The Armed Forces - a taskforce for a task force?

So the latest poll results give a clear indication of what you think our Prime Minister thinks of the Armed Forces

1. Lots came in at 17%
2. Not as much as they hate him romped home at 68%
3. Oh, he wishes they didn't have weapons came a weak third at 9%
4. I don't know but has he claimed them on expenses came in last at 4%. Presumably because he actually has already.

Earlier today, that vile beast Harriet Harman who knows as much about the Armed Forces as I do about the inner workings of the internal combustion engine decided to make a statement today on including the Armed Forces. According to the press release sent out yesterday:

The package of measures is:

• The establishment of an Employment and Skills Taskforce, chaired by Yvette Cooper, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, to support service families’ access to the same employment, further education and training opportunities as the civilian community.
  
• An Armed Forces Champion for each Jobcentre Plus district who will act as first point of contact for service families and keep up to date with local activities to support service families
  
• A further Government review of how well local authority plans on childcare reflect the needs of service families, and what good practice examples and problems there are around transport, and consider if additional guidance is necessary
  
• Government will review the guidance given to local authorities on school allocations policy to ensure it reflects the needs of service families
  

The Government will publish a report on this work early next year, focussing on practical steps which improve the lives of Service family members.

I'm sure they will, although it's not actually news because they have to according to the command paper which set out lots of lovely things like priority treatment for veterans which has been as successful as the British public's choice of government.

The only way they can think of solving this supposed crisis with the Armed Forces causing the government PR disasters is to give lots of non jobs to inexperienced, fat women who talk in irritating voices, patronise everything they come into contact be they animate or not, wear skirts made from hemp and studied something pointless at a former polytechnic.

The reason the Armed Forces has been such a PR disaster for the government is because the government has been such a disaster for the Armed Forces. One of their first actions was to close down tens of thousands of TA positions, the U turn in cutting £20 million of the TA budget was the SECOND line of cuts the TA has had to make despite it playing a significant part in the current conflict and they want to cut infantry numbers when what we need is more infantry in Ghanners for more patrols to limit the time the Taliban have to plant IEDs and enter communities and bribe and threaten villagers.

With the £20 million cut in TA funding they also pledged this little beauty for the young men fighting on the front line:

Single Living Accommodation: £14million savings will delay some planned upgrades for 2009, 436 will be delayed and 149 will not be completed this year.

So there's a big 'fuck you' to the young privates and lance jacks. Fuck off - we'll claim over twice that in our expenses whilst you live four to a room in a shit hole.

This is on top of the latest report from the National Audit Office which outlined more delays in the upgrading of married quarters when the previous report showed unacceptable delays nicely rounds off how completely out of touch this bunch of lunatics are:

The condition of Service Families Accommodation is variable: 57 per cent (28,300) are in the best state (condition 1), 33 per cent (16,600) in condition 2, and the remainder are in the worst two conditions (four per cent) or their condition is not recorded (six per cent). Condition 2 is a broad band; many houses within it are a good standard overall, but others have serviceable but outdated kitchens and bathrooms.
These figures are likely to change as a result of a recent comprehensive condition survey. When asked about the condition of their property, 52 per cent of families who responded to our survey rated it as good but 31 per cent said it was poor. The Department’s aspiration is to raise all its houses to condition 1 and it has a programme
to upgrade some 600 properties in 2008-09 to the top standard, with a further 800 a year thereafter. It prioritises work in order to balance a focus on the worst properties with delivering an efficient programme, and targets properties in areas with a long term future. The investment in upgrades has varied over the years. At current rates of progress, and against the previous stock condition data, it would be some 20 years before all properties are condition 1, assuming that funding beyond 2011-12 situated on Armed Forces bases or within the community.

How, Harriet and Bob, with your multiple tax payer funded and furnished homes, here's a fucking thought. How about you stop wasting our time and our money with your 'community outreach programmes' because life within the forces is very inclusive. How about you stop highlighting how you know fuck all and do something about very basic things which are your responsibility. Decent housing, stopping children going to the bottom of the waiting list if their parents move bases, more helicopters and greater troop numbers. You are already so shit that you assist a charity in doing the work that you should be doing, to the detriment of other military charities who have for years plugged the gap in your failing authoritarian state. Not that I don't agree with charities but I do object to them having to fill in such gaping holes when the government already steals so much of our monthly pay cheque.

I simply cannot wait until you leave office and I sincerely hope you lose your seats. You are an embarrassment to this country and you are a danger to our liberty and well being. Go. Leave. You are not just a liability you are downright dangerous.