Hoon may strike again

David Miliband lacks the gumption to play Brutus, but does Geoff Hoon? The Sunday Times has obtained correspondence between Hoon, Brown and Blair illustrating that the then Chancellor overturned Treasury assurances that the MoD would receive additional funds for helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan. Brown wrote:

“I must disallow immediately any flexibility for the Ministry of Defence to move resources between cash and non-cash.”

Once again we see the (supposedly) miserly Chancellor holding Blair to ransom at any opportunity, regardless of the consequences. Whilst Brown is a spectre of a Prime Minister, he was anything but as Chancellor. Blair set the war in motion but Brown is partly responsible for Britain’s defeat, and by tying the army’s hands Brown bloodied his own.

Hoon, wounded after Wednesday’s humiliations and resolutely opposed to Brown, may yet act on these disclosures: the Chilcot Inquiry is unlikely to ask him if he considers Basra the ideal winter holiday destination.