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Foreign Office Want to Charge MoD for Defence Attachés

Seadog

War Hero
Moderator
Daily Telegraph

Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, is said to be angered that the Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, refused to pay for the accommodation and administrative costs for the senior officers in what had been a decades-long agreement.

The Foreign Office has estimated that it should charge the MoD £10.5 million a year for the services which would mean a quarter of the 118 defence attaché posts would have to go.

Doesn't mean the posts have to go, just means that MoD have to pay for them. DAs and single Service attachés are diplomats too. Other than their pay, it seems reasonable that all other expenses come from the FCO.
 
May be the MOD should give the Foreign Office the bills for the wars we get involved in as a result of their foreign policy.

Mind you is this simply the classic civil servants shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic game.
 
The only thing I ever saw of defence attaches' was pissed up expats' at flightdeck cock and arse parties spinning dits about what a good number they had...
 
Lingyai said:
The only thing I ever saw of defence attaches' was pissed up expats' at flightdeck cock and arse parties spinning dits about what a good number they had...

That of course is exactly what they wanted every one to think. Some years ago I was trying to peddle some kit to the Thai Navy and the NA in Bangkok arranged some appointments for me at naval HQ, and then took me there in his official car in full rig and with the White Ensign on the car, thats the only time I have ever been on the receiving end of a guard and general salute, very impressive. In reality they do a good job.
 
I was fortunate enough to be the Assistant to the DA for the Eastern Caribbean. Like many others I thought it would be a life of endless cocktail parties and sitting on the beach - there was some of that, but a lot of work too. When there are only two of you and one is a Captain RN and you are a Senior Rate who do you think gets most of the crap jobs? But on the subject of the thread, it would be very difficult for service personnel working in Embassies and High COmmissions to sort out many of the snags caused by the beaurocracy of the host nation without the support of the FCO diplomats and their local organisation. My Boss had diplomatic status but I did not so often had more snags with the local authorities as I couldn't wave a dip pass at them and give them a stiff ignoring. We didn't pay for anything except overseas phone calls from home (the FCO paid the line rental). I expected to pay MQ charges but there was no requirement. Rather than penalise the MOD, the FCO should start charging their diplomats. We are in these jobs because the FCO no bugger all about defence matters....come to that they are not too hot on foreign policy either!
 
Old news Sea Dog - see my post yesterday in the 'downsizing to 20000 by 2015' thread and a slightly earlier post in that thread.

I thought it more appropriate for it to go in the downsizing thread.

This is MoD spinning for all they are worth and 90%+ is spin. Rather than hang their hats on anti-terrorism (which the FCO know they can shoot them down on) they should concentrate on the Defence Sales facilitation perspective which I think Maxi77 may be getting at..
 
Maxi_77 said:
Lingyai said:
The only thing I ever saw of defence attaches' was pissed up expats' at flightdeck cock and arse parties spinning dits about what a good number they had...

That of course is exactly what they wanted every one to think. Some years ago I was trying to peddle some kit to the Thai Navy and the NA in Bangkok arranged some appointments for me at naval HQ, and then took me there in his official car in full rig and with the White Ensign on the car, thats the only time I have ever been on the receiving end of a guard and general salute, very impressive. In reality they do a good job.

If it was the Sea Archer fire control system Maxi, then thank you very much. I spent a very enjoyable 3 years of 3 monthe Bangkok 3 monthe UK working on these systems.
 
slim said:
Maxi_77 said:
Lingyai said:
The only thing I ever saw of defence attaches' was pissed up expats' at flightdeck cock and arse parties spinning dits about what a good number they had...

That of course is exactly what they wanted every one to think. Some years ago I was trying to peddle some kit to the Thai Navy and the NA in Bangkok arranged some appointments for me at naval HQ, and then took me there in his official car in full rig and with the White Ensign on the car, thats the only time I have ever been on the receiving end of a guard and general salute, very impressive. In reality they do a good job.

If it was the Sea Archer fire control system Maxi, then thank you very much. I spent a very enjoyable 3 years of 3 monthe Bangkok 3 monthe UK working on these systems.

Wrong company wrong time. Mind you I would love to take the credit.
 
Lets be honest - this is all about Greedy Gordon and the upcoming CSR. The FCO probably have a budget target, same as the MoD and when your budget appears to be supporting something that's "not your department", guess what's going to get held up for the axe? Major element of cutting off nose to spite face going on here (by UK plc), because as posted above, there are DA functions that don't include hosting defence manufacturers and cocktail parties.
 
Not_a_boffin said:
Major element of cutting off nose to spite face going on here (by UK plc), because as posted above, there are DA functions that don't include hosting defence manufacturers and cocktail parties.

True, but most of which ended when the wall came down.........
 
F169 said:
Not_a_boffin said:
Major element of cutting off nose to spite face going on here (by UK plc), because as posted above, there are DA functions that don't include hosting defence manufacturers and cocktail parties.

True, but most of which ended when the wall came down.........

Not all - when a mate of mine did his back in (3 crushed vertebrae) in Oporto and we buggered off back to sea to finish our exercise leaving him tucked up in bed in the local hospital it was the local DA from Lisbon who came up to "baby-sit" and make all the arrangements for his casevac back to Blighty. Yes, there may well be social functions of the DA, but I'm sure that's not all.
 
Oh I don't know. If I was the DA in Delhi, I'd try to spend as much time talking to the IN operators as I could get, just to see what they let slip in terms of their training, readiness and morale. Ditto Beijing, Islamabad, Kuala Lumpar etc.....
 
Flagwagger - agree but assisting with the occasional casevac aint gonna be an argument even the MOD will put forward for keeping on DAs - there are a lot of countries already that dont have resident DAs around the globe.
 
F169 said:
Flagwagger - agree but assisting with the occasional casevac aint gonna be an argument even the MOD will put forward for keeping on DAs - there are a lot of countries already that dont have resident DAs around the globe.

Having spent a fair ammount of time talking to NAs in particular arround the world, they tend to have a fair workload of stuff the MOD wants done to keep them busy. These days none are either for status or jobs for the boys as some were in the past.
 

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