Will Eric Joyce have a job tomorrow ?
by johnofgwent
On my regular rounds through the news sites I couldn't exactly fail to trip over what is either a junior defence ministry rising star's swan song, or another devious plot by Comrade Brown the control freak. I can't work out which.
It came to my notice here that the Labour MP for Falkirk, Eric Joyce, has spoken out against the Ministry of Defence for its attempts to reduce the amount of compensation that has been paid to soldiers wounded in Blair and Brown's dirty war.
I smell a great stinking rat.
Joyce's record in parliament is hardly that of the larger than life radical. His support for the armed forces may be genuine enough, for wikipedia would have us believe Mr Joyce enlisted in the Black Watch as a lowly private before gaining entry to Sandhurst. iI seems he served in Britain, Northern Ireland, Germany and Central America. Normally such a record would persuade me the man has ample qualifications to speak out on behalf of the "poor bloody infantry" but that thought must be tempered by the fact that Private Joyce of the Black Watch became Captain Joyce in 1987 - in the Royal Army Educational Corps where be became Major Joyce in 1992. However, it is said he left under something of a cloud in 1999 having described the army as "racist, sexist and discriminatory".
Having done that of course his future in the Scottish branch of Trevor Phillips' Commission For Racial Equality was assured.
As an MP Joyce became the first Member of Parliament to have racked up more than one million pounds in expense claims - possibly thanks to his involvement in the jet setting world of the G8 and Labour Friends Of Israel as listed in his Register of Interests entry - and he is under some threat of being given the heave-ho by his constituents.
So while I applaud the case that Mr Joyce has this morning put to the media, I wonder why he is really doing it. And I also wonder who is pulling the strings of a man whose parliamentary record is that of "a yes man".
It came to my notice here that the Labour MP for Falkirk, Eric Joyce, has spoken out against the Ministry of Defence for its attempts to reduce the amount of compensation that has been paid to soldiers wounded in Blair and Brown's dirty war.
I smell a great stinking rat.
Joyce's record in parliament is hardly that of the larger than life radical. His support for the armed forces may be genuine enough, for wikipedia would have us believe Mr Joyce enlisted in the Black Watch as a lowly private before gaining entry to Sandhurst. iI seems he served in Britain, Northern Ireland, Germany and Central America. Normally such a record would persuade me the man has ample qualifications to speak out on behalf of the "poor bloody infantry" but that thought must be tempered by the fact that Private Joyce of the Black Watch became Captain Joyce in 1987 - in the Royal Army Educational Corps where be became Major Joyce in 1992. However, it is said he left under something of a cloud in 1999 having described the army as "racist, sexist and discriminatory".
Having done that of course his future in the Scottish branch of Trevor Phillips' Commission For Racial Equality was assured.
As an MP Joyce became the first Member of Parliament to have racked up more than one million pounds in expense claims - possibly thanks to his involvement in the jet setting world of the G8 and Labour Friends Of Israel as listed in his Register of Interests entry - and he is under some threat of being given the heave-ho by his constituents.
So while I applaud the case that Mr Joyce has this morning put to the media, I wonder why he is really doing it. And I also wonder who is pulling the strings of a man whose parliamentary record is that of "a yes man".
