afghanistan are lost not on the battlefield by dedicated soldiers, but in the arena of domestic public opinion," says Lt-Col Stuart Tootal, adding: "Casualties will understandably reinforce doubt in the minds of many."

"But the last thing our troops want is for the public to start wobbling on them and the Government needs to ensure the public are equally dedicated," he goes on to say. "This will require providing our soldiers with the right resources, a proper strategy and a justification for being in Afghanistan that makes sense to the people of this country."

The interesting thing is, I would have put the requirements in the reverse order: justification, strategy and then resources. Unwittingly, Tootal may be revealing what is really wrong with our campaign in Afghanistan. The tail is wagging the dog. It certainly seems to define the activity to date and if this statement reflects the predominant thinking, then it is no wonder we have problems.

Tootal is absolutely right about the role of domestic public opinion though. The problem is that the military and the political classes having ignored, abused or generally taken it for granted and now it is an uphill task to restore confidence. So much damage has been done that it will take a Herculean effort, and a level of understanding and skill which so far has not been evident.

James Delingpole puts it neatly, offering a welcome contribution to the debate from which us plebs have so long been excluded. As I wrote recently on our own forum:

... what we will not tolerate is being patronised, being treated like half-wits or having our arguments and concerns trivialised or dismissed. The battle in Afghanistan will be lost on the home front, if you do not treat it seriously. Listen to us, and address our concerns or we pull the plug.

That is the number one priority - it's time to change the tee-shirt.

COMMENT THREAD

A smell of corruption

One of the most bizarre episodes most recently carried on this blog was the news of the Mi-26 crash in Sangin last month, not only for the dubious history of the operator, but also for the fact that the MSM did not touch the story.

However, there was a brief flurry of interest when later that month an Mi-8 crashed at Kandahar airbase, killing 18, but there was absolutely nothing written about the operator, Vertikal-T, which also has a very dubious history.

As to the British use of these helicopters, it is assumed, inter alia that these rather dubious operators were employed for their willingness to take risks and, especially, for their cheapness. However, it has also been admitted that the MoD does not deal directly with these operators but hires the helicopters through an intermediate company, Skylink, yet another operator with an extremely dubious history.

But what now emerges from unlikely source is the actual cost of these helicopters. This comes from a private background briefing note being used by MoD press officers for when they talk to the media about helicopters, where it is revealed that the contract "provides 340 hrs at a cost of around £3.9M per month" (figures the defence secretary would never give to Parliament).

More on Defence of the Realm.

Unacceptable attrition

Reflecting precisely a comment on our forum, we have Lt-Col William Pender (rtd) in the letters column of The Daily Telegraph today, making the essential point about the war in Afghanistan: either we fight it properly, or not at all. More specifically, he writes:

The fundamental question, both for the Government and for Nato (if it is to remain a meaningful alliance), is whether defeat of the Taleban and establishment of a stable, long-term democracy in Afghanistan really is a vital interest.

If it is vital, then since national security is the prime duty of any government, whatever it takes in manpower – but primarily willpower – from all Nato member nations, must be allocated to fulfilling this aim. If this means putting economies on a war footing – fine.

If, on the other hand, these aims are merely desirable rather than vital – and with governments led by politicians with no personal military experience, and more concerned with interest rates, credit crunches and unemployment – why, let them say so.

Then the nations that contribute combat troops can resign themselves to long-term attrition of their soldiers committed to an unwinnable war.

For "attrition", read feeding troops into a mincer, sustaining a never-ending toll of casualties for no strategic effect. In such a battle, with our small, expensive Army, we can never win against the unlimited manpower of the Taleban, sustained by a never-ending supply of young men from the North-West frontier. Even at an exchange rate of 1000-1 in our favour, we cannot win.

Iain Dale notes that "politics is upside down" when Sunny Hundal supports the war and EU Referendum says we should withdraw.

For the record, we support the war. But that support is conditional on it being prosecuted effectively, with clear objectives and some prospect of success. None of those conditions currently apply.

In our overnight post, we write of the tragic episodes where three foot patrols in Sangin in the space of just over a month are confronted with the same type of complex IED ambush, each suffering multiple casualties in exactly the same circumstances.

On a smaller scale, the Army response seems to mirror the tactics of the First World War when the Generals, having experienced the carnage of sending troops "over the top" to face the German machine guns – to be slaughtered in their tens of thousands - hit upon the new, "war winning" tactic - of doing exactly the same thing again.

In terms of this war, it is not the machine gun but the IED which is the decisive weapon. And, as in the First World War, we see an Army which is completely unprepared, both physically and intellectually, to deal with the threat.

Faced with the endless attrition arising from sending men out on foot patrol to confront IEDs which have been manufactured and emplaced on an industrial scale, the Army's tactic is simply to do exactly the same thing again, and again and again. We are not alone in being less than impressed with what passes for Army tactics.

The point is, of course, that the Taleban's use of the IED was expected and predicted - back in June 2006, when we arranged through Ann Winterton for the defence minister to be asked what he intended to do about it. The answer was not reassuring.

Only now, three years later, is the outgoing CGS at last taking the threat seriously. In a long interview with ITN yesterday (summarised here) Gen Dannatt "vows" to deliver swift retribution to sneak bombers who attack UK soldiers with deadly booby traps in Afghanistan.

He calls for his troops to be given better "technical" equipment to locate the devices and catch those responsible in the act so they can be eliminated and we are told that the General "has been forced to endure reports of death and injuries inflicted on those under his charge" by IEDs.

"IEDs are a critical issue at the moment. We need more technical equipment to have 24/7 surveillance and the ability to target these people and kill them, if necessary, when they are laying these devices," he says.

The (rhetorical) question is, where was Dannatt three years ago when the threat was being predicted but had not then materialised? Well, as we know, this "honest general" was obsessed with the Future Rapid Effects System (FRES).

Interviewed by RUSI in Summer 2006, he spoke of having "won the argument for the medium-weight equipments," predicting confidently that "we will have them." Even then, with "roadside bombs" ripping the heart out of his army in Iraq, IEDs were never mentioned.

With the Army three years behind the curve, there can be no "swift" retribution. It will take several years to devise the necessary countermeasures, equip and train the troops, deploy the equipment and introduce new tactics. The consequence is that, in the interim, the Army must cede the tactical initiative to the Taleban in order to minimise casualties, or sustain losses which would make continuation of the current campaign unacceptable.

