According to Tony Blair who has now said today that in hindsight it was not a good idea.
Really? A demented chimpanzee would have had enough foresight to know it was a cataclysmicly bad idea to allow the sale of the stories, what is more some of them should have been suppressed. Didn't anyone tell Arthur Batchelor that saying you had your ears flicked, being called Mr Bean and thinking they were making a coffin for you does not mean you tell the whole wide world that you "cried like a baby"? If not why not? It makes the Royal Navy look bad. Very bad indeed.
In fact I think Arthur Batchelor has been very badly let down indeed. Apparently he is not leaving his house out of fear, regrets giving the interview, he was led to believe that all the hostages would be giving interviews. I suspect he will not be in the Navy for much longer, and will lead a life of depression, possible addiction and quite possibly suicide. It is a grim prediction and I hope it does not come to pass. The man will need a lot of support.
Anyway, is it time to move on? No, not until we have had at least two heads on pikes, Des Browne, and the Admiral who suggested that the stories should be sold.
Obviously, what with the damage done to the reputation and morale or our armed services as well as the reputation of the country any self respecting honourable Prime Minister would also resign, but as we haven't got one of those, he wont.
The BBC has this here. The Grauniad has this.
For more on the Iran Hostage Crisis see here.
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26 comments:
Poor Mr Bean. All he got for his Judas like actions was just enough money to take some driving lessons and the contempt of all Fighting Men and Women. A price worth paying?
Do not feel sorry for this pathetic creature. He has an Iranian goody bag to sell on EBay in contrast to those honourable soldiers who are returning in the freight hold of an RAF plane in body bags. I pray for their families and loved ones.
As for Tugboat Turney her life is now in meltdown. Just like Browne.
Benedict
Guido is running a "Where's Gordon?" campaign.
Perhaps you might consider a,
"Where's Tony, Des and Gordon as the bodies of the soldiers killed in Iraq arrive home today?"
campaign.
What stars they are.
"Time to move on" is Blair's constant refrain when he doesn't want to discuss something. In truth, it's his time to move on...
Anonymous, at 8.30. Well yes they certainly are not doing the right thing by honouring our troops.
Re Anonymous at 8.38, Yes I think it is the opposition, the blogs and the media who decide when it is time to move on.
Would either Turney or Batchelor have given interviews to the press if they had not been given permission, and were they "advised" that it might be a good idea?
What kind of support and advise have they been offered by the MOD since their return?
ChrisD, you ask some very good questions. I get the impression that Arthur Batchelor feels very poorly advised.
Benedict
Arthur "Where's me Ipod" Batchelor took the money. He saw £signs and whether he was badly advised or not it was still his decision. Note that the others of this rather poor lot did not blab before the restraining order was reinstated by Incapability Browne apart from, as the Scum called her, "Heroine Faye" My word if ever a paper got it wrong.
They will live to regret their greed.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one who read on, unbelievingly, as Arthur Bachelor appeared not to be able to distinguish between the outrage of being a member of the Queen's fighting forces illegally captured in international waters and illegally held, and the outrage he felt at being given a fake Hugo Boss shirt. And his heartfelt outrage that the Iranians took his iPod, which made him genuinely sick because it had the favourite song of him and his girlfriend on it.
He was also mightily exercised by the poor quality of the suits that Ahmadinejad gifted them with. "I could have got better at a jumble sale," he complained.
BW writes: "I suspect he will not be in the Navy for much longer, and will lead a life of depression, possible addiction and quite possibly suicide. It is a grim prediction and I hope it does not come to pass."
I hope not, too. He was only 20 - although that is much too old to "cry like a baby" - but he does seem to have been strangely rudderless, so to speak.
He may mature. I hope he does. I don't hold out the same hope for Faye Turney.
Neither do I Verity. I hope the little shit rots for the rest of his life as well as Faye Turney. I served for 35 years, proud of my Regiment and proud of my Country. This pair of opportunists deserve everything coming to them. When I saw the dignified return of those four young men and women my heart bled for their loved ones. I hope and pray the Turney and Batchelor have the most horrendous lives. they sold their souls for more than 30 pieces of silver and have earned the contempt of the nation.
Anonymous- I respect you greatly for having been a member of our military - our only protection. I am very grateful to our servicemen and women, as are most British people.
