drat01 Posted March 17, 2010 Share Posted March 17, 2010 no it isn't and you are missing the point (and Chindie at this present time it seems) Browns WHOLE evidence at Chilcott was based around him saying that military funding had increased in every year since 1997 so his entire evidence was based on a lie .. have a watch of PMQT today notice how Browns usual smug grin has gone ..notice the humiliation in his face , notice his voice wobble ..he got caught lying and he knows it Wrong again Tony. You started off by saying that Brown had lied - and the definition of a lie is far from what we are seeing today. The statement about continued growth in investment is a fact, the point raised and corrected today was that for a couple of years there was not a increase but the total increase for the duration of the conflict - again the basis of the initial statement is still very very true. As for smug grins what a silly comment. I can just imagine the uproar you would have made if he had started sniggering at PMQ's - political mileage being made for other purposes by those who crave power - now that is a fact! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted March 17, 2010 Author Share Posted March 17, 2010 Snowy great selective quoting and why the comrade comment ? 'Selective' quoting? :? I was quoting the part to which I wanted to refer (i.e. that it is only Tories - blue ones - that think that strikes are deplorable). The comrade comment? It was questioning how good a comrade Gordo actually is (I would suggest that he isn't). Yes the strike is deplorable Is it? Why? EDIT Snowy's selective quoting missed out "Typical Tory coming out and now its good to see that a vote for them would be a return to the Thatcher days of "crush the workers" which has a totally different context. Hmm maybe using Tony's rule I can now say that Snowy did that on purpose? :-) Well, if you want to go down that road then I'd ask why you think it would be a 'return' to that kind of industrial relations context? Especially bearing in mind we've had a number of government ministers in the last year condemning, outright, workers who dare to go on strike (BA and postal workers to name two groups)? My point - which you failed to even try to see - is that it is slightly bizarre to have someone who so obviously supports this Labour administration condemning the opposition for holding the same position as the Labour administration (i.e. that striking is bad, deplorable and unnacceptable), a position which I most definitely do not hold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drat01 Posted March 17, 2010 Share Posted March 17, 2010 As someone who works in the travel industry and who deals with BA the Unions don't really have a leg to stand on. In a recession they aren't willing to tighten their belts and it doesn't help when the person in charge of cutting costs etc is an idiot, because it gives Unite a bit more weight. If they keep striking BA will go bust then they will be all out of a job. considering BA advertised a position for 1 cabin crew place and got 900 applicants, I think the workforce need to be very careful what action they take. Sorry if I beg to differ with your view. BA has gone from one of the best to possibly one of the wort run airlines all under the leadership of that shite clearing in the woods Walsh. It's noticeable that the Tory party will not condemn him, this despite his appalling record as the leader of BA. The Unions have offered various alternatives - many acknowledged as being fair and reasonable - but Walsh is on a "bash the unions" tirade. Your comments are those of the Tory party KL, in that people should be thankful they have a job etc etc and in so doing should give up their rights. There are a lot better airlines than BA - I should know I use many of them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drat01 Posted March 17, 2010 Share Posted March 17, 2010 EDIT: Nah I promised myself not to play the silly games of a certain few that I thought had gone from VT - I will leave it to the others Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidlewis Posted March 17, 2010 Share Posted March 17, 2010 As someone who works in the travel industry and who deals with BA the Unions don't really have a leg to stand on. In a recession they aren't willing to tighten their belts and it doesn't help when the person in charge of cutting costs etc is an idiot, because it gives Unite a bit more weight. If they keep striking BA will go bust then they will be all out of a job. considering BA advertised a position for 1 cabin crew place and got 900 applicants, I think the workforce need to be very careful what action they take. Sorry if I beg to differ with your view. BA has gone from one of the best to possibly one of the wort run airlines all under the leadership of that shite clearing in the woods Walsh. It's noticeable that the Tory party will not condemn him, this despite his appalling record as the leader of BA. The Unions have offered various alternatives - many acknowledged as being fair and reasonable - but Walsh is on a "bash the unions" tirade. Your comments are those of the Tory party KL, in that people should be thankful they have a job etc etc and