In a bid to cover their backs by robbing their bellies, British military bureaucrats took a number of resolute steps. They instructed the army chiefs to introduce immediate austerity measures and cut defense budget by a total of £1 billion by April 2008. As a result, busy counting pennies, the British government started ignoring the need to recompense expenses for personnel training before sending troops to the Middle East, and financing military action 40% less than required. The belts-tightening policy has set in in all spheres.
In early 2007, the BBC published a series of shocking photographs and stories about the poor living conditions of British soldiers. The media also made public the fact that only negligible amounts have been allocated for the maintenance of the ground forces’ 200 or so cantonments around the country in the past 2 decades. As a result, servicemen and their families now agree that prisoners are treated better than Her Majesty’s soldiers. What else could one say about the cracks in the moldy walls of rodent-infested rooms, broken bathroom fitments and plumbing, and faulty electrics? Jennifer James, the mother of a young soldier, said her son complained about the smell, puddles and leaking toilets, which left many soldiers feeling "depressed and demoralized", she added.
The service family accommodation is not much better. According to Rosie Brown, housing specialist at the Army Families Federation, a commander’s and senior officer’s wife with 22 years’ experience, she once had to address defense ministry officials directly struggling to get repairs done on her own married quarters.
Britain’s ground forces are by no means the only forces plagued by housing problems. “There is a desperate need for decent accommodation for families” in Portsmouth, which contains most of the country’s naval married quarters, according to Liberal Democrat MP Mike Hancock who says that “this pressure leads to marriage break-up.”
British senior officers, too, speak out publicly on the issue. Lt Gen Freddie Viggers, in charge of the welfare of British soldiers, who commented on the BBC-triggered scandal earlier this year, said it was a “key issue” to give “our soldiers and their families what they deserve.” Maj Gen Richard Shirreff, head of British forces in southern Iraq who spoke on the issue back in December 2006, shared his view. Outgoing Army head Gen Sir Mike Jackson said with a true military bluntness that some forces’ accommodation was "frankly shaming".
Keeping in mind the vaunted British democracy, one could naturally assume that senior military officials share the stress of war and discomforts brought about by the alleged shortage of funds with their subordinates – in strict compliance with the key principle of the armed forces operation.
This is not the case, however. As Britain’s most influential and reliable newspaper The Times wrote in January, the MoD officials do not seem to share these traditional beliefs. What they do is fiddle while Rome is burning, that is, rebuilding and redecorating… their own premises.
The ministry bureaucrats must have decided they could no longer put up with the discomforts in their hard work for the glory of the Kingdom and, with the government’s blessing, launched an overhaul of their central office building. To build modern innovative-design offices, they had to demolish over 4.5 kilometers of walls which did not fit into the “open” office space concept. Every square meter of that space is being redecorated to meet the highest possible standards (meaning marble and oak), for a modest amount of £27,302.
The absolutely vital equipment bought for the “defense brain center” included 3,100 VIP series executive office chairs worth over £1,000 each, at least 3,500 oak doors at £1,200 apiece (for a total of £3 million), and 3 widescreen plasma panel TVs for each of the building’s 10 floors. The flooring was renewed in the lavishly decorated central hall (terrazzo and columns of natural stone); cafes, bars, restaurants, a gym and recreation rooms were installed for the tired ministry personnel’s relaxation.
The cost of this project (no doubt crucial for Britain’s defense capacity) adjusted for inflation will total £2.3 billion, which means that in the next decade, British taxpayers will have to invest £75,000 in the creation and upkeep of each defense official’s modern and fully serviced work environment.
As for the decent accommodation for soldiers, its estimated cost is only one-third of that figure - £25,000 per one serviceman. Experts estimate that the amount being spent on the ministry premises refurbishment could easily cover 20 years’ allowance for 1,800 servicemen (the number of soldiers laid off in 2004), or the purchase of 24 Chinook helicopters (as only 8 copters of the kind support the British ground force in Afghanistan at present).
British military bureaucrats’ indiscretion and acquisitive instincts look even more shocking in the context of incidents similar to the one described by the popular English newspaper Daily Telegraph in February 2007. The Royal Air Force, the daily wrote, refused to pay a £1,000 bill for flowers and tea at the funeral of an airman killed on operations in Afghanistan. Flight Sergeant Gary Andrews, a 48-year-old father of two who had served in the RAF for more than 30 years, was killed in a reconnaissance Nimrod MR2 crash in September last year. His elderly parents received a letter from funeral director which said the RAF command was not going to pay the funeral bill in full under the MoD instructions.
The military officials’ comment was brief and dry: flowers and food are signs of personal sympathy, and their cost does not have to be compensated by the government. Having saved as much as £1,000 on Sgt. Andrews’ funeral, they could of course buy one more nice and comfortable office chair. Indeed, their thoughts and designs are too far from those losing their lives serving their country.
