In recent years Rangers have made much of their affection and respect for Her Majesty’s armed forces. Last season the Ibrox club has given soldiers free match tickets and invited Falklands hero Simon Weston to be a guest of honour at an Old Firm match. During the time that RFC was using the controversial offshore Employee Benefit Trust to save on their tax bill the United Kingdom has been in two wars.
Wars cost money.
Lots of money.
British soldiers have died in circumstances where military experts believed that a lack of appropriate kit was at least as responsible as enemy action.
What would the £24 million that Rangers DIDN’T pay Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs have bought the troops at the front line?
During these wars lack of appropriate body armour and safe vehicles has, allegedly, caused the deaths and serious injury to British soldiers.
BODY ARMOUR
In the invasion of Iraq in 2003 Sergeant Steven Roberts was forced to hand over his body armour because there was a shortage. He was later shot dead in Basrah.
On the tape to his wife Samantha, Sergeant Roberts, 33, who had been forced to hand over his body armour to other troops, lamented ‘disgraceful’ shortages of kit which left him and his men facing combat with ‘absolutely nothing’.
An official Army Board of Inquiry confirmed that bulletproof plates on his Enhanced Combat Body Armour would have saved him.
Even those lucky enough to have body armour complained that the kit wasn’t good enough.
Lack of money in the MOD budget was blamed.
For example British soldiers had to wait until the autumn of 2009 to get issued the advanced “Osprey Assault” body armour and the new Mk7 helmets.
The new Osprey armour still has the “stopping power” of the previous Osprey kit, but the new model is less bulky and serves as a closer fit for troops. It will also have pouches for troops to carry ammunition and first aid gear according to the MoD.
The previous Osprey added additional weight to the already heavy loads troops have to shoulder. In some cases it is alleged that troops were injured or killed as a result of the loose fitting armour because bullets were able to enter the body through the wide gaps between the arms and chest.
A recent coroner’s inquest was critical of flaws in the body armour design.
Minister for defence equipment and support Quentin Davies said that 10,000 orders of body armour and helmets had been made at a cost of ÂŁ16m.
Many believe that the cost of this kit meant that it wasn’t acquired earlier for our lads at the front line.
Rangers’ £24 million in tax would have supplied 15,000 squaddies with this life saving kit.
VEHICLES
Many British soldiers have been killed or seriously wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan because they were driving in poorly protected “Snatch” land rovers.
Scores of British soldiers have died in these unsafe vehicles from roadside bombs including Corporal Sarah Bryant, the first female British soldier killed in Afghanistan.
The government’s failure to replace it with a vehicle providing more protection from enemy forces is “cavalier at best, criminal at worst”, Major Sebastian Morley, the head of the SAS reservists in Afghanistan.
These vehicles, originally designed as a vehicle to transport troops in Northern Ireland, are referred to by soldiers as “mobile coffins”.” You drive over a landmine in a very-lightly armoured Land-Rover Snatch – it’s not much different from driving over it in a Ford Escort,” a former member of the Royal Green Jackets who served in Iraq, Steve McLoughlin, said.
MPs on the Commons cross-party defence committee were critical in a 2006 report about the vehicle’s lack of armour and urged the government to immediately purchase an “off the shelf” replacement.
Once more cost was the major reason that our troops weren’t in better vehicles in a war zone.
Lives would have been saved had they been travelling in the heavily protected, specially designed “Cougar” rather than the “snatch” land rovers.
Called the “Mastiff” by the British army this tough vehicle doesn’t come cheap at £400,000 a pop.
ÂŁ24 million would provide 60 of these mine proof vehicles capable of carrying 360 troops in safety.
A PROPER ARMY?
The lavish equipment of the US forces in Afghanistan not just in quantity, but also in higher quality is clear for all who care to see.
The chances of the US soldier or Marine surviving a battlefield wound in Afghanistan or Iraq has been calculated to be 95% if he survives the first five minutes after being hit.
British soldiers, on the other hand, have “bled out” as they waited, and waited, and waited to be “casevaced” to a field hospital.
