"Our thoughts are with the dead soldiers" - no they are not - "they will never be forgotten"... yes they will, by most people in about 5 seconds.

What Brown, Cameron and the rest mean is "we hope our abject praise about dead soldiers wins us some respect and admiration from voters". There is not one fraction of a second of sincerity in any of their weasel words. And if they really think we are so stupid as to believe it, they ought not to be in power. Any of them.

"Our soldiers are doing a wonderful job..." No they are not. They are killing people and should be ashamed of themselves.

Absolutely right.

(By the way, I was re-reading the other day a book by Gyles Brandreth - of all people - called 'Breaking the Code'. It's a diary he kept during the dying days of the last Tory Government and it is fascinating - the best I've read on the sheer cynicism, the utter desperation, the profound public schoolism of the place when too many have been there too long. Everything is happening all over again, eerily similar.)

P.S. This Speaker is so horrendously smug and shallow I'm surprised he's not hosting his own food show on ITV! I'm also surprised no one's punched him yet.

JK2006 wrote:
"Our thoughts are with the dead soldiers" - no they are not - "they will never be forgotten"... yes they will, by most people in about 5 seconds.

What Brown, Cameron and the rest mean is "we hope our abject praise about dead soldiers wins us some respect and admiration from voters". There is not one fraction of a second of sincerity in any of their weasel words. And if they really think we are so stupid as to believe it, they ought not to be in power. Any of them.

"Our soldiers are doing a wonderful job..." No they are not. They are killing people and should be ashamed of themselves.

Completely agree on the fake sincerity but the soldiers are doing their utmost best to limit any civilian casualties to as little as possible. They are getting food and aid to hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan who were neglected, isolated and abused by the Taleban and other than the very occasional bad egg, show far more guts and courage than you or I ever could.

Here's a blast from the past (1978), with a spookily topical message!

Fascinating - after that I learnt to spell Independent!

'Jim Callaghan an excellent janitor'!

All over Britain soldiers / regiments are "exercising their right" by marching in towns and cities ... is a sad and desperate attempt to gain public support.

This type of exercise (known as KAPE - Keep the Army in The Public Eye - in the military) is often reported to have brought "thousands" onto the streets and there are frequent reports of towns being brought to a standstill.

I have yet to see any evidence of this ... camera angles are deliberately acute so you cannot see how many people are actually there, and of the few who appear to be, most have (surprisingly similar) "flags" and "placards" of support (plants !)