EU Referendum

Showing posts with label Thomas Harding. Show all posts

AIR+-+Tristar+001[i-AIR+-+Tristar+001]There is something especially loathsome about the style of reporting which we see all too often today, the type that has that idiot Thomas Harding reporting, "The Daily Telegraph can reveal…", a style that he is rather too fond of using.

In his self-important way, Harding claims to reveal this time that, "Ageing planes force MoD to pay for civilian troop transporters". But this blog can reveal that the source of his stunning scoop is the answer to a Parliamentary Question published on 5 December.

There's Glory for you ... The Daily Telegraph can reveal that its reporter read a month-old Hansard extract.

And, as he did with his ammunition story, Harding gets it wrong, in this instance eliding details of two different issues to draw the wrong conclusions from them – the classic two plus two makes five.

The gist of the story is that since last April, the MoD has spent £11,303,000 on chartering aircraft to transport troops and sundry VIPs to unspecified destinations, information gleaned from the Parliamentary Question, asked by Gerald Howard, he of Pinzgauer fame.

But, from that slender piece of information – no doubt with the help of Gerald Howarth – the egregious Harding asserts that it is the "ageing fleet of RAF transport aircraft" that has forced the MoD to spend this money. He writes that,

With its 40-year-old Tristar and VC10 passenger aircraft in need of constant repair and a second front opening in Afghanistan, the RAF has turned to non-military airlines to help ferry troops to operational theatres.

adding ...

Frustration at Britain's vintage military transport fleet has sometimes led to near mutiny among soldiers who have been stranded for days while trying to get home on leave or at the end of a six-month tour.

This, actually, is because Gerald Howarth himself had a hard time of it when he visited Basra, but he (and Harding) has missed the point. Non military aircraft cannot deliver troops directly to operational areas because they are not fitted with the defence suites needed to fly in high-threat environments. But they are used routinely to ferry troops all over the world, and have done so since the dawn of time. It is often cheaper and more efficient to use charter companies, so there is no story, per se in the MoD incurring charter costs.

AIR+-+Tristar+002[i-AIR+-+Tristar+002]However, there is a shortage of suitably equipped RAF aircraft, something which the Sunday Telegraph noted back in May last year, but this is an entirely separate issue.

Thus, to put Harding's "revelations" in context, we look for confirmation that he is wrong. And we get that from a "military source in Basra", who says that, unless aircraft are fitted with specialist kit, "they will not be allowed into theatre because we will not put our guys into any danger". We are then told:

All flights into Basra are at night with a black-out inside the aircraft. Civilian planes cannot be used as special air defence measures are required for the hostile environment. The military has attempted to send troops from Basra on Hercules transporters to Qatar and then on charter flights home with Monarch Airlines but failed to get diplomatic clearance from the Arab Emirates.

The conduit of this fascinating information, readers will be interested to learn, is The Daily Telegraph on 7 October 2005. And the author of the piece - this blog can reveal - was, er... Thomas Harding.

Not for nothing does a contributor to a specialist forum suggest that The Daily Telegraph defence reporting "is widely seen as a joke".

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link[i-link]On the face of it, good stuff from The Telegraph today as it screams, "Cheap bullets put lives of paratroopers at risk".

The lives of paratroopers were put in danger after the MoD sent defective ammunition to Afghanistan, "it can be revealed", writes Thomas Harding, crying in aid an earlier piece in June, which complains about defence cuts – but does not mention ammunition.

In the current report, we are told that the situation became so serious that a platoon from the 3Bn the Parachute Regiment refused to go out on patrol until the problem was resolved. The troops had to borrow ammunition off Canadian and American special forces as they battled to fight off Taliban attacks.

Now, as we suggested – all good stuff, but after the event. It is nice cheap journalism, because all the newspaper does is print a story given to it on a plate.

But where was it, we might ask, when the issue of the closure of Royal Ordnance factories emerged? We reported on it here, here, here and here. Speaking to politicians at the time, they were in despair at the lack of interest shown by the media, so much so that in March 2006 we were commenting on an "unreported adjournment debate" on the issue.

We had other swipes at the MSM here and here and, while the Booker column supported us, the rest of the media went its own way, fuelled by its diet of trivia.