These British soldiers have died because they could not be delivered on time to waiting medics.
Had these young men been in the uniform of the United States they would have lived.
Quite simply the British forces didn’t have enough helicopters with enough flying hours to move troops safely and to quickly get wounded men to the hospital in Camp bastion.
Moreover they travelled overland because there weren’t enough British helicopters.
Simply put the British effort in Helmand province has been woefully under funded.
Thankfully now the Americans have taken over in Helmand and the British are reduced to a small area their meagre resources can cope with.
This time, unlike in Basra, the British have not been defeated. The United States military stepped in before that happened.
However the tale of the British in Afghanistan has been one of brave soldiers being sent into harms way without the resources to do the job.
Strange then that a football club that has launched a PR offensive on how much they love Her Majesty’s Armed forces are in dispute with her Majesty’s Exchequer over taxes owed.
It isn’t very loyal is it?
Perhaps instead of giving the lads in uniform free tickets to Ibrox they should just pay their taxes immediately to equip the men at the frontline doing their bit for Queen and country.
Wouldn’t that be more dignified?
Wouldn’t that be more quintessentially British?
Wouldn’t it?
Just asking.
Baresi
Don’t pay Her Majesty’s taxes, poor equipment, more danger and then when you get home they make you go to Ibrox. Poor squaddies!
January 22, 2011 at 3:56 pm
San Diego Dui Attorney
Why are we still surprised by anything that mob do? For almost their entire history they have been nothing more than a reaction to Celtic. Their songs are centered around hatred of anything that doesn’t fit their “traditions” rather than a love of their club.They have cynicaly tried to use their cover as the quintissential British club to hide what in the end really just boils down to right wing racist and sectarian leanings.If the tickets to the games were done for the right reasons no-one would bat an eyelid but the shameless parading of Simon Weston betrayed their true motives. They knew exactly what reaction they would get and sure enough one idiot duly obligedIt’s one thing for the neanderthal supporters to display these tasteless views but for the club to not only condone them but to actively encourage them points directly to the black heart that beats on Edmiston DriveC’mon Taxman, do the decent thing and wipe this stain from the face of Scottish Football
+1
July 5, 2010 at 7:49 am
Kevin McCann
It’s not about fair distribution of taxes – it’s about Rangers transparency in fuelling the halfwits that follow them with underhand propoganda. Ibrox will go into financial meltdown over the next few months….
June 24, 2010 at 3:34 pm
johnny bhoy
Reply to fats.
Of course buying military equipment is not like going to the supermarket, it takes time.Rangers have been “doing” the taxman for years, time enough to go to the military supermarket. Ok,approx’ ÂŁ50 million (as it turns out) would be spread about the system and not designated to the MOD alone. That makes this theft even worse, it is denying other things of much needed cash. Hospitals,schools, pensions etc. In the national scheme of things it is not a great amount of money but boy it is still theft on a grand scale. There can be NO excuse. Your other point..I am a proud Scot who is extremely proud of my Irish and Highland heritage…I am not and never will be british. I advocate a free and Independent Scotland with whatever government we Scots choose to elect.This article was wellbalanced and truthful, two morals sadly lacking in the pro rangers press.
June 11, 2010 at 5:32 pm
gary marshall
Yawn
June 11, 2010 at 4:19 pm
Team Lennon
It always amazes me this show of loyalty to the forces when you consider during the first and second world war the majority of the rangers squad avoided being called up by landing jobs in the protestant run ship yards. This left them with the strongest team in scotland and won the league as a result – Its said that the only thing rangers didn’t lift during the war was a rifle.
June 9, 2010 at 6:21 am
rosses
How sick of an institution to avoid paying taxes and place the lives of the British armed services at risk through lack of suitable equipment, and then use those same service men for free and cheap publicity stunts….giving away tickets they could not sell. I trust the brave soldiers will not be sucked in so easily to the tacky stunts of this deplorable and undignified club.
