84% crap - Iraq Enquiry, Day 16

Putting figures on "Crapness" is notoriously difficult and incredibly embarrassing - that's why we hate exams. Putting a stat on the difference between "amateurs" and "professionals" harder still.

Sir Frederick Viggers isn't the first person to call the government "amateurs", but he's the first to have done so in such stark terms, and there's a decent stat in his statements to the Iraq inquiry to measure the professional/amateur differential.

100 days was the estimate given to complete an invasion.

It took just 16.

Aside from our military competence was the fact that the very basis for war - the threat posed by Iraq's military machine under the guidance of Mssrs Hussein & Co turns out to have been a sham. The only people they "conned" were HM Gov PLC.

That's an 84% difference, with the supposed "con" perpetrated by the likes of Comical Ali.

When Gordon Brown promises the end of "boom and bust", no cuts in the frontline of public spending, reduction of the gap between rich and poor etc. we'd do well to remember there's an 84% chance that either he's being conned... or we are.

Troops didn't need NBC protection

There's been a lot of  "we weren't allowed to buy equipment until very late in the game" spiel over at the Chilcott enquiry. Sir Kevin Tebbit, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence told us yesterday that during the run-up to the invasion, problems arose delivering body armour and protection against chemical and biological weapon attacks.

Well... his paymaster probably wouldn't be very worried about troops not having protection against biological and chemical weapons - if he knew the enemy didn't have them.

Who Cares

Dan Hannan said it all in this piece - as midnight quietly ticked by, so did the UKs sovereignty...

Meantime the Swiss were holding a referendum on minarets we were...  . ? ?

Hmmm.

Belly Dancing Bercow

Recently appointed speaker John Bercow is perhaps more radical a reformer than any of us suspected. The transcript of last nights Hansard Society lecture, calling for a reconnection between Parliament and the Public, heaps praise on the Parliamentary website, "there is no constraint as to how inventive we can be" etc. The transcribers may have got their links in a twist...

"Finally, in this section, I come to the website. It is simply fantastic and could equally be known as www.aladdinscave.com. It is a resource which should be the envy of legislatures around the world and a tribute to those involved with it. There is no constraint as to how inventive we can be and every incentive to remain in the fastest of fast lanes of this technology. We must ensure that procedural content can even more easily be found, used and reused. There must be no limit to our vision."