The impossible has happened - Trump has made me a Keir Starmer supporter!

[mumofoneAloneandwell]

'This is not the age of churchill'

Thank God. Fucking orange twat.

Israel did not bomb Akrotiri. Wishful thinking on your part?

Trump is going for Cuba next, should we join him?

@1dayatatime

And the operational reasons why the plane couldn't take off was that the pilots had exceeded their allowed hours of work and had to take a rest break.
This is absolutely taking the piss and imagine if the Dunkirk evacuation was run along the same lines.

Story as I've heard, not fully verified, it is that since Muscat is regarded as safe and is operating normally HMG chartered a civilian wet lease operator to do the job - rumours are it was Titan...

That means the whole operation had to be compliant with civvie flight time limitations.

Don't know where the crew started their day or what time they clocked on but it seems the aircraft flew into MCT fine. Unfortunately the ground ops side of things didn't work as planned, and everything became so protracted that the crew ran out of hours.

There are provisions in the flight time limitations for emergency extensions on crew's normal limits and I'd put money on that being used to the full in this case but ultimately you can reach a point where the law say's "no"..then if there's no back up crew it's a case of get off and try x hours later

I'm sure if there had been mortar shells or rockets falling around the aircraft, similar to Dunkirk, things would have been handled differently but that wasn't the case.

All sympathy for British people in the Middle East caught up in this. I have friends living there. And it's a horrible thing to happen on holiday with small children.
But comparing the situation to Dunkirk is unintentionally funny. Like every time there's a muddy road it gets compared to the Somme.

'Actions have consequences and by "standing up to Trump" it looks like Starmer has left Akrotiri defenceless in the short term and may end up losing the base in the long run. Well done.'

He is useless and an embarrassment.

If I wanted to study real history, I wouldn't begin that magical journey on Mumsnet.

Style over substance then? Personally I thought he came over fine and didn’t notice any nervous mannerisms. Margaret Thatcher had lots of voice coaching etc and to me came over very badly but I think it’s more important to focus on content.

Different people have different experiences

Though he said the flight delay had been described as a "bit of a shambles", he told the BBC that he thought it had been managed well overall and the communication from the UK government had been "really good".

One man, who didn't want to be named, said that he fled Dubai along with his young family over the weekend, driving themselves to Oman.
He described a "terrible" wait for the chartered plane to take off yesterday, after spending around 36 hours in Muscat International Airport with his wife and young child.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq8gw0k0330o

Margaret Thatcher had lots of voice coaching etc and to me came over very badly

Once described as a perfumed fart.

Do we need to own a suit?

Iran are state sponsors of terrorism

So are Russia. Killed an innocent mother of 3 on UK soil.

How is the evacuation of American citizens going?

And I'm not entirely sure how Starmrr can be personally responsible for an operational issue with the aircrew.

A second chartered evacuation flight to UK expected to depart Oman tonight

Sales of lemon scented napkins have quadrupled.

His sitting on the fence 'content' is as bad as his wibbly awks looking performance.

As a senior politician I think it is not unreasonable to expect them to speak powerfully, not nasally, to look relaxed not nervy and to actually make you feel they are in charge. He does none of these things. Angela Rayner did better holding an audience.

The Dunkirk evacuation by the Royal Navy was after instruction from the Government.

Conversely the Royal Navy did actually recommend deploying a Type 45 off Cyprus but were overruled by the Government.

Thats the difference.

How the US evacuation is or is not going is irrelevant. Besides other European nations are performing it well.

Whilst Starmer is not personally responsible, the fact that this is a Government organised flight and they didn't take into consideration the crew's operating hours just goes to show how badly it was organised.

I don't think there were many soldiers on the flight from Oman

There were delays with the check in which led to pilot going beyond the permitted hours.

Safety first

I don't think anyone is suggesting there were any and certainly no evidence of this.

We obviously disagree. Caution seems sensible in this situation. I guess we would all know of you if you’re a senior politician. I’m curious but understand that we’re not going to find out. I think ordinary people prefer common sense and integrity over a polished performance . Although to be fair we have been led by the nose by people who are considered to be “ charismatic “ in the past. It hasn’t benefited anyone much.

Agreed. Tbh honest I dreaded labours foreign policy. But they ve just about got it right in variable circumstances

Oh FFS

It was a chartered flight. The government can hardly be held responsible for unexpected delays that meant that the original schedule couldn't be kept. Presumably the contractor included a reasonable amount of contingency but this was insufficient because of delays on the ground.

@1dayatatime dunkirk Indeed.
Absoltuy ...sorry guys !.we have to wait on the beach for several hours whilst we have our tea and biscuits