The Military Covenant

The government recently passed the Military Covenant into law and the Tories always like to present themselves as the party that looks after the armed forces, despite the fact that a close examination of what they say and what they do not matching up by any means.
So this comes as no surprise.

BBC.

Thousands of members of the Parachute Regiment and others could lose special payments for their parachuting skills, under MoD cost-cutting plans.

The Army may cut the number of troops trained to parachute in 16 Air Assault Brigade, lowering the number who qualify for the £180-a-month bonus.

The move would involve a 10% pay cut for the lowest-paid privates.

The MoD said most of the brigade's soldiers would remain fully trained to parachute.

However, it insisted no decisions had yet been taken on the extent of the changes

Currently almost 5,000 parachute-trained members of the armed forces receive the special supplement of nearly £6 a day in recognition of the extra risks and skills involved in parachuting.

The Daily Telegraph reported that cutting the so-called Para Pay bonus would save millions of pounds a year.

Save millions whilst wrecking the morale of one of our top regiments, sounds about right for the idiots who run this country to consider now doesn't it? However I suspect this is just a sound bite to see how the public will react and as seems usual for the political establishment of making things appear to be a lot worse than they are and when they come out with a much milder cut everyone will heave a sigh of relief, save only that it will still be a cut.
Our military deserve the best we can give them whilst they fight in a war they really can't win with equipment that's often enough unfit for purpose, often enough individual squaddies buy their own boots and personal gear. Meanwhile back in the MOD they're happy enough to squander taxpayers money on £1000 chairs, helicopters that don't work in bad weather and two aircraft carriers that won't have the fleet support vessels or aircraft.
Scrapping the MOD and starting from scratch would seem to be a far more cost effective solution to the treatment of our forces.

http://quietmanmyblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/kick-in-teeth.html

Morg
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