in so doing should give up their rights. There are a lot better airlines than BA - I should know I use many of them but Britain is a free market after all, and I am all for the workers protecting their rights, but from what is being presented to us as the changes that BA are wanting to (and will) impose, is not that drastic. It's not like they are cutting half the workforce or reducing their wages by 15%. In the travel industry on their pay, they should be bloody masturbating because I have do doubt that another 1 airline (if we are lucky) based in the UK will go under in 12 months, so there will be even more people hovering around BA just waiting for a position to come available. It's inevitable that airlines need to tighten their belts and cut costs. Virgin have already shed about 650 jobs in the past 12 months and no one picked up on that did they? BA gets blown out of proportion on all sides because it's meant to be our flag carrier. I happily admit Walsh is largely to blame and a cretin and has helped bring down a burning bridge (BA) but you do have to wonder why Gordon Union Brown isn't supporting Unites cause. Hypothetically if BA got rid of 1000 cabin crew they would fill those positions in less than a month of already qualified cabin crew. Obviously they can't but if they did they would hardly have to wait a heart beat before their HR team died of suffocation of the CVs that would come special delivery through Royal Mail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted March 17, 2010 Share Posted March 17, 2010 . BA has gone from one of the best to possibly one of the wort run airlines all under the leadership of that shite clearing in the woods Walsh ...There are a lot better airlines than BA - I should know I use many of them but that is just your opinion .. on another thread lots of people raved about Beardy airlines who i personally thought were awful and i refuse to fly with .. I and i'm sure many others still think BA are a good airline .. sometimes you have a tendency to confuse your view as fact but as you didn't finish your post with "End Of" i'm afraid Internet rules apply :-) my only grip with BA would be that they don't send cars to collect you as other airlines do but hey ho it's not the end of the world Wrong again Tony. You started off by saying that Brown had lied and i'm still saying he lied as I have done all the way through .. Brown has a history of lying hence why we all know he lied this time .. **** me he's a politician of course he lied , but he committed the cardinal sin and got caught .. amateurish mistake for a politician to make yet alone a PM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted March 17, 2010 Moderator Share Posted March 17, 2010 On the Brown lying thing, personally I would expect a person appearing in front of an inquiry to have done some ground work in terms of checking various areas he might be asked about. As Chancellor and the man responsible for the allocation of money to the defence budget each year, I'd expect him to know if it went up or down. I think he shouldn't have said what he did - he either lied, or he said something he hadn't checked was true in the hope it was, or at least wouldn't be checked up on, or he has no grasp of detail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drat01 Posted March 17, 2010 Share Posted March 17, 2010 I and i'm sure many others still think BA are a good airline .. sometimes you have a tendency to confuse your view as fact but as you didn't finish your post with "End Of" i'm afraid Internet rules apply Walsh joins BA at the end of 2005 The Top 10 airlines in the world study by Skytrax always had BA in the top - hence the slogan the worlds favourite airline. Since Walsh and his influence they have dropped like a stone so much so that for the past couple of years they have not even featured in the top 10 being swept aside by better run organizations. Add to that his mess re T5, his abandonment of the rest of the UK other than London (and the cheek to claim to fly the flag) - sorry that those are facts Tony are your are opinions but hey ho 2006 Number 1 2007 Number 10 2008 outside top 10 2009 outside top 10 2010 outside top 10 ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LondonLax Posted March 17, 2010 Share Posted March 17, 2010 BA was always going to struggle though because they pay one of the highest wages of any airline and they have enormous pensions for their employees (by industry standards). With the rise of the budget airline the model was looking shaky and with the financial crash the pension plans are now unsustainable. Although I think BA's model was always going to struggle, Walsh seems to have made things worse by being belligerent with the union.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted March 17, 2010 Share Posted March 17, 2010 but I didn't claim my opinions to be fact .. there is a big difference .. and even with your Skytrax ratings BA still had 2009 : Best Transatlantic Airline: British Airways Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted March 17, 2010 Author Share Posted March 17, 2010 the changes that BA are wanting to (and will) impose That is part of the problem with employer/employee relations. Employers seek to impose conditions and workers' actions are condemned as 'deplorable' if they seek to demonstrate that they are unhappy with those conditions and the imposition of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted March 17, 2010 Share Posted March 17, 2010 "Lord Adonis". Snigger. I see your snigger, and I raise you a guffaw. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidlewis Posted March 17, 2010 Share Posted March 17, 2010 BA was always going to struggle though because they pay one of the highest wages of any airline and they have enormous pensions for their employees (by industry standards). With the rise of the budget airline the model was looking shaky and with the financial crash the pension plans are now unsustainable. Although I think BA's model was always going to struggle, Walsh seems to have made things worse by being belligerent with the union.. You also need to take into account the Middle Eastern and Asian airlines which have had huge sums of money thrown into them as well, some by state cash and some by other means. I bet you if you look at the top 10 now I bet you most of them are from Asia. But they are also pretty expensive too and obviously don't pay any of their staff anywhere near the likes of BA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidlewis Posted March 17, 2010 Share Posted March 17, 2010 in regards to the Chilcot enquiry, he could have gone in dressed as Mario and say 'oh noes I gotta savea tha princess' run around a bit and walk out, because after all the chilcot is like a lout fart that doesn't smell, all show with no substance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LondonLax Posted March 17, 2010 Share Posted March 17, 2010 At least Mr Brown has now come out and admitted what he said at the enquiry was not true. Gordon Brown admits evidence at Iraq inquiry was wrong Gordon Brown has been forced into a humiliating retreat in his battle against the retired generals who accuse him of giving disingenuous evidence on military funding to the Iraq inquiry. The Prime Minister told the House of Commons that he now accepted that his evidence had been wrong. He admitted that defence spending “did not rise in real terms” in every year under the Labour government and said he had written to Sir John Chilcot to clarify his mistake. “I do accept that in one or two years defence expenditure did not rise in real terms,” Mr Brown told MPs at Prime Minister's Questions. In fact, it fell in three separate years, according to figures compiled by the House of Commons library — four years if 1997/98 is included, although the financial year had already started when Labour came to power. Throughout his testimony before inquiry, Mr Brown repeatedly insisted that military spending had increased in every year since 1997 and claimed that all urgent operational requests were met immediately. His claims were greeted by incredulity amongst ex-servicemen including General Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, the former Chief of Defence Staff and Admiral Lord Boyce, the former defence chief. They accused him of giving deliberately misleading evidence to the inquiry. Mr Brown's admission follows the publication of figures in the Commons Library that directly contradict his claims. Mr Brown admitted that his evidence was incorrect in a response to Tony Baldry, the Conservative MP for Banbury. “Yes. I am already writing to Sir John Chilcot about this issue,” he told the House. David Cameron congratulated Mr Baldry for extracting an admission from Mr Brown. "In three years of asking the Prime Minister Questions I don't think I've ever heard him making a correction or retraction,” he said. “Perhaps, on the day when he has to admit that he can't get his own figures right we shouldn't have to put up with him talking about Conservative policy." Former military commanders had accused Mr Brown of misleading the inquiry when he appeared to blame the military for failing to equip the Armed Forces properly. Admiral Lord Boyce said: “He’s dissembling, he’s being disingenuous. It’s just not the case that the Ministry of Defence was given everything it needed.” As the bitter row over equipment and funding escalated, Labour backbenchers appeared to suggest that remarks by retired military officials criticising Mr Brown were motivated by party political affiliations. Asked how Mr Brown, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer for a decade, could have got the figures wrong, his spokesman said today: “Budgets are pretty complex. “One has to accept that the broad direction and the increase in defence spending has been absolutely clear and significant over the last 13 years.” The spokesman insisted that Mr Brown had “taken the first opportunity” to tell MPs about his mistake - but repeatedly refused to say when the PM first became aware of it. He had not done so at Prime Minister's Questions last week because he was not asked “the kind of direct question” posed today by Mr Baldry, he explained. “I don’t think the Prime Minister has ever had anything to hide on this.” A research note prepared by the House of Commons Library in October last year showed defence expenditure had fallen in real terms