Surely folk will now come to their senses and the sectarianisation of the Poppy Appeal, that the Ibrox club have wholeheartedly endorsed, will now stop.
June 8, 2010 at 4:59 pm
John
I understand the points you raise, but almost as hollow everytime the Revenue prosecute someone for tax evasion or catch a cigarette smuggler and say “The tax/duty here would have been enough to open 3 new hospitals”. Its never as simple as that, although Rangers should be hammered for their ill-planned tax avoidance.
June 8, 2010 at 2:07 pm
Colourfly
Excellent article.
Why is it that the clear issue highlighted above have not been published by the Scotitsh Medja? In somebody’s back pocket ?
More power to the pen.
June 8, 2010 at 7:50 am
The Yeti
Very poor taste – dragging yourself down to the level of the Ibrox board with cheap, very cheap, point scoring.
A very truthful article, (in regards to the content surrounding the lack of equiptment of troops in Afghanistan) that bears no relevance whatsoever to the financial mismanagement in Govan and would have been excellent had it no disguised itself in weak efforts to have a pop at our rivals.
In my book, you have let yourself down here.
June 8, 2010 at 7:22 am
Fats
Sorry but your analogy is rubbish, you might as well say that if an ordinary tax payer doesn’t pay his taxes one week the 1000 rounds of ammo that money would pay for means the squaddies can’t go out and fight!
Taxes are collected and then divided up everywhere through the system not just in the way you described, anybody could do this even a first year journalist!
Besides that the vehicles and equipment you describe don’t just come off the shelf, military procurement isn’t like Asda’s “oh I’ll pop down to Asda and buy 60 Mastiffs today, I have a spare 24m quid lying around” it has to be ordered then waited on and waited on. Shortages with equipment and manpower are a governments fault not a football teams… Get real!
More strange however is Celtic football club why don’t they support the troops in the same way and they’re British too “or are they”?
Now will this post see the light of day!
June 8, 2010 at 5:59 am
the o rahilly
good article Phil.The huns should be pilloried for complicity in the deaths of these bullet catchers
June 8, 2010 at 4:56 am
gedi1888
Keep up the good work Phil. Top article
June 8, 2010 at 3:34 am
Mick Na Gopaleen
You’ve hit the nail on the head here.
There are different ways of being loyal. Being good citizens, paying taxes, obeying laws you’d think could pass as loyalty.
I’m not sure what tax avoidance crossing the line into evasion would be classed as – but loyalty it isn’t.
June 8, 2010 at 3:14 am
Henrikisgod
Why are we still surprised by anything that mob do? For almost their entire history they have been nothing more than a reaction to Celtic. Their songs are centered around hatred of anything that doesn’t fit their “traditions” rather than a love of their club.
They have cynicaly tried to use their cover as the quintissential British club to hide what in the end really just boils down to right wing racist and sectarian leanings.
If the tickets to the games were done for the right reasons no-one would bat an eyelid but the shameless parading of Simon Weston betrayed their true motives. They knew exactly what reaction they would get and sure enough one idiot duly obliged
It’s one thing for the neanderthal supporters to display these tasteless views but for the club to not only condone them but to actively encourage them points directly to the black heart that beats on Edmiston Drive
C’mon Taxman, do the decent thing and wipe this stain from the face of Scottish Football
June 8, 2010 at 2:56 am
Jock
Interesting article, but hold on a minute, doesn’t the fault lie squarely at the feet of the previous taig infested labour government, what with all their expenses rorts and the like. As you are at pains to point out we love out majesty’s Armed forces not the previous Labour government. All things cosidered I think you will find nothing amiss at Rangers Football Club, Celtic FC however, well if you want to bring up skeltons in the cupboard…….without going into the obvious skelton, would you not rather entertain service Personel who put their lives on the line on a daily basis for your Queen and country or would you rather stand and applaud and cheer murdering terrorist scum, which has been known to happen at a certain east end football park?
June 8, 2010 at 1:17 am
dougie
ouch phil
cracking article and so much truth in it
June 7, 2010 at 8:15 pm