The alternative, as Lt-Col William Pender writes, is to put the UK on a war footing, injecting massive resources into the campaign to overcome the years of neglect. If we had any confidence that this might happen, either under this or the next administration, then our view of the war would be different.

Devoting the necessary resources, however, is as politically unsustainable as bearing the current casualty rate. Brown is not going to do it, and neither is Cameron. For want of that, therefore, we must withdraw. There is no way out, other than to resign ourselves to long-term attrition of our soldiers committed to an unwinnable war.

And that simply is not acceptable.

COMMENT THREAD

Why we are losing

Anthony Loyd in Sangin reports for The Times on the latest fatal attack, which killed three soldiers and injured many more.

More on Defence of the Realm.

Wading in

Yes, I am still here so you can put away all those flags. Not only that but I am wading into the Boss's territory though just like the German Social-Democrats, according to Lenin, I asked permission first.

As it happens I agree with the Boss's opinion that the British troops should now leave Afghanistan as they are not doing anything useful there and are not likely to do so in the future. I reached that conclusion about Iraq before he did, not because I understand anything about toys (I don't) but because it was clear to me that nothing good was coming out or was likely to come out of the British presence there.

Given that the media is manipulating opinion (which is quite malleable) to make the war in Afghanistan (initially quite popular) as unpopular as the one in Iraq was, and given the vacuum that exists at the top of British politics, we all suspect that a speedy withdrawal is a given, just as soon as Mr Brown or Mr Cameron can find a way of saving face.

Therefore, it is time to widen the debate. We live, as far as attitudes towards our armed forces are concerned, in an unusual time. Though we hear of soldiers not being allowed into pubs, bars or clubs (presumably because the local lads do not want to compete for female attention, which tends to concentrate on uniforms) and there are endless letters quoting "oh it's Tommy this, and Tommy that" but these miss the point.

What Kipling was describing was a society that by and large disliked and distrusted the military, whether it was the apparently loutish soldiers or the apparently incompetent officers. That was the traditional English and British attitude to a standing army, made possible by geography. This distrust went right through society and through the centuries.

With two world wars that had horrifically high casualties (though much higher in most other countries that were involved than in Britain) and the unpleasant Cold War, attitudes to the military have changed. It seems that we love them after all (though not, of course, lads in pubs who have to compete with soldiers for female attention).

We not only love them to pieces, we grow more and more sentimental about them, their abilities (proven or otherwise) and their sacrifices. What we do not like is them going to war and getting killed or injured. When I say we do not like, I do not mean their friends and families do not like it, which is an understandable point of view - we, as a society, dislike the idea of soldiers getting killed in battle. We don't mind them getting killed in training or industrial accidents. In fact, we do not care about that. But we do not like them getting killed in battles. I'd go further: we do not like them fighting battles.

So we have something of an existential problem on our hands. Most lads and lasses who join up do hope that sooner or later they would be involved in a bit of trouble-shooting, otherwise known as aggro, in some part of the world while they serve. But while their existence in uniform makes them popular (though not with lads in pubs etc), the moment they carry out their jobs they become seriously unpopular or, at least, the fact that they are carrying out their jobs is unpopular. At the same time, the people who do not want our soldiers to do what they are supposed to do, which is fight in wars, keep demanding more money to be spent on them.

This mish-mash of emotions and opinions can become explosive. What exactly is the purpose of those troops on whom we want to spend more money and whom we love to pieces? Going on from there, it is probably about time to ask ourselves whether we really do want to be a military power? The guards, after all, can keep changing whether we are or not.

COMMENT THREAD

Bring them home

It is almost painful to agree with The Guardian, but we do. It describes our adventure in Afghanistan as: "Mission impossible." It is.

That was never pre-ordained. It could have been different, and it could still be different, but it will not be. As we have watched the train wreck that masquerades as strategy in this benighted country, we have become more and more convinced that it is wrong – totally, completely, fundamentally wrong.

It cannot succeed. It will not succeed and the inevitable outcome is that, after the expenditure of much more of our treasure – which we can ill-afford – and the death of many more fine men (and, probably, some women), we will be forced into a humiliating retreat, dressed up as victory, leaving the country in no better a condition than when we found it – if not worse.

This is not a knee-jerk reaction to the "grim milestone" of now 200-plus deaths in theatre. We have seen this coming and were prepared for it. But, while the media talks glibly about the first hundred deaths having taken from 2001 to early 2008 to have been reached, with the next hundred taking 15 months, what few if any have commented on is the fact that, of those 100, just over 50 occurred in the last five months ... an effective doubling of the casualty rate.

Unless urgent action is taken on the ground by military commanders to minimise casualties, that is the continued fate of our soldiers – to fall to the combined threat of direct assault and, mainly, the unseen peril of IEDs, against which out military have no effective counter.

That was the action taken in Iraq, with a retreat to our bases inspired entirely by the need to keep the headline death rate down. It was a self-defeating strategy, ceding control to the militias and abandoning the population which needed and deserved our protection.

So it would be in Afghanistan, where a similar retreat would cede control to the Taleban and abandon any attempt to pacify and police the country. The alternative is to keep taking the casualties, and the current rate is politically unsustainable.

The British forces – and to a great extent all the coalition forces – are therefore caught in a deadly trap. On the one hand, they are locked in to an unworkable and fatally flawed strategy. If they attempt to implement it, the result will be unacceptable casualties.

On the other hand, if they prioritise on force protection, the strategy falls by the wayside and they achieve nothing, other than to see the violence escalate and the Taleban strengthen their hold. Either way, we lose – the Afghani people lose and the international community loses. We might just as well lose from the comfort and safety of the UK, with the troops back home polishing their toys, rather than in Afghanistan, polishing the next batch of coffins.

Consistently, on this and our sister blog, we have sought to offer advice on how to avoid this trap. This comes not from a reservoir of our own experience and knowledge of the area (we have, after all never been there). It comes instead from that ill-used and often misunderstood process of research and analysis.

We don't know the answers, but we know lots of people who do. By listening, researching, studying, distilling and – above all – analysing the dynamics of this conflict, certain basic principles emerge which are of unchanging value.

At the core of this is the central precept that "security" – the Holy Grail of our current endeavour – cannot be imposed on an unwilling or cowed population. It must emerge from them. Thus, the objective of a counter-insurgency campaign must be to create the conditions whereby the people themselves opt for security, and strive to achieve it, not as passive observers watching the manoeuvres of foreign troops, but as active participants.

