INSIDE A PRIVILEGED PLATO’S CAVE...

On Tuesday (16^th April), Prime Minister David Cameron admitted to the Today programme that he did not remember much of the 1979 election which brought Thatcher to power. I remember the run up to the 1979 election quite clearly and Election Day with it. Initially I thought this rather odd that Cameron had no recollection of 1979, but, of course he was cocooned from the grim realities of Mrs T and the consequences for what she (and the motley crew of supporters who stood shielded behind her) did as he was no doubt living at the time in a privileged version of Plato's cave.

He went on to say that his earliest memories of Mr’s T were defending the Falkland Islands - a "brave and resolute thing". Fair enough, but, this conveniently overlooks the fact that it was cuts to the Royal Navy pushed through by her government that effectively gave the green light or at least sent the wrong messages to the brutal shambolic military dictatorship then ruling the roost in Argentina.  Cameron went on to say that Mrs T was on the right side of the big arguments, a great moderniser and an extraordinary leader - all pretty subjective concepts to start with. 

The consequences of the clash between dead from the neck up dinosaur like and mostly undemocratic Trade Union leaders and Mr’s T hit home hard and fast in my home as the steel strike and its consequences were played out with redundancy. What followed later after the miners’ strike was years of rundown and neglect which ravaged our valley communities – something which explains why patches of the Valleys and West Wales are still blighted with poverty and unemployment.  

For DC and significant numbers of people on the other side of the Severn Bridge the 1980’s were very different experience, they were certainly pretty grim here. Manufacturing locally was weakened, but, the real damage was done in the early 1990’s as John Major tried to cash in on the peace dividend following the end of the Cold War, I know because | was trying to get a job (with no success) at the time with firm after firm in South Gwent and across the bridge in Bristol. In the end, I ended up going to London for work.

Some twenty years down the line I still struggle to find any degree of impartiality when it comes not towards Mrs T but towards the things that were done in her name. I suspect that across large sections of the UK certainly outside or much of London and the south east many people who saw the scale (and cost) of the funeral will have thought that it was way over the top, especially in times of austerity.

If nothing else this whole episode should reveal how utterly cut off and remote from the lives and experiences of many people in Wales, Scotland and the North and West of England, that David Cameron actually is. Certainly the decision to go full on and formal on a state funeral for Mrs T which was not doubt made long ago will have blown away the tattered remnants of Cameron’s green and caring Conservatism. 

ACTION THIS DAY

David Cameron's public commitment to enshrining the military covenant in law is welcome, but, based upon the past record of various Conservative and New Labour Governments towards treating our service personnel and their families, before, during and after their service, I and no doubt more than a few others will believe his party's commitment when I actually see it happen and the bill becomes law.

Let's not forget that successive Conservative and Labour governments have treated our servicemen and their families with contempt, no wonder some people believe that it no longer matters which of the two larger party's is in government, as our servicemen will be treated with contempt. in recent years our service personnel have literally been forced to buy their own kit and treated to a total lack of interest.

Elfyn Llwyd MP

Yet time and time again it is our servicemen that will be called on to step in to pull the fat from the fire whether it is dealing with the consequences of strikes, disasters, the saving lives at sea, foot and mouth and almost everything else as an when necessary. Plaid Cymru’s Westminster leader Elfyn Llwyd MP has repeatedly challenged the UK Government over its commitment to the military covenant, arguing that veterans have been completely left off the Armed Forces Bill currently passing through the Commons.

It's worth remembering that it was a Conservative Government that chose to privatise military housing. This crazy decision was a combination of ideological driven idiocy and exceptionally poor financial management /judgement as a result of dodgy decisions made during the dying days of John Major's Conservative Government came back to haunt Gordon Brown's New Labour Government during its dying days.

New Labour Ministers were blamed for allowing thousands of soldiers' homes to fall into ruin and disrepair after they were sold to the private sector in a £1.6 billion deal. Some 57,600 homes from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) were sold to City Financiers and then rent them back to troops for a profit.

The terms of the deal, made in 1996 meant that the MoD remained responsible for the properties' upkeep and claimed that the extra cash from the deal would provide badly needed funds to help refurbish them. However, the truth was a tad different, as it emerged that the Westminster Government diverted most of the money elsewhere.

The deal resulted in the payment of a tidy £1.67 billion to the Treasury for the homes, a profit share of £156m on the sale of surplus properties, yet many are dilapidated and unfit to live in. New figures reveal that the MoD has spent as little as £4.4m a year on maintenance and refurbishment. The Sunday Times revealed details of just how little the government has spent on the properties in 2010 reporting that General Sir David Richards, the head of the army, was concerned that many troops felt undervalued because of cuts to housing and shortages in other areas.

By the mid-1990s, military housing around the country was in need of tens of millions of pounds worth of repairs. John Major's Conservative administration agreed to sell off the Military housing stock to the highest bidder, partly to raise funds for a refurbishment programme. The deal was put together in November 1996 with the government being paid for the homes, which would then be rented to troops and their families at below market rates.

