Daily Archive

Peterborough Evening Telegraph, March 7:

FEARS for their safety has led to personnel at RAF Wittering being ordered not to wear their uniforms in public after incidents of verbal abuse in Peterborough.

Station commander Group Captain Ro Atherton has told troops to keep a low profile after taking advice from RAF police.

The move – which has come to light after a Birmingham man was jailed for planning to kidnap and behead a British Army soldier – was described as a “sad day for the city” by mayor Marion Todd…

To clarify, that planned kidnapping, one may recall, involved an Islamist planning to kill a Muslim soldier.

…Base spokesman Squadron Leader Tony Walsh said a number of personnel who lived in the city and its outskirts had suffered abuse when openly wearing their uniforms.

The verbal attacks had come from a “cross-section” of the community, he added, and were believed to be linked to the RAF’s current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan…

Ambiguous statements like that are always profoundly irritating. For would it not be helpful in trying to better appreciate the real issue, if the public were informed exactly what the problem actually is? (Who said what and why.) Note that in reader comments on this story in a major tabloid, there is an undercurrent which believes that that “cross-section” includes a disproportionate number from a particular “section” of it.

Interesting also, this observation from Jewish Comment UK, back on March 4:

…Whilst queuing last summer I met an RAF officer at Wendover railway station, next to RAF Halton. He was in uniform and I did my American thing : ‘Oh, how wonderful to meet a serviceman! You go ahead of me.’ He was nonplussed and for a moment looked tearful as he said how much he envied American servicemen, who can walk anywhere in the States and be greeted with such warmth. He said he needed to get back to his car where his fretting mother was waiting; I was incredulous when he explained that she feared for his safety when he went out and about in uniform. (This was understandable during the long years of the IRA but nowadays this hatred is manifested by crowds of white yobbos and by young Muslim extremists.)…

So RAF members should not wear uniform in public, there are to be almost no post offices, far fewer pubs, and even recycling centers get sold off for flats. And, of course, the list of accomplishments could go on. Clearly, Labour “community cohesion” policies are working wonders, in bringing diverse people ever closer together.

Reuters headline:

Brown condemns public abuse of armed forces

Obviously, facts-only Reuters has decided it is the doing of the entire public.

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UPDATE: Relatedly, The London Evening Standard:

Students have voted to ban all military personnel including cadets from a leading London university, the Evening Standard can reveal…

…The union motion, passed on Wednesday night, prohibits the military from setting up recruitment stalls at freshers’ fairs and severs all links between the Officer Training Corps and the students’ union at University College London…

…The UCL motion, proposed by Sham Rajyaguru, stated: “This Union believes that because the British military under the Labour Government is currently engaged in an aggressive war overseas, for the Union to use its resources to encourage students to join the military or participate in military recruitment activities at this time would give political and material support to the war.”…

Interesting motion. This blog has its own: Are tax monies going towards, or subsidizing, their student fees? Where so, this blog proposes such resources not be used to encourage an increasingly elongated childhood. Having suddenly to pay entirely their own way, ought to give them a material and immediate attack of adulthood.