Therein lies the fatal flaw in our strategy. By artificially creating a divide between "security" and "development", and making the latter dependent on the former – then seeking to impose security as a precursor to any further endeavour – we are setting ourselves up for failure.

Bizarrely, those involved with this train-wreck of a strategy cannot see the logical flaws of their own creation. All of them will happily chirp that there is "no military solution" to the insurgency. Yet, they say, the solution is to impose security. And what is that if not an attempt at a military solution?

Thus, the only way out is to forge ahead with development, the military task thence being defined as to protect (and in many cases carry out) the development. The unreformed lefties of the FCO and DFID should be retired early and sent home, together with their fatuous "hearts and minds" cult.

The only "development" worthy of the name is hard-edged infrastructure improvement – roads, rail where necessary, communications, electricity, airports – plus industrial and commercial development. The aim here should be to enhance wealth-creating activities, enabling Afghanistan to capitalise on its considerable economic assets. With economic stability comes social stability.

As far as governance goes, there are only three requirements. Firstly, there must be imposed an equitable system of property rights, and a means by which citizens can enforce them. Without that, there can be no progress.

Secondly, the government of Afghanistan must be given a deadline to establish a universal taxation system. It must be set targets for revenue collection and we should then reduce the amount of international aid paid directly by the amounts we have set the government to collect for itself.

A government that lives off international aid has no need of its people and a people that does not pay tax to its government has no need of a government. If the people then want schools 'n' hospitals, let them lobby their own government to pay for them – and pay the taxes to support them. We should not be providing them.

Thirdly, develop an agricultural policy, subsidising small famers to stay on the land and to produce food crops. Whether Pashtuns or Anglian barley barons, farmers are farmers throughout the world - a calling that transcends nation, ethnicity and religion. If they can make money out of growing crops and rearing animals, they will do so. Give them the money and the opium problem will solve itself.

As to the international community generally, it should do a series of vital things. First, grant Afghanistan favoured nation status for the purpose of trade. Secondly, it should allow free access to Afghan produce, without tariffs or similar restraints. Thirdly, it should buy the goods. A Tesco supermarket buyer with a cheque book is worth a battalion of troops.

Then, there is the vexed question of building up the Afghani security forces. Forget it. This is a matter of the Afghani government. A government that depends on its people – aka taxpayers - for survival will find a way of protecting its people – aka revenue base – from outside interference. The initiative must come from the government. Then we can help, but only then.

None of this, though, is going to happen. The principles have been talked about endlessly. Those in the know agree with these fundamentals, but lack the wherewithal to make them happen. Policy is decided, therefore, not by reference to what is right and necessary – and that which works – but what is possible within an entirely inadequate and dysfunctional framework. And, for that, soldiers die.

That is not good enough. We have had enough of futile gestures and the posturing of politicians. If we can't do the job properly – and we can't – then we should get out. Bring our troops home.

COMMENT THREAD

On our way out?

With yet another three soldiers reported killed in Sangin, bringing the total up to 204, the Scottish Daily Herald is reporting on a YouGov opinion poll on our involvement in Afghanistan.

From this we learn that some 57 percent believe British forces should not be in Afghanistan at all, only 13 percent think it is "very clear" why the UK military is there and 82 percent say the UK Government is not doing enough to support our troops. Undoubtedly, sentiment has been heavily influenced by the rush of casualties over the last two months and, as public opinion hardens, the opposition to our continued presence is only likely to increase.

More on Defence of the Realm.

Booker on food security

This week's column has a go at Hilary Benn's fatuous food security report, pointing out, amongst other things, the role of the EU in our food policy.

One of Benn's few tasks (which his ministry performs with stupendous inefficiency), Booker reports, is to hand out to farmers the £3.7 billion a year we get back from Brussels in subsidies. What we are never told, however, is that British taxpayers at the same time shell out £5.3 billion a year for farmers in the rest of the EU; so that for every two pounds our farmers get, we hand over nearly three to their competitors.

When you add the dual threat of the EU's Pesticides and Water Framework directives, which is materially going to affect our capability to produce food, to say nothing of the scourge of badger-induced TB in our cattle population – plus other issues mentioned by Booker – the whole idea of Benn's initiative dissolves into a miasma of vacuity.

The interesting (some might say appalling) thing though is the general absence of press and political comment on this report – the one depending on the other. But since food policy across the whole spectrum, from production to food labelling, is determined by the EU, there is very little for the politicians to say – short of demanding that we get out of the EU.

Once upon a time, farming and food production used to occupy a central part in our politics but now, not only are the politicians silent, the main newspapers do not even hire agricultural correspondents any more. Food production, as an issue, has almost entirely dropped out of the public consciousness.

This is, of course, dangerous. Although we may have outsourced policy to Brussels, and subsidise foreign farmers to a greater extent than our own, we still have to eat and are still reliant on a fragile chain to bring food to our tables.

It may not matter now, while food is still plenty, that we are so careless of the industries that supply it but in the fullness of time, when (not if) shortages arise, there will be much lamenting and beating of breasts. And what will little Cameron do then, poor thing?

COMMENT THREAD

Media management

Considering that the news of the 200th fatality arising from our expedition in Afghanistan was released only about 7pm last night, it says something for the technical skills of the print media that the news made most of the front pages of the Sundays today.

However, such was the timing that only hasty re-jigging got the news in, without sufficient leeway for the editorial and comment pieces that would have accompanied such news, had the details been available earlier.

The same also applies to the 201st fatality. Although incurred – in Sangin again – earlier on Saturday, the release was held back until the Sundays had gone to press, thereby robbing them of the news "hook" which would have cleared the front pages and most of the rest of the "book".

Even in the grisly arithmetic of battlefield casualties, therefore, news management plays a central part in the drama, the controlled release thus enabling Gordon Brown to hit the TV studios today (featuring on the Andrew Marr show) in a carefully planned exercise in damage limitation, before the Monday papers get to chew over the issue.

This was always going to be the case. As long as the media is intent on using the completely artificial "milestone" of 200 deaths as a trigger for a torrent of (largely hostile) coverage – the government will attempt to manage the news, to mitigate the adverse effects.