Surplus properties would be sold off with a percentage of the profits going to the Treasury. The consortium that acquired the military housing stock made more than £479m in profits from its investment vehicle (Annington Homes) and became one of the UK's largest owners of private residential property.Now this was all fine in theory, as the soldiers and their families should have benefited from the deal with hundreds of millions of pounds pouring into the Treasury.

The Sunday Times revealed that New Labour ministers ensured that only a fraction of that sums raised be spent on the housing stock that had generated the windfall. Annual expenditure revealed in a parliamentary answer) on maintenance and upgrade was revealed to have ranged from £4.4m to £13.9m between 2003 and 2008. New Labour Ministers got very defensive and insisted that they will produce extra funds to help improve the quality of the homes and pointed out that more than £27m was spent in the financial year 09/10.

So what we ended up with was an unholy mess which was a direct result of decisions made by the previous Conservative Government and by successive New Labour Governments that resulted in army families living in substandard military accommodation while some of whose loved ones served overseas - so much for the military covenant. The poor maintenance record pre-dated privatisation of the military housing stock was a reality well prior to 1996.

The Conservative Government in 1996/97 effectively washed its hands of a long standing problem, by selling off the military housing stock to the highest bidder in what can best be described a questionable deal which shifted responsibility onto someone else so that ministers who could not be held accountable and subsequent New Labour Governments failed miserably, to ensure that repair, updates and maintenance was being carried out.

A bad situation was then made worse by successive New Labour government's which failed to carry out basic repair and maintenance, they slashed the defence budget from which money for the maintenance of MOD property is provided. One wonders on what the £1.67 billion received was spent on and whether the then Chancellor Gordon Brown was ever aware of what was going on?

The current Con Dem government has spent most of the last year since it's emergence burying its head in the sand and perhaps hoping that the problem will go away - well it won't and it needs fixing, so get it done and no more weasel words.

NO FLY?

David Cameron, the Con Dem PM, says that Britain is working with its allies on a plan to establish a military no-fly zone over Libya, because of the threat of  "further appalling steps" being taken by Col Muammar Gaddafi to oppress his own people. This seems a sensible solution (but for historical reasons without US involvement if possible), which is one step away from having to put boots on the ground and direct military intervention.

Perhaps Western leaders may have finally learned the lesson that its relatively easy to commit troops on the ground, but, a much more difficult and often costly in human terms to get them back out again. By way of coincidence Cameron's predecessor Conservative PM John Major went along with the establishment of 'No
Fly' zones in Iraq in 1990 / 1991.

Lets hope that this solution is decidedly more effective than the farcical and selectively effective 'no fly zones' that were established to protect the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs from Saddam. This time lets make sure that ground attack helicopters are covered by the 'no fly' rules - they weren't last time. At least for the Libyans (unlike the Kurds) they will not be periodically subjected to ground attack by Turkish planes operating from the same airfields as the NATO aircraft that were protecting the Kurds from Iraqi attacks.

Heaven forbid that the Libyan crisis drags on and Gaddafi ends up clinging to power (in and around Tripoli) for that will mean that there will be an arms embargo which would harm any prospects of an outright opposition success as with Bosnia. I mean like Gaddafi does not have enough stock piled already, no doubt previously sold to him at cost by British Arms dealers (under New Labour and the Con Dems)...oops...

MAKING THE BEST OF IT

It's interesting that David Cameron, has said that Egypt has had a "precious moment of opportunity" to move towards "civilian and democratic rule". Obviously trying to make the best out of the situation, Mr Cameron makes these comments following the resignation of Hosni Mubarak as Egypt's president after 18 days of continuous and largely peaceful (at least on the part of the anti-Mubarak demonstrators) protest. Mr Cameron goes on to say that the UK was a friend of Egypt and stood ready to "help in any way that we can". I wonder how that squares with thirty years of warm support for Mubarak when it comes to repressing the Egyptian people? Mubarak was as much a favoured son of the West as much as Saddam Hussein, oh how the time change. Former New Labour PM, Tony Blair, described Mubarak as "immensely courageous and a force for good" (2nd February 2011), previous British Prime Ministers and other Western Leaders have been equally gushing over the years, quietly brushing the Human Rights violations under the carpet, so to speak, when it comes to supporting Mubark. Lets hope that the Egyptian people have short memories...and don't ask awkward questions about the UK's relationship with Mubarak, especially if Cameron goes to visit.

LETTING THE PASSENGERS TAKE THE STRAIN

News that overcrowding on trains in England and Wales will get substantially worse over the next four years despite rises in ticket prices should come as no surprise to passengers. The House of Commons's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has noted that the Department for Transports own plans for suggested targets for increasing passenger places would be missed.

