Search

The High Court has joined in with the general trend of taking the piss out of the government by ruling that sending British soldiers out on duty with defective equipment may breach their human rights. 

It seems almost (and I say almost because this is eyebrow after all) crass to laugh at the fact that it is Article 2 of the Human Rights Act, the right to life that the Court was referring to here.

The government seems to think that the Act works in inverse proportion to the amount of risk encountered by the individual.

So Jimmy Inkblot in Accounts would enjoy the full protection of the law were he to suffer a serious eye-to-stapler interface style accident whereas Johnny Jammed-Gun-No-Ammo would get fuck all. 

The Defence Secretary Des Browne managed to be made to look like a twat twice in one judgement as the Court also rejected his attempts to curtail coroners from using phrases such as "serious failure" when ruling on, er, serious failures. 

Sending squaddies out with substandard equipment is nothing new; the British army has long had to suffer the indignity of trying to beg, borrow or steal from the comparatively blessed US troops.

The new t-shirts issued to soldiers with the targets on in place of body armour were seen as possibly a mistake. Flip-flops for the desert may be soooooo in this season but possibly an avoiding-death faux pas. 

The bare truth about all of this is that there isn’t enough cash to provision the army and reluctance by the government to accept this because they can’t ask for more money as the presence of our troops abroad is hardly a popular revenue gatherer, scratchcards for cluster bombs may not be universally popular.

Brown won’t make a decision one way or the other until the US makes up its mind and of course that won’t happen until the new President is sworn in. 

The end result will be sitting on our hands for twelve months hoping that it will all go away.

There’ll be no money for equipment because we’re overstretched as it is. What money there is will be diverted to a fund to provide compensation to those harmed by faulty or absent equipment… 

In the meantime lads, try not to go near anything dangerous. Like a gun. Or a mine. Or a foreigner. Next week on Blue Peter, Zoë Salmon shows us how to make a field dressing and splint out of common household objects.