Basra24[i-Basra24]Nor indeed is the issue a new one. In July 2003, before this Blog was established, Bill Neely, the ITN embedded journalist with 42 Commando in Basra, told Parliament that 60,000 rounds of heavy ammunition failed at a crucial time.

It was not followed through, and none of the established media have explored how we have destroyed our own indigenous ammunition manufacture. There has been complete silence on the issue, which affects both security and quality. But now we get the cheap "quickie" story and the self-important "it can be revealed".

However, today, we can reveal that cheap journalism puts lives at risk.

COMMENT THREAD

JamieHancockPA[i-JamieHancockPA]Following on from the report on this blog of the death of the British soldier from the 2nd Battalion, Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, who died after an attack on the Old State Building in Basra, the soldier has been officially named as Kingsman Jamie Hancock, aged only 19 and on his first active tour.

Amongst others, that information found its way into The Daily Telegraph both online and print copy, with the by-line of James Burleigh, in what was almost a straight copy-out of the MoD press release.

The choice of Burleigh to front the piece is not particularly odd. As a journeyman hack, he turns his hand to a variety of stories and occasionally writes defence pieces. However, the Telegraph also got its defence correspondent, Thomas Harding, to write a piece on the death of Kingsman Hancock. And, while readers will be aware, I am no fan of Harding, it was actually highly informative.

Now what is really odd is that, not only did the piece not appear in the print edition, it appeared only very briefly on-line before disappearing and, currently, can no longer be found on the paper's own search engine. Under a subject search, it is the Burleigh piece that comes up.

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Double-click to enlarge[i-Double-click to enlarge]It is fascinating how the same set of data can elicit different responses. To The Scotsman, the key points are that Britain's armed forces are "intolerably" undermanned and overstretched, while the Conservative Party highlights that "huge manpower shortages" are undermining the capability of Britain's overstretched Armed Forces.

The Guardian, on the other hand, finds: "Armed forces not over-stretched", conveying a Press Association report that the government has "played down fears that the armed forces are under pressure" and said they were stretched but not "over-stretched".

Thomas Harding of The Daily Telegraph tells us that the armed forces are experiencing "a severe shortfall" of more than 5,000 troops. Personnel are citing "the impact constant operations have on family life as the main reason for leaving," he tells us. The BBC, though, sticks to a more neutral, "UK armed forces are understaffed," but also tells us that rising numbers of personnel are quitting early.

All these are points from today’s National Audit Office’s report on "Recruitment and Retention in the Armed Forces", which also says that the number of those leaving the Services early has increased slightly in the past two years, with 9,200 leaving last year before their period of engagement was up.

To this blog though, what is really interesting are the reasons why people left early. A survey of those about to leave showed that 70 percent were doing so because of the "inability to plan life outside work" and just over 40 percent cited “dissatisfaction with pay” while just short of 50 percent blamed the poor quality of equipment. Of all the fourteen factors, this was the sixth most frequently cited.

That singular fact though was one which neither The Independent nor the BBC could bring themselves to point out, one which was totally ignored by The Times as well, and scarce mentioned by the Conservatives.

Recently, the media was waxing indignant about troops working for less than the minimum wage but, at the time, I wrote:

Put it to the average soldier [as] to whether they would prefer a wage rise, or decent kit that might keep them alive, and I have no doubt where their choice would lie.

It now looks like this blog was more in touch with the situation than the MSM, in emphasising equipment defects – something which the bulk of the media, once again, seem to find it very difficult to focus on. Quite simply, when it comes to equipment, the media should hang its head in shame and admit, "Toys Яn't Us".

COMMENT THREAD

Harding[i-Harding]Take a very stupid man, dress him up in a blue flak jacket, and send him to Basra to work for The Daily Telegraph as its defence correspondent and you still have a very stupid man. All you are going to get out of him is very stupid journalism.

This particular piece by Thomas Harding is headed, "Southern Iraq approaches the tipping point" but today the Telegraph excels itself by adding another stupid piece written by this blog's favourite village idiot, none other than Boris Johnson. Between the pair of them, they typify all that is wrong with modern journalism and demonstrate why we are not going to sort ourselves out until morons like this are no longer given space to air their vacuous views.

