Give us the tools ! ..and we might possibly finish the job.

Tony Blair’s Labour Party Conference speech (if you can call his staccato, breathy, “I speak you weight” delivery, a speech) will never be held up as those of Cicero as a masterpiece of rhetoric, or style. They do however bear consideration to try to identify strands of Government (of what we will call for want of a better expression) ,thinking…

Under pressure, as in the blitz, when we stood alone, unlike the cheese eating surrender monkeys and the armless and charmless Germans no doubt looking for a sun-bed to lob their towel on in a pre-dawn sneaky raid ..

And when terrorism struck, the same pride and confidence asserted itself, to the envy and awe of the watching world.

London, that day, did Britain proud. (sic)

This is a country today that increasingly sets the standard.

Not for us the malaise of France or the angst of Germany.

Written it would appear by the Sun leader writer, he seeks only to confirm, if confirmation is needed, that, when needed, we cannot rely on our European second cousins. However this uber Jingoism is married to a profound realism baout the place of the UK in the "manifest destiny". Westward look the land is bright !

Britain should also remain the strongest ally of the United States.

I never doubted after September 11th that our place was alongside America and I don't doubt it now.

One may see this theme developed earlier by Lord Drayson,(the man who did rather well our of the smallpox vaccine war on terror initiative) the recently appointed Minister for Defence Procurement, made his first keynote address to the Royal United Services Institute on 12 September 2005 on the subject of the Defence Industrial Strategy.

By December, we will not be able to cover all the sectors to the same depth, and there will be an element of ongoing work. But I am demanding gritty conclusions on shipbuilding and ship support; fixed wing aircraft (including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)); rotorcraft; guided weapons; general munitions; armoured fighting vehicles; and a number of other key areas.(nuclear war heads update ?)

…….those who are most keen for us to set out what we want to source uniquely from the UK may not get all the conclusions they would like.

……..ultimately, if foreign taxpayers end up subsidising the equipment we operate, so be it.

The assembled UK industrialist, who looked as though they hadn't done very well out of the war, were given a stark warning …

…….The list of industrial capabilities that must be sourced from the UK will, I expect, be a short one.

Which bears repeating .. so he did a couple of paragraphs later.

So, as I said, I do not expect the list of capabilities that must be fostered and sustained in the UK to be a long one.

It is therefore interesting to see that the MOD managed to hide away an interesting item on Friday afternoon 30th September 2005.

Iraqi Army takes charge at Camp Chindit

On 29 September 2005 the 1st Royal Anglians handed over Camp Chindit near Al-Zubaya. The camp was a company location used to support about 120 troops, and will in future serve as a base for engineers from the Iraqi army. Camp Chindit is the first such camp to be handed over.

The handover was conducted by Lt Col Eddie Thorne MC, Commanding Officer of 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment and Lt Col Abdul Hussain, Commanding Officer of 2nd Battalion the Iraqi Army which is part of 10 Division based in Multi-National Division (South East). (MOD pic)

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