In fact, the KIA stand at about 170, others having been killed in accidents, illness or suicide, directly or indirectly related to the action in Afghanistan. But, as we pointed out in the forum, Service-wide non combat deaths far exceed those experienced in combat, the largest single cause being vehicle accidents. These, however, escape under the media radar. Until recently, they were not even recorded centrally.

The distinction between total fatalities and KIAs, however, leaves it open to the media to come back for a second bite at the cherry, recording the event when the KIAs reach 200. By that time, total casualties will be close to the "magic" figure of 255 – the number lost in the Falklands War. That, in turn, will trigger more press comment.

There is no point in decrying this dynamic. That is how the media works and to expect it to do otherwise is like expecting the archetypal cat to bark. But what today's media response – and the response in days to follow – does illustrate is that media management is as much a part of modern warfare as is engaging with the enemy, and just as important.

What is not as clearly recognised is that media response also has tactical and strategic implications. With the headline treatment of fatalities, commanders have been known to adjust tactics – contrary to theatre requirements – in order to minimise casualties, or even delay operations which might give a casualty spike, in order to avoid politically sensitive events, such as domestic elections.

Both these dynamics were evident in the Iraqi campaign, with the retreat to the bases in Basra (and the evacuation of Camp Abu Naji outside al Amarah) dictated more by the need to keep casualties down than for any sound tactical reasons.

Similarly, the decision to abandon Musa Qala in 2006 was very heavily influenced by the increasing difficulties experienced in re-supplying the platoon house by helicopter, and the fear that it was only a matter of time before a Chinook was lost, the casualties arising having a devastating political effect.

The problem confronting the military, however – and also the politicians – is that they need to square the circle: they need to be able to keep the casualty rate down, without compromising operations or strategic aims. And that requires something in which neither the politicians nor the military have shown any great skill – forward planning.

It is highly significant in that context that the 201st fatality reported today is the 100th to die from an IED. Take those (or a substantial number of them) out of the equation and the media storm that is about to break would not be occurring. But, to have been able to deal with the IED would have required a whole new set of equipment and tactics, which neither the politicians nor the military have been able to devise in time.

Thus, in the absence of effective battle management, all the government has left is media management and, as we write, there is evidence that this is not going to be enough. New Labour is at last beginning to discover that even the most skilful "spin" cannot trump reality for ever. The body bags are telling their own story.

I am cross-posting this on Defence of the Realm.

COMMENT THREAD

The floodgates open ...

With the announcement of the 200th British soldier to die in Afghanistan, the media floodgates will now open. This soldier, as yet unnamed, died of wounds in Selly Oak, having been caught in an explosion last Thursday. Sadly, he will not be the last to die.

We'll do what we can to monitor and report on the media, and provide an analysis of it. In the meantime, I've posted another piece on Defence of the Realm, written before the sad news came in.

Like so many of our pieces, it attempts to offer solutions to a seemingly intractable problem. For that, our efforts are much derided, not least on the unofficial Army forum (ARRSE) where, one suspects, the resident forum queens have never forgiven me for being right about Snatch Land Rovers, back in 2006, when so many took the MoD line that this vehicle was vitally necessary in Iraq.

We were thus much heartened, therefore, to see the following over at Captains Journal, a blog we respect hugely:

Richard North at Defence of the Realm is required reading every day. His latest piece awaits the howls that are sure to come when the Brits lose their 200th soldier in Afghanistan. Neither we nor Richard likes tracking this, and Richard doesn’t like to see British casualties. But that's why Richard always argues for more troops, better equipment and better strategy. Richard is the conscience of the military bloggers / new media in the UK. You can always turn to him for unvarnished prose.

I had never thought of myself as a "conscience" but, on reflection, that is a highly perceptive observation. On DOTR and this blog, we tell it as we see it, not holding back and taking no prisoners. I would sooner speak out and be wrong, and then be corrected in a robust, no-holds-barred discussion, than tiptoe round the edges, for fear that I might offend someone, as indeed I do so often.

This, however, is not a time for introspection. There are hugely important issues to discuss and, as a citizen of a democracy – where our catchphrase (one of them) is "democracy is not a spectator sport" – we feel that it is our duty to participate in that discussion. We will return to that never-ending battle later today.

COMMENT THREAD

Sucking up to the MSM

If there is a single issue this blog has hammered – apart from defence – it is the coming electricity crisis, a subject with which we've worked very closely with Booker. In particular, in the 180 or so posts we've published, we have emphasised the political implications, not least here, where we wrote of the desperate need for the Tory party to get its act together.

Despite the huge political implications, we noted that very few of the so-called political blogs in the UK were following the issue, with Booker's articles and this blog's posts being largely ignored by the claque.

Now, out of the blue, The Economist wakes up to the impending crisis, prompting a response from one blogger that this was an issue we had covered extensively.

But not Mrs Dale. Impervious to the blogosphere which he so assiduously claims to promote as its self-appointed champion, the moment the embodiment of the established MSM goes into print, Dale rushes out a post, imploring us to read the article.

Yes, we have been critical of the Dale – and the blogosphere – in the past. But when you see the way the narrow little claque behaves, quivering and twittering every time the MSM drops its knickers, slavishly following the establishment agenda, do you wonder why?

COMMENT THREAD

We are not alone ...

What is it about military procurement, that seems to bring out the worst in public sector inefficiency? Or is it simply that we are more sensitive to disasters in this area – after all, public sector IT continues to gobble up the cash and rarely delivers the goods either. And if you did a number on NHS procurement, you would probably save hundreds of millions, without noticing any difference in the service offered.

Found via Minstrel Boy.

COMMENT THREAD

The Ponzi Airbus

Airbus, that world-leading generator of computer graphics, has succeeded in suckering HMG into dolling out £340 million (€394 million) in soft loans to help build its A-350 long-range, medium capacity airliner.

This, we are told is not quite as much as Airbus had hoped for, having already extracted promises from France for a loan of €1.4 billion and from Germany €1.1 billion, towards the development cost of about €12 billion.

According to The Times, inputs are normally proportional to the amount of work share and since the UK typically gets about 20 percent, including the wing building, between €700 million (£600 million) and €850 million might have been requested.

However, with sales of the A-380 "superjumbo" stalled – with little chance of ever reaching a break-even point - and the A-400M programme running heavily behind schedule as well as massively overspent, by any normal commercial criteria, Airbus would have great difficulty attracting loans on the money markets.

