Get A Grip - On Who, What, Where?

Yet another public relations disaster hits the present government with the news that life-saving equipment is 'stranded' in Dubai, awaiting shipment to Afghanistan where it is sorely needed.

The editorial in the Sun says it all really and when coupled with a post from Iain Dale on another topic, but which includes the words that 'ministers should get a grip of their civil servants', one's initial reaction is that, in relation to matters generally, it is not civil servants that ministers need to get a grip of, but themselves.

If, as the Sun says in its article, this equipment has been sitting in Dubai since July 16th it has to be asked why when deaths are occuring amongst our troops. Surely anyone, be they civil servant or politician, would realise that shipment of equipment is a priority and ministers, above all others, should realise this.

What can one expect though from a bunch of 'politicians' - and the word is used in its loosest sense - brought up on a training programme of form-filling, box-ticking bureaucratic mentality. Labour appear to labour under the impression that they are God's gift to government and each time they are given the opportunity to show the British electorate that they have learnt their lesson, they 'mess up'!


Update: Liam Fox, Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, has written to Bob Ainsworth querying not only those Ridgebacks in Dubai and the expected 50 due shortly - but more importantly the whereabouts of the remaining 100 announced by the Prime Minister in December 2007 (Hansard 12th December 2007 column 304)

Update Update: Are the Dubai vehicles Ridgebacks?