in four financial years since Labour came to power in 1997: 1997/98 (-2.2 per cent); 1999/2000 (-0.4 per cent); 2004/5 (-0.7 per cent); and 2006/7 (-0.1 per cent). The average annual increase between 1997 and 2009 was 2.7 per cent, it said, but noted that “this figure is likely to have been distorted by current operations”. Liam Fox, the Shadow Defence Secretary, said the Prime Minister had repeatedly mislead Parliament over the issue. “This is a humiliating climbdown for Gordon Brown as his attempt to rewrite history has failed and his fantasy figures have been exposed. “He has made repeated and fundamentally false claims, misleading Parliament, the public and, worst of all, the armed forces and their families. “I was pleased that Sir John Chilcot did not rule out calling Gordon Brown back in front of the Iraq Inquiry and it is now crystal clear that the Prime Minister has some serious explaining to do.” It would have been better if he had been truthful from the start though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LondonLax Posted March 17, 2010 Share Posted March 17, 2010 BA was always going to struggle though because they pay one of the highest wages of any airline and they have enormous pensions for their employees (by industry standards). With the rise of the budget airline the model was looking shaky and with the financial crash the pension plans are now unsustainable. Although I think BA's model was always going to struggle, Walsh seems to have made things worse by being belligerent with the union.. You also need to take into account the Middle Eastern and Asian airlines which have had huge sums of money thrown into them as well, some by state cash and some by other means. I bet you if you look at the top 10 now I bet you most of them are from Asia. But they are also pretty expensive too and obviously don't pay any of their staff anywhere near the likes of BA. Yes, i suppose it's no different to the football world. Without a suger daddy you have to operate within your means. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awol Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 The Generals were telling the truth, Brown was not and now he's been caught and forced to admit it. I certainly don't accept this was an innocent mistake given the extensive rehersals prior to appearing that the senior players have been through. Of course over the period 1997 to 2009 defence spending has risen in real terms, the Government have after all committed the UK to four wars during that period so it would be impossible not to have spent more to cover that. This issue is whether enough was put in to ensure sufficient resources were available to carry out those commitments, the answer to which is no. That's why we don't have enough helicopters in Afghanistan; why so many have subsequently been killed in unsuitable vehicles (not just landrovers either); why even now there are insufficient mine detectors when the main killer of troops is IED's; why training is being cut to the bone and men are deploying to theatre and learning how to use some of the kit 'on the job'. That this, in some cases, has had fatal consequences is beyond question. Brown has deliberately underfunded the Armed Forces despite being central to the Government that has sent them to fight, and that is shameful. I hope Chilcot has the balls to call him back in for a second interview, without coffee. EDIT: From today's Times: Mr Brown wrote to Sir John yesterday, saying that he wished to provide the inquiry with “further detail” about defence spending. The letter did not include any apology or regret for the evidence he gave this month. Asked how a former Chancellor could get his figures wrong, Mr Brown’s spokesman said: “Budgets are pretty complex. This is one of the biggest budgets, if not the biggest budget, in the UK Government.” One of the biggest budgets, eh? Last year Government spent the following: Healthcare £118.7bn Welfare £105.1bn Education £ 84.0bn Defence £ 43.6bn Even now they are either still lying, or so economically illiterate that it's no surprise we're in such a financial mess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiganvillain Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 TonyH29 said, **** me he's a politician of course he lied Something I'm certain we can all agree on Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awol Posted June 30, 2010 Share Posted June 30, 2010 Draft legal advice issued by the Attorney General on 30th of July 2002 has been released by Chilcot. In summary: without a further SC resolution the invasion of Iraq was totally illegal. Blair's invitation to a war crimes trial Can't wait for the Campbellised version to be released, should make an interesting comparison. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drat01 Posted June 30, 2010 Share Posted June 30, 2010 Jon funny how only you have come to that conclusion None of the media outlets report it in the same way as you are stating - why is that? Are they all not in possession of the same facts as you? As for a war crimes trial? - you really are desperate aren't you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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