I'd suspect that if he was in the front line because they wanted to be rid of an embarrassment.

I'll take your word for it that he was in the front line. Oddly, I suspect there were others there who lacked his privileged background and were paid peanuts to risk their lives.

Fair enough, credit for that. So, only what 99% of his life is that of the professional parasite. You'll notice I give him more credit than you gave Wilson.

Whoop de do.

I think its just part of the job description, a step on the way to being high in the firm, an investment. Do a bit in the army to give you legitimacy, so the proles don't throw you out.

Yeh fair enough, but what he did required guts and skill.

Unfortunately Wilson possessed neither of those characteristics and little doubt both you and I could have cocked the job up just as easily as him.

Whoop de do.....de doooo !

yeah, fly a sea-king helicopter in the Falklands whilst bullets and missiles are whizzing around you, ships blowing up in your face, one of the first there pulling guys out of the water after the Arctic Conveyor was hit. .
he spent 22 years in the navy, most of which as a helicopter pilot, a Lynx off the back of a bucking frigate is not a safe place to be even in good weather.

so perhaps the guy has got problems with his choice of friends and just lately that seems to be par for the course (Murdoch\Cameron\Eccleston to name a few) but for 22 years all he did was to get a bit of legitimacy in front of the proles, especially when he passed the Royal Marine Commando course....

good one

Yeah, but if you had screwed up, but left an amazing legacy, that benefited future generations, I'd take off my hat to you.

I presume that because he was brave or mad enough to do that, every other brave helicopter pilot should be similarly recompensed?

Also, Wilson died broke. Andy will never match that.

Anyone can die broke, even folk who have had millions through their hands.

Wilson had a better wage and pension than most ppl and in addition awarded himself the occasional undeserved increase from time to time, (wish I could have done that), so the fact that he died broke was even further proof that he didn't have a clue about money management,..... thats if his devaluation of the pound wasn't already proof enough.

In view of his undoubted stupidity, I doubt very much if he was solely responsible for the O.U. Also in my book he was a coward, running away from every important issue or sweeping it under the carpet for someone else to clean up later.
Oh and please don't try the Vietnam thing again, I think thats safely been put to bed.

In total contrast, Andys skill and bottle during his time in the navy and especially the Falklands episode is an indisputable fact.

Yeah man, you are right, Wilson never did a good thing, only did bad.

Andrew on the other hand was such an amazing pilot that nothing he ever does now will be worthy of censure.

You are so Right dude.

GB too, totally bad person, didn't do a good thing ever, only bad. Tony Blair, can I get your ruling on this?

My rather rightwing friend always is torn to hell over this. He hates anything socialist but regards Iraq as a righteous war against sand niggers who were armed to the teeth with WMDs which will be discovered any minute, so he doesn't know whether to kiss Blair or kick him.

Your ruling please?

G.D. ???

GB. Mistype.

So. Blair. God or Devil? Hero or Zero?

First off Wilson.
As I said I like to give credit where its due.
He may have been a disaster as a leader, but even I have to admit he was a brilliant natural born politician.
His ability to tell porkies and avoid issues was second to none and would probably have made most of the todays shower green with envy.

G.B.
Bad ? I'm not so sure, unless of course he was in the pay of the Ruskies which may well have explained many of his actions.
Incompetant, yes, ten out of ten in that respect.

Blair, the nigger in the woodpile.
I believe he won two elections with sizable majorities so he must have conned a hell of a lot of ppl.
Though I never voted for him, I have to hold my hands up and admit to preferring him to his Tory opponent in the first election.
However as the saying goes you can only fool some of the ppl. some of the time.
Nuff said.

But Wilson was BAD you said so yourself, so how can he be a good politician? Brown you have said so yourself, Bad, bad, bad.

Those two are sorted.

It's advice we need on Blair. Butt kissing warmonger and profiteer, or darling of the right for his steadfast support to the glorious cause.

He can't be both. I'm thinking you'll be swinging to the right on this, especially as we know, Socialism, like Wilson is a Bad Thing.

OK, almost agreed on Wilson and Brown, though I'm not sure I used the word bad which could cover quite a multitude of sins, there again on second thoughts we'll settle on it for now rather than split hairs.

I thought I already gave you my impression of Blair.
Both of your options put together just about sum up what he tried to be if you think about it, though he was never any darling of mine
Basically he tried to be all things to all ppl. which was how he got elected, but at the end of the day he got found out.
Whether or not he was really a Socialist I'm not quite sure, as that term can also cover a multitude of sins, though not quite all of them bad I hasten to add. He seemed to follow a path down the middle of the road which is probably why he ended up getting run over.
Had he stayed on I wonder if he would have done as badly as Brown at the last election or maybe much,much worse ?
Had he not messed up in Iraq would he still have been re-electable ?

If Blair hadn't been such a dick, he could have won the next two elections, and possibly the one after that.

Labour support was so high after the perceived dishonesty of the tories as cf to labour, that altho it was reducing, it was doing so so slowly that the tories had no hope of getting in for a decade. I always used to say that providing that Labour didn't organise the slaughter of the first born, the tories were unelectable.

Then Blair took us into Iraq on a raft of lies.

Mandy told him he was entitled to his Maggie Moment and he believed him

Do you know there are still sad old rightwingers that still believe the WMDs are still out there.