Gotta love those unbridled opinions in British politics:
A peer and former defence minister has described the A400M military transport plane — which is being bought by the cash-strapped UK armed forces for a secret but outrageous amount of money — as a “Euro-wanking make-work project” in the written Parliamentary record.
The straight talk came from Lord Gilbert, who held various ministerial portfolios in the 1970s – including a defence one – and did another spell in the MoD as a peer in the first years of the Blair government. Last week he made the following remarks in the House of Lords:
I regard the decision on the A400M as the most bone-stupid in the 40 years that I have been at one end or other of this building. It is an absolutely idiotic decision. We have a military airlift fleet of C-17s and C-130s. We have total interoperability with the United States… six or seven countries altogether will be flying the A400M. Flying the C130, which it is intended to replace, are 60 countries, with 2,600 or so C130Js currently being used. That is the interoperability that we are losing…