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The ceremony at RAF Cottesmore to mark squadron service for the Eurofighter[i-The ceremony at RAF Cottesmore to mark squadron service for the Eurofighter]It seems that all you have to do is put a "defence correspondent" into the cockpit and give him a white-knuckle ride and he'll deliver a gushing, rave review of your latest toy.

That much is evident from the piece by Thomas Harding in The Telegraph today, to mark the introduction of the Eurofighter into squadron service.

Thus Harding starts, "To say that the RAF's new fighter accelerates faster than a Formula 1 car is to sell it very short indeed." Gushing onwards, he writes, "For the first 700ft of take-off, the comparison seems apt, but then 40,000lb of rear thrust put the aircraft into a vertical ascent that feels like being in the Space Shuttle and we soar from Earth to 12,000ft in four seconds flat."

At least the leader is a bit more sanguine, a critical piece headed "Fighter plain foolish".

"At least the wretched thing can get off the ground," it intones, "Six billion pounds over budget, and more than a decade late, the Eurofighter, or Typhoon, is finally operational."

It notes also that the MoD is mounting a propaganda offensive in favour of what is "surely the most expensive and least justified defence procurement decision in British history," recording that the MoD found itself caught in the age-old trap of the spending department: having already sunk gargantuan sums into the project, it could not bear to cancel it, and so had to keep signing the cheques. It continues:

The Typhoon was designed in the 1980s to defend West Germany against a massed attack by Soviet MiGs. A modern aircraft would have low technology requirements for spare parts, the capacity to operate from rough local airfields, long loiter-time and buddy refuelling. The Eurofighter has none of these things.

But rather than go back to first principles, designers kept trying to adapt an essentially unsuitable prototype, at one stage removing a cannon only to find that they had upset the aircraft's aerodynamics, and so having to substitute concrete.

Being a child of its time, the plane was to be built by a European consortium... Bear this sorry episode in mind the next time you hear it claimed that pan-European defence procurement will create economies of scale. And while the fingerprints of several defence ministers are on the murder weapon, it is appropriate that the guiltiest of them all should be the supreme apostle of the European grand projet, Michael Heseltine.

But, at a time when we have no new aircraft carriers, when regiments are being disbanded, when we are short of missiles, military computers, drones and satellites, the Typhoon is a disgraceful misallocation of resources.

For the Telegraph, this is a remarkably cogent analysis, and to get the true flavour of the MoD "spin" all you have to do is read the press release.

Coinciding with the RAF's 88th birthday, it styles the formation of the first operational squadron as a "birthday present" – for the RAF maybe, but not the taxpayer. But what price this claim?

This marks a key milestone in the transition of the Royal Air Force to a more agile, capable, flexible and adaptable expeditionary force, better equipped to meet the demands that are likely to be placed on it in the future.

The release then goes on to add:

This restructuring is essential and will ensure we continue to deliver a highly capable, cost-efficient and powerful Air Force, capable of making a winning contribution both on operations and in humanitarian and relief operations.

As the Telegraph remarks, this is a fast jet designed for the Cold War. It can only operate from fixed airfields, with a massive infrastructure and complex engineering support, with a huge logistic "tail". The last thing it is – or can be – is a weapon suited to expeditionary warfare. And one really does wonder how the Eurofighter will help in "humanitarian and relief operations".

At least the Telegraph leader did not fall for the "spin" but the worrying thing is that the MoD might actually believe the guff it has written. If that is the case, it's more than worrying – it's scary.

COMMENT THREAD

iran%20demo%202.1[i-iran%20demo%202.1]If you go over to the Telegraph website and look at their new venture into blogging, you will see them preening themselves about their "professionalism", as they pile in to grab their share of this new medium.

As I pointed out in my piece on the Charlie Wolf programme in the early hours of this morning, however, these are not real blogs. They are what I call "corporate blogs" – cautious, stultified and leaden.

I note, incidentally that they still call them "weblogs" while we real bloggers call them "blogs", a compression of the two words, "web" and "log". For these pretend, corporate blogs, I have even suggested a new name, based on a compression of those two words, making up the descriptor: "clogs".

What brings on this petulant rant, though, is my utter disgust at the Telegraph this morning, and its story headed Fury over Austrian 'super' rifles for Iranians. Reading it, you really have to question the news values of the newspaper. You can't call it "amateur" – that is unfair to amateurs. Certainly, it is unprofessional. Some might call it moronic.

