Obsolete: Lord Guthrie treats Telegraph readers like fools.

Charles (Lord) Guthrie today authors a comment piece for the Telegraph:

Since I voiced my criticisms of government policy towards our Armed Forces during Thursday's defence debate in the Lords, many people have asked whether the five former defence chiefs who stood up were taking part in a planned ambush against the Government. They seem to think we all met up at Starbucks and plotted to give everyone in it a bloody nose.
In fact, the opposite happened. Far from being a co-ordinated plot, this was a spontaneous eruption from a group of people who find themselves at the end of their tether regarding the treatment of our Armed Forces.

As I wrote yesterday, all five of the Lords who spoke up in the debate on Thursday are either patrons or vice-presidents of the United Kingdom National Defence Association (a full list of its patrons, vice-presidents and policy board members is available from their website in a PDF).

I cannot of course prove that all five Lords did actively conspire to do what they did in the Lords on Thursday, or that it was, in Guthrie's words, anything other than a "spontaneous eruption," and so in these litigious times cannot come right out and call Guthrie a liar. He doesn't however deign to mention in his article the existence of the UKNDA, his patronship of it, or that all five of his fellow former chiefs of defence staff belong to it in their various guises. You can however make your own minds up about his less than honest disclosure.

Labels: defence spending, Lord Guthrie, Telegraph, UK National Defence Association