Cash flow in this game, though, is everything and this healthy injection of cash from government coffers will undoubtedly be used to shore up the existing programmes, in the hope that they will then generate enough funding to finance the A-350 development. Even if the A-350 money is ring-fenced, Airbus can be as creative with its accounting as it is with its computer graphics.

What we have therefore – in effect – is a massive Ponzi scheme, where the money for future projects is being used to finance current, loss-making aircraft which have yet to pay their way. This locks Airbus into a continuous cycle of producing more and more projects, the cash for each new one financing the last, the scheme continuing until the supporting governments finally pull the plug (which may be some time never).

Needless to say, the Yanks are a tad miffed. The Office of the US Trade Representative, which negotiates trade agreements on behalf of the US president, has slammed the move, complaining that to launch a new raft of "subsidies" just as the WTO is due to rule on a previous dispute is "a major step in the wrong direction."

Boeing, with its competitor 787 "Dreamliner", which has also had its fair share of troubles, sniffs that "Airbus should finance its aircraft development using its own cash and commercial loans." But as long as Airbus represents a cross between a national symbol for the EU and a job creation scheme for member states, that is never going to happen.

British ministers hope that in addition to supporting jobs at Filton and Broughton the loan will help create and sustain more than 5,000 jobs within the supply chain across the UK and, at the moment, jobs are the sensitive point in the economy.

The real loser though – apart from the British taxpayer – seems to be the RAF and the Armed Forces in general. Instead of dumping the A-400M and buying something sensible like more C-17s or C-130Js, HMG has used its continued support of this failed project as a bargaining chip to maintain its job share on the A-350 while reducing its input.

As they gaze at their computer generated graphics of weapons and supplies delivered to them overland, for the want of the real things, as our strategic airlift awaits the pleasure of Airbus – British troops in Afghanistan (if they are still there in a couple of years) can at least bask in the warm glow that comes from knowing they have supported jobs in Filton and Broughton, and helped sustain more than 5,000 within the supply chain.

Pity about their "supply chain" but then every Ponzi scheme has to have its losers.

COMMENT THREAD

Dave doesn't care

Simon Heffer says that David Cameron and his friends are not Tories. But, he says, little Dave doesn't care.

Heffer thinks he should. Fringe parties like UKIP, usually only given big support during marginal electoral contests, could find themselves the repository of protest votes by those who wish – as a result of the widespread disillusion caused by the expenses scandal – to smash up the old, cosy system.

It won't happen in time for the next election but, with a low turnout and a significant proportion of votes going to fringe parties, any hold on power that the Tories have will be fragile, and their supporters not remotely loyal.

More and more people who should be traditional Tory supporters are no longer – a terrifying number see the only way out is for the system to self-destruct. And there's the rub. They know Dave doesn't care. The thing is, neither do they ... about him or his friends.

COMMENT THREAD

The hidden enemy

In an expected but nevertheless "shock" move, bosses at Anglesey Aluminium Metal (AAM) have confirmed that smelting activities at the Wylfa plant will cease on 30 September.

The impending demise of this plant – a major employer in Anglesea – we reported in January, the closure precipitated by EU state aid rules which prevented the state owned Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), which owns the Wylfa power station, selling electricity to the plant at below market price.

Even though that arrangement – a continuation of the previous contract, a type common in the industry for bulk buyers – was profitable for both parties, by virtue of recent state acquisition of the power plant, this was deemed contrary to EU rules and, thus deprived of a cheap source of electricity the aluminium plant was scheduled for closure.

This brought hasty action by the government, conscious of the devastating effect the closure would have on local employment – the plant then employed around 540 people at the site - with the offer of a four-year £48m loan, styled as a "government rescue package" to keep the plant in operation.

However, the joint owners, Rio Tinto Alcan and Kaiser Aluminium, have decided that even the availability of cheap money – which would, of course, have to be repaid – was not sufficient to return the plant to viability and have therefore decided on its closure.

This leaves Welsh secretary Peter Hain to utter the usual platitudes, saying: "I am bitterly disappointed we could not reach an agreement to secure the long-term future of the smelter ..." but neither he nor the the BBC give any hints as to the real reason for the closure.

The BBC, in fact, cites a man who has been working at the plant for five years. This is Peter Owen, who tells the BBC that there had been no explanation of why the £48m rescue package had been turned down. "I can't understand what happened," he says.

With the benefit of the bigger picture, we could tell Mr Owen what had been going on, but you can be sure that the BBC won't. The hidden enemy must never be revealed.

COMMENT THREAD

Jumping the gun

Like vultures watching for the dying man to expire, the serried ranks of hacks and their editors are poised, keyboards at the ready – with picture editors on standby – waiting to the 200th soldier to be killed in Afghanistan.

The suspense, however, has proved too much for The Times, which has already published a piece from its defence editor Michael Evans on the impending death, allowing it to display the statutory graphic showing not 200 but 199 "thumbnails" in a grisly montage.

More on Defence of the Realm.

The mincer of Sangin

Anthony Lloyd describes the scene at Camp Bastion's hospital when the dead and wounded are brought in by a Chinook Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT).

After watching the proceedings and then watching young Afghan girl die (from suspected meningitis), "for an awful second," he writes, "I thought I might choke - an unforgivable act of weakness in front of the calm resolve of the young medics."

More on Defence of the Realm.

More news from Scandinavia

Not Iceland this time but Norway, which is showing no signs of wanting to apply to the EU but where an election is due in September.

The Economist makes a valiant attempt at sorting out the voting system and predicting what might or might not be the outcome. Naturally enough, the Economist is hoping that the present left-wing coalition will retain power and is clearly rooting for that to happen.

The general election in September looks to be heading for a close finish between the governing centre-left parties and the centre-right opposition. The Labour Party and the populist Progress Party are expected to dominate the final stages of the election campaign, but it is the showing by the smaller parties that is likely to determine which coalitions are possible in the new parliament.

With the election on September 14th just over one month away, the result looks like being extremely close. Recent opinion polls suggest that the ruling left-centre coalition, comprised of the Labour Party, the Socialist Left Party (SV) and the Centre Party, could remain in power, but with only a one- or two-seat majority. If it fails to win an overall majority, there are considerable uncertainties over which combination of parties could succeed in forming a new government. The rise of the populist Progress Party (which was evident even before the last election in September 2005) suggests that some voters see a clear right-wing alternative to the dominant Labour Party, but Progress could still find it difficult to find partners to form a government.