I think, though, that Arthur Bachelor is just a very immature, silly 20-year old who has had no values instilled in him and who had a junk "education". I don't think he's particularly venal. I just think he's stupid and should never have been accepted into the Senior Service. When he was informed that he could sell his story, I have a feeling he thought that would make up for the fake Hugo Boss and the rotten tailoring of his shiny freesuit. And his stolen iPod. I hope he doesn't end up depressed suicidal, as BW posits. I just wish him a contented life doing lube jobs down the local Brake-Check.
To my mind, Faye Turney is a more complicated individual. Greedy. What kind of thinking was employed in the decision to leave her three-year old child and go on a dangerous mission in not-quite-a-war-zone, but a fraught area of the world?
Her actions among her captors were disgraceful. Joking around with captors of British service personnel. Without any halter on her behaviour, as others have noted, and acting like a reality TV winner. Learning how to laughingly struggle through a few phrases in Farsi. She is not driven by propriety and pride in her uniform and her country.
I think she demonstrated the air of entitlement that is the norm in Blair's reality TV Britain. She was a star for a day and was going to cash in on it. It is not hard to figure out how greedy she is when you look at how fat she is.
It says something of Britain under a cheap, empty little opportunist like Blair that Fleet St reversed itself and decided not to buy any more stories before those incompetent knock-abouts, the British Government, decided to ban further sales. They didn't have to bother. Fleet St had policed itself. It's a fine day when the gutter press is way ahead of the government in acting in the national interest.
For the record, I don't think Arthur Bachelor is playing with a full deck. But I think Faye Turney is, and I do not wish her well.
I think Arthur will find his future doing lube jobs down the local Brake-Check an' jokin' around wiv 'is mates.
Anonymous, and verity, I have to say you are to some extent having the debate for me.
There has been many an 18 year old,17, 16 and 15 year old who has died for the Queen. Arthur was 20, and yes he should have known better, but clearly he didn't.
They have both brought shame upon the services, not just the Navy.
Verity, I have not read enough about Faye to comment in the way that you do, but clearly her expressed priorities indicate she should not be doing that job.
Now, Anonymous has clearly served and been trained and instilled with certain values. What worries me, particularly as this shower renamed the original marines, The Queen's Regiment, the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment, have let the training slip some what.
After all, you only need to have read a few issues of warlord or similar boys comics to know that you don't whinge about having your iPod nicked!
BW - nor have I read "enough" about Faye, but I don't have a strong stomach so will probably continue to refrain from delving further into her life.
What I do know is, she left her three-year old daughter (in her husband's care)while she went on a HMS Naval mission to Shatt al-Arab. What mother would sail in a military situation, up the Hormuz Straits?
This whole incident is too odd. Where is the reticence of captured military personnel? Twenty-year old, very immature, Arthur Bachelor took it all as a personal affront. (Not an affront to HM and the British people. Just him. Personally. They stole his favourite pop song.) The Iranians took his stuff, and then they gave awful presents.
Once free, they are immediately free to sell their stories. Three days later, Tony Blair is shocked to learn (after two days of national papers printing Arthur and Faye's stories) to learn they had "permission" to sell their stories.
A 'hands-on' kind of guy, right? Three days later, after several days of hostage crisis, he hasn't bothered to follow the story? No one told him they were blethering in the popular press (which, to their credit, shut down their stories themselves once they understood the government wasn't going to stop them)?
This whole episode is so phoney it could only have been executed with the help of theatrical empressario Tony Blair.
He has always hated Britain, as have all the slithy toves in the cabinet. Jack Straw. Margaret Beckett. Patricia Hewitt. Teresa Jowell. David Blunkett (as was; twice). The greedy Elena Ceaucescu aka Cherie Blair. Harriet Harmon. Sniggering, triumphant, destructive commies.
Traitor's Gate.
And now, reading Sir Michael Rose's comments today, we learn that Faye Turney was smoking in uniform! Relaxed! As though lolling around in her own living room (chilling though that thought may be).
There was apparently no discipline on that craft or on the capturees. They smoked. They had iPods. What's the big problem?
Here is Sir Michael Rose, a proper military man, on blair's newest fiasco: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=448249&in_page_id=1770
How long can blair continue to claim legitimacy when he is loathed and regarded as toxic by every stratum of British society, including the military?
