The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

THE LAST DITCH

More than a little careless

Published by Tom

on

Ministry of Defence loses £6.3bn assets | UK news | The Guardian.

Ask yourself if, in any private sector job you can imagine, you could lose assets on this scale without your job being at risk. Now ask yourself if you expect any senior employee of the Ministry of Defence to be disciplined, let alone fired. Consider next who has those bulky and valuable assets now. Lost as they were, 'in theatre', the answer must be 'our enemies'.

So civil servants who allow weapons for which they are responsible to be (at best) stolen by our enemies (and no doubt used against our soldiers, sailors and airmen) face no consequences. They will continue to draw higher salaries than you at your expense. They will safely retire on a pension you dare not dream of. And some of them, no doubt, will supplement that pension from the proceeds of selling weaponry to the enemy. For most of England's history, their heads would have literally rolled.

The truth is that what belongs to all belongs to no-one. And no-one takes care of it.

2 responses to “More than a little careless”

  1. Captain Ranty Avatar
    Captain Ranty

    Exactly.
    It isn’t their money so why should they care?
    There is a bottomless pit of “free” money for them to waste.
    Until they learn that we do give a damn* about how our money is wasted, nothing will change.
    You are right: make ’em responsible for every single penny.
    *Not enough of us do. Too many sucking on the same teat, see?
    CR.

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  2. Single Acts of Tyranny Avatar
    Single Acts of Tyranny

    The cynic in me says the weapons were not lost (“where did you leave the tank corporal?” “I parked it somewhere around here sir” etc) but sold. Ask yourself, if you were a QM leaving theatre to redundancy and the dole, and someone said “£50K in gold if several machine guns, mortars and a couple of truckloads of ammo are driven to the wrong destination” might not you be tempted? You could even just sell the route so the stuff could be hijacked.
    This wasn’t all “lost” by any means.
    (As a reference for this, I use my long dead father’s activity in I think 1942 in the Navy off the North African coast. On a smalll supply ship, they abandoned the chaotic chase across theatre and began selling supplies, (mostly booze) to the 8th army conscripts saying just ahead of Rommel’s advances. The old man used to tell me they made loads of cash and court martial meant removal from theatre and the risk of death, so where was the disincentive? I suspect this goes on in Afghanistan today all over the place).

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Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.

Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.

He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that

“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”

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