"Populist", in the pages of a "respectable" media outlet is a very bad thing, indeed, but it seems that:

Among the opposition parties, Progress has so far run the most successful campaign, benefiting from media attention on issues such as immigration and crime. Even the more serious "broadsheet" newspapers, such as Aftenposten, have had extensive coverage of East European criminal gangs operating in Norway. This has allowed the Progress Party to attack Labour for being soft on crime and the governing parties of the present and past administrations (in effect all the other parties) for allowing Norway to have such permeable borders. Support for Progress is more than double that of the Conservatives, meaning that Progress would dominate any right-of-centre government.

As a matter of fact even this Wiki entry on the Progress Party shows it to be no different from other political parties in leaders' behaviour and having reasonably sensible ideas that are popular with the people but not with the largely left-wing, tranzi-supporting political establishment of the country. No wonder they are being shunned by other politicians though not by the electorate.

What is actually wrong with this:

The policy of the party is to favour immigrants who quickly learn Norwegian and get jobs, while expelling the criminal foreigners. Generally the party want a stricter immigration policy, so that only people who are in real need for protection according to the UN Refugee Convention is to be allowed to stay in Norway. In a speech during opening of the election campaign for the 2007 election, the party chairman Siv Jensen claimed that the present immigration policy is a failure because it lets criminals stay in Norway, while throwing out people who work hard and follow the law.

This reminds me of a meeting in May hosted by the indefatigable Henry Jackson Society at which the impossibly glamorous Siv Jensen, Chairman of the Progress Party spoke. (I really, really hate those glamorous European women politicians, particularly if they happen to be on side. Our female politicians I can cope with. What's to hate?)

Ms Jensen talked of her admiration for Margaret Thatcher and the economic policies that encouraged global trade, which, in turn lifted 100s of millions of people out of poverty. Her party, she emphasised, believe in individual liberty and as little interference from the state as possible. Individual liberty, she said, is fundamental for human happiness and economic prosperity.

This sort of thinking is about as far away from fascism as possible but in the topsy-turvy world of modern political discourse those who believe in freedom are called fascists.

She then turned to the main issue on which her party is deemed to be untouchable by all but the electorate: immigration, culture and multi-culturism. She said very firmly that she supports multi-ethnic societies but not multi-cultural ones. (I appreciate that the distinction is often lost on both sides when this debate is conducted in this and many other countries but it is a very important one and it was good to hear Ms Jensen outline it so forcefully.)

The Progress Party, she said is against discrimination on all the usual grounds but does not believe in cultural relativism or the all-embracing welfare state. In other words, those who come in and assimilate, work hard and bring up their families must be helped and encuraged but Norway must not be seen as a safe haven for criminals who are not accepted in other European countries; nor can there be any question of Sharia law being introduced for anyone in the country.

So we can see why the party is gaining in popularity and why the rest of the political and media world, including our own Economist, watches its progress grimly. Now that I think of it, I wonder why Ms Jensen was allowed into the country. Why did our delighful Home Secretary, whoever it was at the time, not stop her on the grounds that her pronouncements are dangerous? Hmm, asleep at the wheel again.

There were several other points of interest in her talk, all to do with foreign affairs. Ms Jensen and her party dislike the notion of Norway being a special friend of terrorist organizations like Hamas and she ever becomes Prime Minister (not such an unlikely event, as it happens) that will change.

She considers the question of EU membership to be dead. There have been two decisive referendums and nobody is going to try for a third one. She herself, interestingly enough, was vaguely for membership, thus proving that the issue cuts across parties. Then she went to Brussels and realized that all the criticisms she had aimed at the Norwegian government could be doubled, tripled, quadrupled when it came to the EU. So she decided that as far as Norway becoming a member of this pernicious organization it was thanks but no thanks.

She also supports NATO though thinks there should be an open debate about its future role and thinks the West should get tougher with Russia, especially on the question of energy supplies, something Norway is particularly interested in.

Interestingly, her party is not particularly fond of the UN though she assumes that there is some way of reforming it and "restoring" it to some rose-coloured original quality. The trouble is, she explained, when a number of us argued with this notion, even criticizing the UN is a political hot potato in Norway. Nobody does it and one must move very cautiously.

Fair enough, I suppose. If the Progress Party establishes the notion that no sacred cow is sacred, not even the tranzis, that will be a big step forward.

COMMENT THREAD

Losing on the home front

On the one hand, the current edition of the New Statesman gives space to current defence secretary Bob Ainsworth, who tells us that opposing war in Afghanistan is "defeatism" The war in Afghanistan is too important to be reduced to a political football. We are fighting there to protect our national security, he says.

On the other hand, in a long editorial, the same magazine opines that, "Our military presence in Afghanistan is part of the problem, not the solution." Britain should follow Canada's lead and set a date for withdrawal from Afghanistan. It is time we accepted that we are losing this war.

More on Defence of the Realm.

Labour's killer disease

An anonymous farmer friend of mine has been waging a lonely battle over on one of our family of blogs, the Bovine TB blog.

Used as we are to government profligacy, the story of the spread of Bovine TB is one of those hidden scandals where, New Labour, in thrall to the animal rights activists – which have contributed handsomely to their campaign funds – have steadfastly refused to take action against the very obvious and proven vector of the disease – the badger. Make no mistake – this "cuddly" little creature is now a killer.

Yet, despite the long-standing and growing threat, New Labour has spent over £2 billion in not controlling the disease, allowing its slow, insidious spread to the level where the epidemic in the wild badger population is now out of control, causing havoc in the cattle industry.

What Labour luvvies ignore, however, is that Bovine TB is a zoonosis – it spreads from animals to man. Already, we have learned of a number of cases of breakout into the human population – the reports heavily suppressed – but now, with savage glee we can report that the disease has struck where it will do some serious damage.

Reported in The Times today the case of a government scientist suspected of having contracted bovine tuberculosis from an infected badger.

Thirty other staff employed by the Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera) at Woodchester, near Stroud, Gloucestershire, are also being tested for the disease. The workers are all involved in studying the spread of bovine TB for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

It is the first time that a suspect case has emerged among government scientific staff in the 30 years of official research into the disease – but with the epidemic spread of the disease in the badger population, it will not be the last.

If confirmed, says The Times, senior veterinary surgeons and farmers' leaders are certain to renew their demand for an emergency cull of badgers in the disease hotspot areas of Britain, such as the South West and the Gloucestershire and Herefordshire border.