The PAC blames the failure on the absence of any requirement to improve capacity within train operators' contracts. The Con Dem government has said plans to improve the situation would be unveiled soon. However, consider that the Conservatives privatised the railways in the first place, it might be best not to have any great expectations on any firm hand being taken with the privatised rail companies. It's also worth remembering that New Labour actually said when they came to office that if the railways had not been privatised then they would have privatised them themselves.

Westminster MPs have expressed their concern about that the "already unacceptable levels of overcrowding will simply get worse and ever more intolerable". Public Accounts Committee - Fifth Report - Increasing Passenger Rail Capacity - makes interesting reading notes that the fundamental problem was a lack of any real incentive for the industry to supply extra capacity without additional taxpayer support.

Basically the current franchise agreements, train operators are required to make "reasonable endeavours" to give peak passengers "a reasonable expectation of a seat within 20 minutes of boarding", but there is no legal burden upon them to expand fleets or improve stations to achieve this.

So what this means is that it has fallen to the taxpayer to provide funds to Network Rail to carry out any upgrade work And that the franchise agreements are merely allow the privatised rail companies to milk their franchises for all they are worth at our expense. This is somewhat ironic because as a result of the economic downturn, the Association of Train Operating Companies actually expects demand for rail travel to grow by around a quarter over the next five years. So the long suffering rail passengers will get a double whammy - having to pay more to be less comfortable.

And this after 13 years of New Labour Government - what a mess!

A PRIVATISATION TOO FAR?

A combination of ideology driven idiocy and exceptionally poor financial management /judgement (take your pick?) as a result of dodgy decisions made during the dying days of John Major's Conservative Government may well be coming back to haunt Gordon Brown's New Labour Government during its dying days. New Labour Ministers are being blamed for allowing thousands of soldiers' homes to fall into ruin and disrepair after they were sold to the private sector in a £1.6 billion deal.

Some 57,600 homes from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) were sold to City Financiers and then rent them back to troops for a profit. The terms of the deal, made in 1996 meant that the MoD remained responsible for the properties' upkeep and claimed that the extra cash from the deal would provide badly needed funds to help refurbish them. However, it has since emerged that the Westminster Government diverted most of the money elsewhere.

The deal has resulted in the payment of a tidy £1.67 billion to the Treasury for the homes, a profit share of £156m on the sale of surplus properties, yet many are dilapidated and unfit to live in. New figures reveal that the MoD has spent as little as £4.4m a year on maintenance and refurbishment. The Sunday Times revealed details of just how little the government has spent on the properties last week reporting that General Sir David Richards, the head of the army, was concerned that many troops felt undervalued because of cuts to housing and shortages in other areas.

By the mid-1990s, military housing around the country was in need of tens of millions of pounds worth of repairs. John Major's Conservative administration agreed to sell off the Military housing stock to the highest bidder, partly to raise funds for a refurbishment programme. The deal was put together in November 1996 with the government being paid for the homes, which would then be rented to troops and their families at below market rates. Surplus properties would be sold off with a percentage of the profits going to the Treasury. The consortium that acquired the military housing stock made more than £479m in profits from its investment vehicle (Annington Homes) and became one of the UK's largest owners of private residential property.

Now this was all fine in theory, as the soldiers and their families should have benefited from the deal with hundreds of millions of pounds pouring into the Treasury. However, the Sunday Times revealed that New Labour ministers ensured that only a fraction of that sums raised be spent on the housing stock that had generated the windfall. Annual expenditure revealed in a parliamentary answer) on maintenance and upgrade was revealed to have ranged from £4.4m to £13.9m between 2003 and 2008. New Labour Ministers have insisted that they will produce extra funds to help improve the quality of the homes and have pointed out that more than £27m was spent in the last financial year.

So what we have now as a result of decisions made by the previous Conservative Government and by successive New Labour Governments is army families living in substandard military accommodation some of whose loved ones are serving overseas - so much for the military covenant. The poor maintenance record predated privatisation of the military housing stock was a reality well prior to 1996. The Conservative Government then effectively washed its hands of a long standing problem, by selling off the military housing stock to the highest bidder in what can best be described a questionable deal which shifted responsibility onto someone else so that ministers who could not be held accountable and subsequent New Labour Governments failed miserably, to ensure that repair and maintenance was being carried out.

A bad situation was then made worse by successive New Labour government's failed to carry out basic repair and maintenance, they slashed the defence budget from which money for the maintenance of MOD property is provided. One wonders on what the £1.67 billion received was spent on and whether the then Chancellor Gordon Brown was ever aware of what was going on?

Successive Conservative and New labour Governments have treated our servicemen and their families with contempt, no wonder some people believe that it no longer matters which of the two larger party's is in government, as our servicemen will be treated with contempt, forced to buy their own kit and treated to a total lack of interest and yet time and time again it is our servicemen that will be called on to step in to pull the fat from the fire whether it is dealing with the consequences of strikes, disasters, the saving lives at sea, foot and mouth and almost everything else as an when necessary.