Brown's defence budget slip up doesn't add up
Maurice O'Brien • Published 25 Mar 2010 13:00
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PERHAPS it ill becomes someone who failed O-Level maths four times to be rude about the man who saved the world economy from ruin.
But then I've never chuntered statistics at the nation like a hyperactive cotton auctioneer, hurled figurative billions around like confetti or boasted of my fiscal mastery with the infallible air of Geoff Hoon touting for a lobbying job.
However, I've always thought there was something decidedly shifty about anyone using the phrase 'real terms', if only because it seems to place undue emphasis on the possible antonyms.
Telling the Chilcot Inquiry the defence budget rose in real terms in 2002, 2004 and 2007 might be a slip of the tongue, but then within the next six days to inform both the House of Commons and the British Forces Broadcasting Service that it's been going up every year "under this Government" was a bit of a whopper.
Because, 12 days after charming Chilcot, Clunking Fist was forced to tell the Commons: "I do accept that in one or two years, defence spending did not rise in real terms."
We're still waiting to hear in what terms Broon will apologise to the military chiefs mocked for challenging his original claims and to the families and comrades of British soldiers, sailors and airmen whose very real deaths came about using cheapskate equipment which left them fighting with one hand tied behind their backs.
Cynical as it may be, shouldn't we be wondering how many other terms are not quite as real as they seem?
- HOW nostalgic to hear Tony Woodley's nasal Liverpudlian tones talking about offers being on and off tables, and werkers' rights to withdraw their labour. It almost had me scrabbling through the wardrobe looking for my flares, kipper tie, tank top and a floral shirt with huge collar, while peering in the mirror and wondering whether big, bushy sideburns would look as scary in white as they did when I was the proud owner of dark brown curls.
It also got me thinking of when I saw friends in journalism driven to the brink of ruin by the cost of strike action and the misery of working to rule, a wheeze that meant the management still got their job done but our freewheeling lifestyle was transformed for weeks into clock watching drudgery.
I also remember how often the management won but the union leadership rarely lost.
So while much of the working population struggles for survival, I hope it's not long before the BA cabin crews discover they weren't that badly off after all.
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