Monday, March 23, 2009

Spot the Difference

Last Thursday I posted the following:
According to the Ministry of Defence, between 2007 and 2009 it spent £85 million on using private charter flights to transport armed forces personnel to and from operations.

Question: What's wrong with a Hercules?
Yesterday, the News of the World 'Snitch' column closed with the following:

I believe the phrase "thieving lazy hack bastards" springs to mind.

15 comments:

Obnoxio The Clown said...

You are Guido Fawkes and I claim my five pounds. :o)

Anonymous said...

Typical! If the situation had been reversed, and you copied their story, you can bet your bottom dollar that they would try and do you for plagarism/copyright breach.

Go get'em dizzy!

Unsworth said...

News of the World has always been a work of fiction and plagiarism.

Demetrius said...

Whilst all you blogging types were inspecting each others navels, other things were happening.

At the Palace of Westminster on Wednesday Global Witness gave a session for members chaired by Vince Cable and Denis McShane on their latest major report "Undue Diligence" relating to How Banks Do Business With Corrupt Regimes, that contains a lot of detail, it makes worrying reading.
http://www.globalwitness.org/media_library_detail.php/735/en/undue_diligence_how_banks_do_business_with_corrupt

On the same day the OECD went online with the responses to their October 2008 discussion document on High Net Worth Individuals and tax havens. This was the subject of a conference in Washington DC on 9th February, that was open to companies and organisations only. You will see from the listing that all the usual suspects were involved, and I suspect not exactly in the role of penitents. There were a few others, but not many, and not enough.

http://www.oecd.org/document/35/0,3343,en_2649_33749_42376483_1_1_1_1,00.html

These two events together with the imminent G20 meeting might explain the sudden need for our Prime Minister and Chancellor Of The Exchequer to do some serious posturing on the subject of tax havens, of course, only going as far as encouraging them voluntarily, and without the need for outside regulation, to clean up their acts.

Houdini said...

The MOD has always used private charter planes. Britannia Airways only existed because of MOD contracts.

I'm willing to bet the fuckers have never spent a few hours on a hercy bird; it's not really fun when it's just transporting a long haul.

Anonymous said...

Immitation being the most sincere form of flattery. But press for a by-line.

That or the hacks at the Screws are only capable of cut-and-paste journalism.

Oldrightie said...

That or the hacks at the Screws are only capable of cut-and-paste journalism.

I wouldn't describe shagging as cut and paste.

Guido Fawkes said...

Send them an invoice.

James said...

Come on Dizzy, whilst the £85m seems a tad steep, there are plenty of scenarios where it doesnt make economic/practical sense to use military aircraft.

However, the hire car allowances the forces use are a different thing all together.

Anonymous said...

Snitch by name, Snitch by nature!

jailhouselawyer said...

C'mon Dizzy, the reports are not the same. The NOW used the word "small" before the word "question" and in your report you did not...

Nice things come in small packages.

Anonymous said...

Interesting to know whether you've ever done a long distance flight in a Hercules, pissing into a tin can behind a shower curtain?

Sadly it's not really the case that we've got thousands of the things, along with Tristars and VC10s galore, just sitting on the line at Brize Norton while the lads and lasses swan around the world in BA Club Class.

Perhaps the transport fleet is on the bones of its arse supporting 2 theatres thousands of miles from the UK and chartering aircraft is a pragmatic solution?

Anonymous said...

I'll tell you what's wrong with a Herc. No pressurised cabin so it's fecking freezing in the back.

Anonymous said...

As some posters have suggested, there simply aren't enough transport aircraft in the RAF to supply a war on two fronts.

The shortage of working Hercs is so acute that elementary parachute training is being stopped for the Parachute Regiment. The SAS now depend on the US Army for their advanced parachute training.

Oh - and due to the absence of basic protective measures, RAF Hercs have a nasty habit of exploding if they're hit by anything harder than a seagull. You really don't want to be in the back of one if you can avoid it.

Anonymous said...

Whinge as much as you like - since 'Flat Earth News' came out, some journos will have been using it as a training manual, and not a dire warning about what is happening to journalistic standards...