Verity, as far as leaving ones children behind, it is as hard for a father, but perhaps are more used to it. However it is clear that if you place yourself in danger, that you are in danger!
Thanks for the link, how long can Tony stay? well as Brown as the alternative I fear as long as he likes, as bad as that sounds!
It will need fixing though.
BW - of course it is as hard for a father! He is fighting for the future of the nation in which his children will grow up and become citizens!
But he knows his children are in the care of their mother, who loves them and shares the father's values.
There is no equivalency.
Fat, lax, smoking (on duty; no one cares what people do out of the public eye) Faye abandoned her little girl to sail, smoking at the wheel, into critically dangerous waters. She makes me sick.
"What did you do in the War Mummy?"
"Well Molly I left you at home with subsidised childcare whilst I sailed into very dangerous waters. But before I got into a speed boat for a jolly around I had a double breakfast and 40 fags. Then, whilst I was having another fag I was captured after raising my hands very quickly and was taken to a far off place where I was given a headscarve, loads of food and even more fags. Then I wrote to everyone and was on TV! Then I came home with a dolly for you and then sold myself, the Royal Navy and the Country for £60000. I gave a percentage to HMS Cornwall so that they could build an onboard BurgerKing. I could then get a snack whenever I felt peckish which as you know my poppet is quite often! Now go to sleep my darling as I have got to give Uncle Arthur a ring."
"So you are not a fat coward like everyone says you are but a Heroine. Thanks Mummy! You are the best."
Verity, if you are saying women should not be allowed to serve in such roles, fair enough, though that is a sperate argument.
Clearly the case of women in the forces has been set back decades.
Anonymous @7.46, That is not very kind!
"Anonymous @7.46, That is not very kind!"
You know what Benedict I think you are right. Not one of my better endings so delete Molly's last words and replace with......
" Oh thank you Mummy! So when all my friends at the 'Shat-on-an-Arab Nursery for Home Alone Naval Kids' say that you are a traitorous fat waste of space I can look them in the eye and say My Mummy is a Heroine. She did so want to attend the Navy Press Conference but she was havin a fag and attempting to tell the World what she went through with a nice man from the Forces Paper, the Scum."
Yes thats more like it, tell it as it was rather than making it up.
Anonymous, at 10.43, LOL! Yes that helps!
Thanks Benedict. As an act of contrition I am sending Arthur (Where's me Ipod) my own Ipod. It is number 1 of a Limited Edition of 15, finished in a striking yellow with the new Royal Navy logo of a W atop an anchor and the new Battle Ensign which is a White Cross on a White background.
Anonymous, at 9.30, LOL again!
I must say that these 15 do not seem to have had the required training for front line duty! Fancy being bothered about the iPod?
Benedict
I think I will send it as Arthur (Where's me Ipod) Batchelor is pinin. It was his combat Ipod after all. You know the one he took on operations and the one he was listening to when those nasty Iranians crept up on the Naval Party. Mind you they must have had the twin engines on each of their 4 or 5 speedboats wrapped in a secret sound absorbing material. Or was Arthur listening to a particularly loud redition of "I Surrender" at the time?
I will now close on this as I am going to put on some favourite DVD's of mine, "In Which we Serve" and "The Cockleshell Heroes" to remind me of the true Men of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines (and their families left at home who didn't have childcare.)
Anonymous at 12.58, yes having the iPod with him is very odd.
After all he was on a mission. What has happened to discipline in the Navy?
Still, it is good that you are able to send him a replacement. :)
I can't get my head around this.... As an ex Soldier I'm a little perplexed at the way this whole fiasco has panned out from the good ship Cornwall to the MOD.
1. Why did Seaman Bean have an iPod on him on an operation? Was this a once round the lighthouse and home in time for tea and medals kind of trip? To me, this is akin to a squaddie sat in his Warrior or under-armoured snatch land rover listening to some music.. Er, maybe landrovers and warriors don't have car stereos for a raeson!
2. Why the lynx helicopter top cover was armed with nothing more than goodwill and a camera and sitting on the deck of the Cornwall.
3. Why the ROE for the operation stated that no more than a serious frown was allowed unless actually fired upon.. UN mandate mish mash again.
4. Why the Captain of Cornwall didn't show those nice Iranian gunboats how pretty a Harpoon missile looks as it flies by at 50ft distance
Anonymous at 11.24, you ask some good questions. I think we should be told.
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