It is quite difficult to voice my thoughts on this in a cool, calm, dispassionate manner.
And that is often the way when the topic is something we feel very strongly about.
Right?
Those that know a little of my history will know that for a good lump of time I wore a light-blue uniform.
For over 80% of my time in the RAF I was stationed overseas, on front-line, nuclear strike, airbases.
Operating in near-war conditions (the motto of one of my places of work was ‘The role of this station in peace is to train for war. Don’t you forget it’) 24/7 and 365 days a year, is wearing.
Working in top secret installations, and working with information so sensitive, that public disclosure of it could destablise the planet on which we sit, is wearing.
Being called out in the very early hours of a Sunday morning, because there’s an unidentified blip on the radar, is wearing.
Carrying a live weapon around, 24/7, because of a rumour, is wearing.
Having to work with substandard equipment – with hardware that our neighbouring NATO allies would decline as being ‘not fit for purpose’ – is wearing.
Doing all these things without question (but with the customary Armed Forces griping) is wearing.
Being paid substantially less than our NATO colleagues for a 24-hour day, is beyond wearing.
The Forces do a job.
Their job is to sort out messy situations that politicians have created.
The job of the Armed Forces is to fly to a distant part of the world and attempt to make things better, whilst people of a different mindset are intent on attempting to bomb, shoot at, and blow them up.
Do you want to see the conditions that the government feels are acceptable, to fly member of the Armed Forces around the world?
Like this:
This is the inside of a typical RAF C17 on its way from Afghanistan to RAF Brize Norton.
The head of our government (The Right Hon. David Cameron, Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service) doesn’t feel that he has enough in life.
David Cameron feels that being forced to travel around the world, on his international junkets, on aircraft of the Queen’s Flight (a squadron of rotary and fixed-wing aircraft that includes more than one executive jet), isn’t good enough for him.
Our Prime Minister now wants his own version of this:
Wow.
But the Rt Hon David Cameron doesn’t want to put the country to the expense of paying for a brand new aircraft.
In these times of global austerity, David has told us that he is going to do this in such a way that the British taxpayer will be saved lots of money.
Yes indeed.
Dave is going to take a fully serviceable A330 Voyager air-to-air tanker, used to refuel front-line aircraft on operational missons, and have it converted, as his executive jet.
Here’s a photo of an A330 in executive jet fit-out:
Nice, eh?
And here’s a reminder of how our troops travel:
Some difference, eh?
Oh well.
I suppose Dave is our Prime Minister, after all.
However, let’s just look at the financial argument behind Dave’s logic.
We have been told that spending £10 million on converting an RAF A330 Voyager from an air-tanker to the Prime Minister’s executive jet will save the taxpayer money.
Because spending £10m on a conversion and an executive fit-out is cheaper than buying a fully-executived (it is a word, I checked) factory-fresh aircraft.
That’s what we have been told.
But really?
Are we that stupid?
Do we look that gullible?
The budgets of the Royal Air Force are tight.
They are so tight that down in the South Atlantic we have two – just two – Typhoons on air defence duties in the Falklands.
This is territory that we paid for in filled bodybags.
That’s how tight RAF budgets are.
Does anyone, for a single moment, imagine that the RAF has any A300 Voyagers that are surplus to requirements?
That we have a number of these aircraft just sitting around, rusting in the corner of a British airfield?
Really?
You think that’s true?
Of course we don’t.
Our Prime Minister (First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service) is going to take a fully serviceable A300 Voyager out of the fleet of RAF air-tankers.
And in doing that, he’s going to create a £ multi-million hole in our already stretched defences.
And then he’s going to make that £ multi-million hole even bigger, because you and I are (the taxpayer is) going to spend another £10 million having this air-tanker converted to an executive jet.
Just so he can swan about the globe.
Because the aircraft in the Queen’s Flight aren’t good enough.
The government line – that the press are echoing without thought and reasoning – that Dave’s executive jet will eventually save the country £700,000/year is just nonsense.
I could tell you how much nonsense it is.
But what’s the point?
David Cameron is going to have his private executive jet and that’s all there is to it.
Regardless of what the real cost to the taxpayer – and to the Armed Forces – is.
And that’s sad.