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Boy George flies into turbulence
The Mole: Gordon Brown may have had a bad day, but Osborne's proposed £27bn defence cuts were pure cock-up, says our Westminster insider
God knows, Gordon Brown may not be perfect - his performance at the TUC Congress yesterday was pretty dismal - but let's not be under any illusion that Dave Cameron and Boy George have their act totally together either.
Brown finally spat out the C-word in Liverpool, just as we had been leaked he would - not just once, but four times in a single sentence. "Labour will cut costs, cut inefficiencies, cut unnecessary programmes and cut lower priority budgets," he said.
Phew, done it.
The PM then went on: "But when our plans are published in the coming months people will see that Labour will not [the Mole's italics] support cuts in the vital front-line services on which people depend."
On the same day - one on which the Tories might have hoped to capitalise on the PM's discomfiture - Shadow Chancellor George Osborne surprised his colleagues - 'dismayed' might be closer - by citing £27bn worth of defence projects as ripe for cutting when the Tories win the general election next May/June.
Having announced that he would hold a Budget within weeks of the election, Osborne was asked to identify some specific areas where he might wield his scalpel.
Quick as a flash, he came up with the £20bn Eurofighter/Typhoon project, the £4bn earmarked for two spanking new aircraft carriers and the £2.7bn order for a couple of dozen Airbus transport aircraft to replace the ageing Hercules.
It may have sounded better than answering 'health, education and old people' - but it completely threw his Tory colleagues because it took no account of the fact that these projects are already well-advanced.
The RAF already has 55 Eurofighter/Typhoons, costing £3.8bn. And the MoD has already spent a good £1bn on developing the carriers and more than half a billion on the Airbus programme.
No wonder the Times was reporting today that one of George's frontbench colleagues had called the wannabe Chancellor's intervention "amateurish". ·
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So as so much has already been thrown at these warmongering monstrosities, we have to continue throwing more at them. Makes perfect sense. Trident can't be used ever, but it provides a handy large codpiece for politicians to strut about wearing, in place of their inadequate manhood. Jet fighters are only any used against jet fighters, the Taliban don't have any, but they're lethal with amateur roadside bombs which are taking a heavy toll of troops. So unless we intend to nuke Afghanistan, there's no point to all the high tech, high priced boys toys other than keeping people in jobs making them; about the most spurious justification going.
Let's use some money to rebuild Hadrian's Wall then we can have our own English Parliament, at last !