Stop Playing Politics With Defence, says Ex Army Conservative Candidate Dan Byles

Conservative Parliamentary Candidate Dan Byles, the former soldier who will stand in North Warwickshire & Bedworth at the forthcoming General Election, this week blasted Gordon Brown for his extraordinary pre-election pledge to ramp up defence spending.

Dan Byles has been an outspoken critic of what he decribes as consistent Government underfunding of the Armed Forces, and today he said that Gordon Brown's sudden u-turn over defence spending just months before a General election 'beggared belief'.

Brown's out of the blue announcement of extra £billions for defence has caused astonishment, as the UK is so heavily in debt that there has been serious talk among economists of the UK Government's international credit rating being reduced due to concerns over our ability to pay our debts.

Speaking after Gordon Brown's announcement, Dan said:

"I was staggered when I read that Godon Brown is suddenly pledging billions of pounds in increased defence spending, just after he has bankrupted the nation. This is the man who squeezed the defence budget to the core throughout the boom years, even while our Armed Forces were committed to two vicious and bloody wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Gordon Brown as Chancellor cut the helicopter budget by £1.8 billion just as we were going into Afghanistan, and he forced our soldiers to fight two wars on a peacetime defence budget.

"At the Chilcott Inquiry into the Iraq War, the head of the Armed Forces Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup told the Inquiry that a year after the invasion of Iraq the Defence Chiefs threatened to resign unless Gordon Brown abandoned planned cuts to the defence budget.

"So I'm sorry Mr Brown. This is too little too late, and anyone listening to your pledge to boost defence spending just months before a general election, with your record of denying vital resources to our Armed Forces while they were fighting two wars, cannot help but feeling this is yet another cynical election stunt at the expense of our soldiers.

"I was a Staff Officer in the Ministry of Defence when we invaded Iraq and I initially supported the war, because Tony Blair told Parliament and the British people that the case for Weapons of Mass Destruction was beyond doubt. When it turned out that was rubbish and that soldiers had been sent into battle with inadequate equipment for a lie, I was deeply disillusioned. It's why I left the Army to stand for election.

"Our Armed Forces are too important to be used as a political football for Gordon Brown to try to save his job."