This time, the government should listen to them. But it has allowed the spread to develop to such a degree that a local cull is not enough. Nothing short of a nation-wide mass cull will now do the trick. Wherever there are badgers, there is disease – there is simply no disease-free stock left in the country and, to protect the human population, emergency action is necessary.

New Labour will be known for many things when it is kicked out, but if there was any justice, it should also be known for the administration that deliberately turned its back on a potent infectious disease and thus allowed TB once more to become a threat.

Not for nothing, it seems, are Tony Blair's initials "TB" – by these, and his corrupt, loathsome government, should he be known.

COMMENT THREAD

Gaining momentum

From a minority obsession, the deployment of light turboprop strike reconnaissance aircraft to aid the conflict in Afghanistan has achieved the status of an idea whose time has come.

The latest writing on the wall came with a Pentagon briefing reported on 23 July, when Michael Vickers, the acknowledged guru on special operations and low intensity conflict told a small group of defence reporters that upcoming Quadrennial Defence Review (QRD) would be looking at creating "irregular warfare air units" to beef up the US counterinsurgency capability.

More on Defence of the Realm.

Blood money

Belatedly, the media are beginning to take an interest in the Future Lynx – now improbably named the Wildcat - with The Daily Mail today complaining that:

"Britain is buying 62 Lynx Wildcat helicopters from AgustaWestland at a cost of £27 million each but they will not be available to equipment starved troops until 2012 at the earliest - four years after they could have had cheaper U.S. helicopters."

More on Defence of the Realm.

Investing in the crooks

In the Bulgarian paper Standart News, we hear the sorry tale that the government has only been able to spend 1.27 percent of the EU funding allocated to it.

Altogether, Bulgaria has been allocated €6.673 billion for various projects but the catch is that it must all be spent by 2013. By the end of this July, however, all they had managed to dispose of was €84.9 million.

Of the various programmes, less than €661,000 of the €967 million grants for "competitiveness" had been spent – considerably less than one percent. The top scoring programme was to develop "administrative capacity" (why are we not surprised?) but even that had only soaked up 17.6 percent of the funds earmarked.

The transport programme, aimed at improving the primative road system (pictured), is having more difficulty. The money paid out here amounts to a mere 0.38 percent of the allocation - and that situation could be about to get worse.

According to the Sophia Echo, prime minister Boiko Borissov has just sacked the executive director of National Road Infrastructure Agency (NRIA), a man who rejoices in the name Yanko Yankov (no, I didn't invent it).

The reasons given were the "lack of synchronisation and communication with the representatives of the European Commission, exaggerated payments to outside consultants, inadmissible actions concerning NRIA's spending in a time of crisis, the lack of an adequate quality control and management system [...] and the inability to meet targets and deadlines."

In other words, the man is a crook, creaming off EU funds instead of building roads and bridges. Even then, he is not a very good crook as his agency has only been able to work through its share of the 0.38 percent of the funds so far spent.

However, help may be a hand. Yankov will be replaced by Dimitar Ivanov, a former head of the agency who resigned under something of a cloud. Since then he has worked for a number of major road construction companies that applying for EU funding for diverse road schemes. Ivanov should be able to give them a hand.

All of this would be hilariously funny (or not) if it was not for the fact that of the money allocated, about half a billion (pounds) comes from UK taxpayers, paid as part of our membership contribution to the freedom-loving European Union. We have, therefore, a direct financial stake in this Bulgarian crookery.

On that basis, it would be nice to have a vote on who actually got to spend the money, in which case we need to find the most inefficient crook going. Any hope of the money being well spent is about as likely as a Labour (or any) government delivering enough helicopters to our troops in Helmand.

COMMENT THREAD

Wir fahren, wir fahren ...

Or to put it otherwise: we move on. Nothing stays the same. Further to the Boss's (note the capital letter, please) posting about what is happening to the blog, his other blog and the forum, some additional information is needed as I do not think EURef's readers have quite realized that there have been changes in the structure.

The blog is most definitely the Boss's. He, very courteously, goes on using the first person plural but that is just his good nature. It has been very successful with minimal interference from me and, as he has pointed out, the hit rate has been going up. That is probably because there are no boring postings about foreign countries.

His second in command, North Junior, has done a brilliant job on this blog, the other blog and, I presume as I don't spend much time on it, the forum. Kudos to the lad.

So where do I come in? Well, the Norths will allow me to post occasionally so this is still not the last post (bad luck, chaps) and we shall have to see how that develops. There will be a posting on Norway quite soon. As soon as I have worked out how to spell all the names without crashing the computer, in fact. Let us hope it will not take the hit-rate down. If it does, it's to the wall with me.

Distorted values

Reinforcing precisely the point I made about VAT fraud, you get thieves making off with "hundreds of millions" of our money, and the media barely mentions it.

Yet, a "gem heist" taking a "mere" £40 million – no doubt covered by insurance – and the news goes straight to the front page.

There is something very distorted about media values. Over term, VAT fraud has robbed EU member states of at least £10 billion (if not more), which is crime on a colossal scale. Yet none of our hacks – much less the politicians – seem to be able to take it seriously.

The lesson for potential crooks is obvious. Don't bother with the high-profile heists. Just rip off the taxpayers of Europe (taking as your role model the politicians) and the chances are you will get away with it unnoticed – and certainly unreported.

COMMENT THREAD

Getting minced

Another post on Defence of the Realm - a long one. Just for the record, this one has taken over five hours to write and prepare for posting, not including the background research that went into it.

I am pleased to say, however, that there are signs of this effort being rewarded. Following the makeover of the site, the hit rate has soared, matched by a measurable increase in visitors, at a time - during the holiday season - when we normally expect a fall-off. Not only that, readers appear to be spending more time on the sites, which indicates that people are actually reading what we write.

Nevertheless, there have been a few (very few) complaints about the emphasis on military matters on EU Referendum, so I am trying to vary the fare a bit more, although once the "silly season" is over, there will be more EU posts. With the whole of the Continent on holiday, there is not much to report at the moment.

On a small housekeeping note, we (mainly North Jr) are continuing to clean up the minor technical glitches that have cropped up after the makeovers, while I am starting the process of indexing both sites. You will see that, at the bottom of the sidebar here and on the bottom of DOTR, there are now index sections, which I am expanding and updating. Unlike the search function (which is erratic), the index actually works.