Iran%20SteyrMann[i-Iran%20SteyrMann]In itself, you might think, it is a sound enough report, written by "defence correspondent" Thomas Harding. It describes how – as the headline indicates – the Americans and British are "furious with Austria" for supplying Iran with 800 HS50 Steyr-Mannlicher sniper rifles.

This is, in fact, quite an old story – it actually broke in late December, but the story now becomes news because Iran is in the headlines and – more importantly - in the Telegraph’s eyes, potentially, these rifles could be used against "our boys" in Iraq. The slant, therefore, is essentially tailored to domestic concerns, entirely reflecting The Business complaint about "Great Britain's increasingly parochial media and political establishment…".

Gauntlet%202[i-Gauntlet%202]But, what is especially infuriating is the last sentence of the article: "Iran is said to be re-arming after a £455 million deal with Russia for missiles and radar to ward off any air strikes on its nuclear facilities." That, would you believe, is the Telegraph’s first and only mention of the Russian deal to sell Iran SA-15 Gauntlet air defence missiles.

Now, it may be that I am going over the top in my concern for this development – and there has been a healthy debate to that effect in our forum, but none of our commentators will dispute that the issue is important. For the "professional" Telegraph, however, it is worth one line at the bottom of another story. That is a measure of how low the paper has sunk, and how desperately poorly we are now served by our media.

I should not, however, reserve my bile solely for the media. For a situation that represents one of the most egregious failures of the EU pretensions of having a foreign policy, and an utter, humiliating defeat for its concept of “soft power”, the Eurosceptic community has been remarkable quiet. No reference is made to the issue on the UKIP site, and there is no specific thread on the separate UKIP forum.

As for the Conservatives, the latest we get in on 11 January, with Cameron, predictably, calling on the prime minister "to maximise an international consensus for referring the case to the UN Security Council."

At least in The Telegraph we do get a halfway decent op-ed from Charles Moore, but if you want really informed commentary, you are not going to get it from the MSM or their oh so professional clogs.

COMMENT THREAD

badge[i-badge]Sometimes a coincidence happens which is too important to ignore. This is one of them.

On my desk for a few days now has been a copy of an article from the October edition of the RUSI (Royal United Services Institute) Journal, headed "Britain's Armed Forces Under Threat", with a strap line reading: "A journalist's lament" (online here, but subscription only).

The article is by Max Hastings, former editor of the Daily Telegraph, some time defence correspondent and one of the few military historians, in my opinion, who understands the technology of warfare and its role in shaping events.

Anyhow, Hastings is in "lament mode", concerned at the indifference of the media and the public in general – to say nothing of the politicians – about defence issues. He also echoes a refrain oft rehearsed by this Blog, the absence of an informed media debate on the Services, one reason for which, he believes, is unwillingness of serving officers to give private briefings to journalists. In that context, this section caught my eye:

In the absence of informed private briefing, media debate on the Services is conducted at the shallowest possible level. For instance, many perceive a strong case for the large regiments policy. However painful for those units affected, the single battalion structure seems doomed. Yet, in the absence of effective, top-level briefing, media coverage of this issue lapsed into a familiar howl of anguish about cap badges, which does no service to the real interests of the corps of infantry.

Lo and behold! What do we see in The Daily Telegraph today? An article, no less, headed "Dismay as regiments lose their historic cap badges".

Only passing references are made by the authors, Ausian Camb and the Telegraph’s excuse for a defence correspondent, Thomas Harding, to the changes that have given rise to the new regiments and the cap badge controversy.

The reforms have been implemented to allow soldiers' greater career choice and family stability by giving them a permanent fixed base, they write, only then adding that: "It will also allegedly provide the Army, at a time when it is increasingly becoming an expeditionary force, with a greater number of battalions ready for operations despite axing the numbers from 40 to 36."

There, tucked in is that all-important reference, "an expeditionary force", a massive change in role for an Army which, since the Second World War has put most of its resources into BAOR, its cutting edge being the armoured division - and, rather conveniently, equipping the Army for its role in the European Rapid Reaction Force.

While we would not disagree that the symbolism of cap badges is important, the fact that so this is, effectively, the main topic when it comes to a major force restructuring is a massive indictment of the "dumbing down" of the media. They do us no service burying important issues in a mountain of trivia.

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