The news that serving soldiers have been given notice by email has been met fury from ministers. Liam
Fox has answered questions in the House about this story and why 100 RAF pilots discovered they were redundant in
yesterday’s newspapers. Fox was both livid and contrite, decrying the ‘completely unacceptable’ practices and reiterating the MoD’s ‘unreserved apologies’. He
announced that an internal inquiry has been called, which Patrick Mercer believes will expose negligence among those officers who manage personnel. Fox also conceded that the sacked pilots, many of
whom were ‘hours from obtaining qualification’, cannot be retained in some form of volunteer
reserve, such is the squeeze on the MoD. This enabled Fox to attack the reckless conceit of ‘no boom and bust’, and, less vocally, the timeless incompetence of MoD procurement.
It was an adept performance.
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