We are also rebuilding the blogrolls, and are adding new sites daily. If you feel your blog should be included, please let me know and I will add the appropriate link.

Meanwhile, thank you all for reading our sites, and for adding to the vastly improved Forum section, which is attracting some high quality discussion.

COMMENT THREAD

Nursery government

Certain sections of the media, such as The Times are getting (moderately) excited about Defra's latest initiative on food security.

This is bolstered by a new report, which launches a public consultation, with the department telling us:

We have put this package of material together online to gather your thoughts, ideas, views and concerns. We want this feedback to help shape the Government’s food policy agenda, and help us work out what we need to do to tackle some of the pressures, and maximise the opportunities, we are all faced with.

Even to begin to analyse this effluvia would, however, be a waste of time and effort. Firstly, the government is transfixed by the idea that cropping patterns are going to be affected by global warming. Yet we are currently in a cooling phase, which may last 30 years or more, with profound – and different – effects on food production.

Secondly, it is labouring under the impression that it has any control over food policy. It hasn't. This is a sole competence of the EU. Has the government never heard of the CAP? Yet it is not mentioned anywhere in the report.

Thirdly, the government is purporting to make plans for food policy for thirty years ahead. Next year, though, there is a general election. It is a racing certainty that this government will be kicked out – it will not even have time to analyse the response to its faux consultation.

The only thing that this initiative tells us, therefore, is that we have a government in denial. This is nursery government, with about as much relevance to reality as kiddies playing doctors and nurses.

COMMENT THREAD

Shotvarfet

The title comes from a moving and informative piece in The Independent today, described as "the first ever unauthorised dispatch from an officer on the frontline".

This is a young Captain offering "a brutally honest account of life in Afghanistan, revealing the pain of losing comrades, the frustration at the lack of equipment and the sense that the conflict seems unending and, at times, unwinnable."

UPDATE: additional piece here.

More on Defence of the Realm.

Are we actually interested?

Ever since the Tories broke away from the EPP group in the EU parliament and formed their own, critics inside and outside the party have been seeking to exploit apparent inconsistencies between them and their "partners".

So tedious are these little scraps that we have avoided reporting on them – who really cares about the internal politics of the EU parliament, much less the machinations of a fringe group like the Tories?

The latest twist, however, has a certain amusement value. As reported by The Independent, the president of the new group, Law and Justice Party MEP Michael Kaminski (pictured), has expressed support for both the Lisbon Treaty and the Common Agricultural Policy.

This, says The Independent, "would appear to put him seriously at odds with David Cameron who is strongly opposed to the treaty which he wants to put to a referendum in the UK."

Actually, it doesn't – which goes to show how little the British media understands EU parliamentary politics.

The political groups – including the one which the Tories have formed – are little more than "marriages of convenience" between disparate national parties, with very little in common. They come together at the EU level in order to milk the system, enabling them to maximise their drawings from parliamentary funds and to bid for key positions in the parliamentary structures.

Look at any of the political parties forming any of the EU groups and you will see huge national differences in policies, to the extent that you could play endless games pointing up the anomalies and inconsistencies. They matter not though.

All the group members sign up to a set of common principles, in order to satisfy the parliamentary rules, carefully drafted so as not to interfere with national sensibilities. Each national delegation then tends to run its own affairs.

Since the EU parliament has absolutely no control over EU policy, which is determined by the commission and the European Council, national policy differences between group members are of very little importance.

However, playing up the differences in order to score political points on a national stage is fair game. Thus, Baroness Kinnock is doing her own"milking", declaring that: "David Cameron needs to get a grip. The fringe is coming apart at the seams." She goes on to say: "Cameron and Hague must say where they stand. Do they agree with the leader of their group or do they oppose him and move further from reality?"

Outside the foetid bubble of micro-EU politics though, one suspects no one actually cares. After all, Kaminski is a foreigner, and who cares what they say anyway? For goodness sake, just look at him. He cannot even wear his tie correctly.

COMMENT THREAD

A torrid time

With one more soldier killed – yet another by an IED while on foot patrol – the total casualties for Afghanistan now stand at 196. In the deadly arithmetic of the media war, this is four short of the "magic" figure of 200, which will be the trigger for a torrent of media coverage.

With the current rate of loss, the bi-centenary could well come by the end of this week, giving the Sundays a free run. Given that we are in the middle of the "silly season" with very little competition on the news agenda, the likelihood is that the MoD will be in for a torrid time.

More on Defence of the Realm.

State secrets

One has to smile, even if a little wanly, at the letter from Richard Shaw in The Sunday Telegraph today.

He refers to Booker's piece last week ("Weather records are a state secret"), which reminded him of an incident in the 1970s when he was writing technical manuals for the Services.

If, as occasionally happened, writes Shaw, an author was refused some piece of information on security grounds, his colleagues would jocularly suggest that he ask either a defence journalist or the Russian Embassy.

One author, who had been asked to include in his manual a table showing the difference in barometric pressure at one foot intervals from sea level to over 100,000 feet, was apparently told that this was highly classified information which could be released only to someone with the appropriate level of security clearance.

He took the usual joke literally and rang the Russian Embassy which, to everyone's amazement, as it was during the Cold War, duly sent him the required details.

This also reminds me of a long-running controversy in the 70s about the number of incursions of Soviet aircraft into British airspace, testing our defences and reaction times. Flight magazine mounted a spirited campaign to obtain from the government details of the number of Soviet flights that had been intercepted by the RAF.

The government consistently refused to supply the information on the grounds of "national security", provoking an exasperated comment from Flight, that we "wouldn't want the Russians to know, would we?"

So it is today. Much of what the government withholds on the basis of "security grounds" is kept secret not for fear it might aid any putative enemy, but simply to keep its own citizens in the dark.

This I found when researching for Ministry of Defeat. Much of the information came not from official channels – or the British media – but from Arab "resistance" sites, which gave consistent and remarkably accurate information about the activities of British troops.

But then, there is that very funny episode in Yes Minister when Hacker wants to know what the Foreign Office is up to. He is advised to contact the Israeli embassy.

With Booker today recounting the bizarre tale of the MoD press officer suing the ministry for forcing him to tell lies, we have at least one consistent frame of reference to work from. If it comes from the lips of an "official spokesman", we can usually take the opposite for the truth.

COMMENT THREAD