Our possible new supporter at the MoD

[John_Hartley]

I presume it's not escaped folk's attention that the new Secretary of State for Defence, John Hutton, MP for Barrow, is the author of "Kitchener's Men - The King's Own Royal Lancasters on the Western Front 1915 - 1918".

[Jonathan Saunders]

Superb news actually. He has a strong interest in the profile of the military, the Great War and Remembrance.

I will observe his career as Minister for Defence with interest.

[Neil Clark]

Oh how I hope you are right John, but alas In the 1980's he was a member of CND alongside the rest of that shower of ****!

This lot have relied upon the armed forces to carry out their great world social engineering and policing experiment more than any government in living memory. But at the same time have cut the defence budget to the bone (2% of GDP). Just look at our navy now - in 1997 we had about 45 destroyers/frigate escorts, now we have only 19 hardly enough to defend the UK let alone maintain world profile...

[Northern Soul]

A bit of a mixed blessing as far as I am concerned. All credit to him for getting down and writing "Kitchener's Men - The King's Own Royal Lancasters on the Western Front 1915 - 1918" - essentially a review of the service of some of the battalions with a Furness flavour - but there are a lot of mistakes in the book, some of them quite serious howlers, and I think that he showed a lack of rigour in preparing it.

However, he does have a genuine interest in "matters martial" so that can only be a good thing.

Andy.

[chrisharley9]

Neil

test the waters by writing to him about your problems with NHB

Chris