Mick Smith - Times Online - WBLG

Will The Conservatives Really Support Defence? More to the Point, Does the Voter Really Care?

THE former head of Britain’s armed forces has said the government is to blame for the deaths of some of our servicemen and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan because it failed to fund the armed forces properly. Lord Guthrie, who retired as Chief of Defence Staff in 2001, was reacting to a new poll which found that 70 per cent of population believe the government is “failing to give the Armed Forces the resources they need”.

My Son's in Afghanistan: But at Last He's Coming Home!

Mandy, our soldier's Mum, is beginning to get a touch hysterical at the thought of him coming home!

Maybe, god love him, there was no room at the inn. Maybe it was just a moment. Maybe I was so busy choking into my bucket during that full on eyes-closed smackeroonie that I almost missed it. You know that bit where Gordon Brown decided not to mention the war.  Alastair Campbell must have warned him to mind his manners.

Letter from the Left Coast: Focus on Palin Merely Protects McCain

Our correspondent in sunny California Ian Bowater reminds us that the key issue on the Republican ticket is not Palin

[Mick says: I'd be interested to know what you think McCain is saying to Palin here!]

First a declaration – no animals were harmed in the writing of this Letter From the Left Coast but we did slap lipstick on a few pigs. All accusations of sexism are without foundation. The McCain Campaign’s assassination of the truth looks like the St. Valentine’s Day mascara. Apparently, poor, cute, little Sarah Palin has been so reviled by the sexist Obama campaign she is but one typo away from being a “Honky Mom” – more of her later.

It Wasn't Like That in My Day! Deal Loses The Marines and Gains an Army of Interior Designers

Our resident veteran Chuck Unsworth visits the scene of an IRA outrage and mourns the loss of its garrison

I motored over to Deal on the eastern coast of Kent a few days ago.  I like Deal.  It’s a typical slightly run-down coastal town with a long naval and military history.  The low, squat and small castle viewed from the air is the shape of a Tudor Rose.  It’s one of a chain of three such ‘device forts’, the others being Walmer – a favourite residence of the former Queen Mother, which also has some fine gardens – and Sandown, mostly demolished many years ago.  These were built by Henry VIII to house and support artillery, and Deal’s massive stone walls and bleak bastions were and still are a formidable challenge.  Today, cannons still sit on the solid roofs overlooking the shoreline, ready to savage any would-be invaders from Europe with direct fire.

No that isn't Deal! The Band of the Royal Marines hit Broadway.

My Son's in Afghanistan: Another Boy's Dad's Never Coming Back

Our soldier's Mum Mandy is counting the days to do and they finally are getting few!

Ross is back in Kandahar. He’d said it was a big one! And boy was he right? The phenomenal success at Kajaki, where the 1st 2nd and 3rd Battalions of The Parachute Regiment, fought together for the first time since Arnhem, along with thousands of other soldiers, to deliver the 200 tonne turbine to Kajaki, is something that is now a part of our family history. This is the very thing that Ross signed up to do. To make a difference. To do something. To be counted. I am so, so proud. Of  them all. It might take years yet before the electricity is flowing to the people that need it. And the Taliban will almost certainly continue to scam the villagers into paying ‘taxes’ for it. Ding-Dong!  Our government have been cheating us out of taxes for years.

Ross and Flannegan at Kajaki.

Letter from the Left Coast: McCain - the Edwina Currie Connection!

Ian Bowater, our leftie lost in California gets back into the comfort zone by turning his pit bulls on McCain and Palin with a sideswipe at a former enemy nearer to home!

Last week St. Paul, Minnesota became the last refuge of the scoundrel. It was impossible to move at the Republican Party convention for the Stars and Stripes. Digital images wafted digitally everywhere. At least at the Olympics they got a couple of hairdryers to make proper flags waft in reality. Under the banner of “Country First”, the straw-boatered crowd whooped it up for their scoundrel-in-chief – John McCain, total liar and fraud.

It Wasn't Like That in My Day! The Obsession With Youth Has Robbed Us of Something of Value

Chuck, our resident veteran worries that the changing face of society has removed a major calming factor

Father-in-law’s birthday the other week was the occasion for a family convocation (or booze-up) on the luxurious Silver Sturgeon sailing down the Thames from central London to Greenwich and back.  Uncle Jim, a Queen’s Waterman, has spent most of his working life on the river and still works on the boats, ferrying the tourists up and down.  His son Jamie, now the Master of the Sturgeon, carries on the family associations.

My Son's in Afghanistan: Feeding his Nose to a Camel Spider

Mandy, our soldier's mum, is back, and she isn't any fonder of Gordon!

On his terribly convenient stopover in Afghanistan, Gordon Brown, en-route to the Olympic Games with his family, told his neatly arranged audience in British Camp Bastion that “they were all heroes, worthy of any medals won by our athletes.” Oh really? He went on to tell the soldiers, “You know that you are on the front line in the fight against the Taliban.” Oh! I see now. In a podium, competitive, sporting sort of way do you mean Gordon?  “And you know that by what you are doing here you prevent terrorism coming to the streets of Britain." Oh come on! Walk down any street in the UK, on your own, and open your eyes.

Letter from the Left Coast: Liberals dis' Palin at their Peril

The holidays are over and Ian Bowater, the author of our regular letter from sunny California, returns to find to his shock that McCain is back in the running with a babe in tow

Surprise! It’s the last month of the regular season in baseball. Is John McCain “Mr. Shocktober”? When I left you, it was July 4th Independence Day and now I return at the official end of the summer on Labour Day. Why the long hiatus? Have we all been hanging on with bated breath for the convention season? Not exactly… nothing much happened over the summer. There was some sort of sports event in China, Ronaldo didn’t go to Madrid and New Orleans is about to be hit with another devastating hurricane. Same old same old, except… the Chicago Cubs, the perennial also-rans of Major League Baseball are leading the Central Division of the National League, the first team to eighty wins this season and the best record in all of baseball. This is the Cubs’ year – their first since 1908.