M’s a bit of a Siobhan Sharpe figure in a meeting chaired by Ian Fletcher, but even more crap.
TL;DR below: I can’t stand H, people who admire/use him shouldn’t, and what a waste of £26 million.
H - words fail me why any charity or organisation for young people from troubled backgrounds would want a drug addled privileged, spoiled and spiteful arsehole anywhere near it. Makes me wonder about the quality of governance, frankly. Someone needs to do their due diligence because H’s reputation will be fully in the gutter by the end of next year.
The issues with the UK’s current defence crisis (budget and policy), and the political stewardship of defence budgets from as far back as Penny Mordaunt (Con) and Johnny Mercer (Con), as well as under the current government, are huge.
I hope this means that any begging bowl held out for Invictus Birmingham will finally be scrutinised by the MSM and public as the grift it is, and not dismissed as ‘small fry’. That £26 million would have gone some considerable way toward fixing the core defect (thermal-management sensitivity of the WR-21 ICR) of at least one currently languishing Type 45 destroyer. Or it could have gone toward housing homeless veterans and preventing homelessness in that community via up-and-running schemes surviving on a shoestring that need the money.
And that’s another thing. Does H ever recognise the navy? Or do his ‘world thought leader’ speeches never extend past his mostly invented personal experience in the army? Last I heard, former head of the navy Admiral Alan West was calling his being given the ‘legend of aviation’ award ‘pathetic’.