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Wednesday 22 July 2009

"definitely"?

The BBC are keen to report that
"Foreign Office minister Lord Malloch Brown has rowed back on comments made in a Daily Telegraph interview that the UK did not have enough helicopters.

With a political row over helicopters on-going, he had said "we definitely don't have enough helicopters".

However in his "clarification", issued by the Foreign Office, he said there was "without doubt sufficient resources" for current operations.

...

"On the issue of helicopters in Afghanistan, I was making the point - as the prime minister and commanders on the ground have also done - that while there are without doubt sufficient resources in place for current operations, we should always do what we can to make more available on the frontline."

Chancellor Alistair Darling has said the Treasury had never refused requests for more equipment or troops. "

Let's examine the original comment and the row-back. The original comment was that "we definitely don't have enough helicopters", no room for doubt there, "we definitely don't have enough helicopters". The row-back is less explicit: "without doubt sufficient resources". So how do we have "sufficient resources" but "definitely don't have enough helicopters". Maybe some clarification is needed. Was Lord Malloch Brown misleading The Telegraph or is the Foreign Office misleading the BBC? Surely it must be one or the other...

As for Alistair Darling's comment is that since he became Chancellor or for how long before? Does it include 2004? Really? Are you sure?

1 comment:

Brian E. said...

It cost over £1M to produce this report!!!!!!!
Is there anything new that wasn't already known by professional engineers in the power generation and distribution business? I thought only government spent this sort of money on reports.
They should merely look at what happened in Europe a year or so ago. The wind suddenly dropped across Denmark & Northern Germany for no forecast reason, and the whole of Europe's grid almost collapsed as conventional generation overloaded. Only France wasn't affected as they now rely on nuclear generation for most of their electricity, having no gas, coal or oil supplies of their own.
We need to follow suit.