General Sir Richard Dannatt says men and women in the armed services deserve above- inflation pay rises.
He argues that at the moment an individual soldier gets paid less than a traffic warden, and a failure to address this state of affairs would affect motivation.
Britain’s armed forces have become increasingly stretched to cover conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Last year Dannatt said troops were feeling undervalued and other senior commanders have complained in the past about under-funding and neglect.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has promised the government will do “everything it could” to help the armed forces. However, the Ministry of Defence points out troops benefit from tax breaks, housing, food and other benefits while last year the armed forces receieved the biggest public sector pay rise.
Do soldiers, who put their lives on the line for their country, deserve more generous pay rises? Or is the army chief being unreasonable? Send us your comments
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11 comments so far
Labour has always postured as an “anti-war” party, closely associated with CND and similar movements who wanted to reduce the military effectiveness of the West, so has never valued the armed forces and has never funded them properly.
They could get away with that approach for so long as the role of the armed forces was only to defend the UK, but the situation changed with Labour’s conversion to a crusading role in imposing its ideology on foreign countries.
For a volunteer soldier, defending his (her) home country is one thing. Asking that soldier to fight and possibly be killed in a war that has nothing to do with defending the home country is quite another.
What Brown and Co are finding out is that if you want someone else to do your dirty work for you, you’re going to have to pay the going rate.
- Posted by Mike TSpot on, Mike T.
New Labour, particularly Blair, was keen on ‘big picture’ gestures and he still loves the reflected glory - so he sent the troops in, underfunded, under-equipped and underpaid.
Of course, there’s no problem with spending billions on unnecessary aircraft carriers, and Trident replacements even the Americans don’t need, because these things will, they hope, secure Labour votes in shipbuilding constituencies: whereas the poor bloody infantry, on the whole, vote Tory - so who cares about them?
- Posted by Thumper the RabbitAbsolutely they should be paid far far more than traffic wardens whose job requires little training, next to no skills, and a very crude form of courage (facing up to the occasional irate motorist). They should be paid around £50000 a year each if required to go into active service on the front, and officers 50% more. These are puny prices for a life.
A previous respondent MikeT makes a classic mistake when he talk’s about Blair’s war etc. He fails to appreciate that threats outside a national geography can have a massive knock-on effect on the geography itself. The war on terror knows no boundaries. How often have we heard it? and how few people understand it.
- Posted by Nigel MiddlemissI wouldn’t be surprised if a single mum with a couple of kids ends up getting paid more, of course they deserve a rise above inflation!
- Posted by Sue OliverI absolutely believe that these men and women deserve a pay rise, they are risking their lives for this country on a daily basis, we shouldn’t even need to ask this question!
- Posted by C CollinsYes, strongly. If we want our Armed Forces to protect the National Interest, which is their job, then we must not only pay them the proper rate for the job but also look after their welfare and that of their families. If we don’t do this then we will find all too soon that we do not have any soldiers, sailors or airmen.
- Posted by Tony DurieAfter 10 years of Labour, our forces have been deliberately stripped of equipment and facilities to the point today where they are at breaking point.
The forces deserve as much attention and investment as is currently given to the fashionable areas of MP’s expenses, MP’s pensions and pay rises, government targets administration, snooper databases etc, in other words all of the ‘throw money at it’ favorite political causes.
Instead of ministers grandly giving a few hundred million to a country they happen to be visiting, without even discussing it in Parliment, lets have that and the overseas aid budgets, utilised to pay our services the amounts that they deserve. The minimum wage and working hours would be a good start, never mind accomodation - how about giving ‘elf & safety authority over service accomodation - that should start a few major problems being addressed - and do the same with hospitals!
- Posted by Brian DI think that soldiers should be paid alot more that traffic wardens, as they are risking there lives to protect our contry and they are in risk at all times. all’s that the traffic wardens do is put tickets on cars…. they get paid for doing nothing at all as soldiers do work and do training for a long time unlike the traffic wardens who train for one day and get a carrea.
- Posted by Terrance LordThe fact that Labour has spent more on the Northern Rock fiasco than on defense might shed light on Brown’s priorities…
- Posted by John“The war on terror” is probably the biggest con trick ever perpetrated on Western taxpayers. The plain fact is as demonstrated throughout the period since WW2 that Western governments do not have the political will or ability to pursue such a war with sufficient ruthlessness and over a sufficient timescale to achieve the desired result, because their electorates are too squeamish and too politically disloyal to support any war which costs the lives of their own soldiers and foreign civilians for no visible result.
This handicap will be amply demonstrated if Obama is elected President, because leaving aside the partisan support of black and liberal voters he will have been elected on the presumption that he will immediately start the process of exiting Iraq and Afghanistan. Thousands of lives and billions of dollars will have been squandered to produce … nothing.
- Posted by LobitoMany people are concerned that our country does not adequately recognise the courage and sacrifice of members of the armed services, except on special occasions such as Remembrance Day. We should be proud of the members of the armed services for their role in protecting us and their courage should be recognised on a daily basis. Business can help here. At our Shropshire pub we offer a 10% discount on food and accommodation for all serving members of HM Forces and we wish to encourage other businesses to do the same. But it is nigh impossible for military personnel to identify which outlets give discounts. We urgently need a nationally recognised symbol for businesses that offer a discount to the armed forces. We are currently petitioning the Prime Minister to establish such a symbol and we invite everyone concerned at the way we are treating our troops to sign the petition at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/forcesdiscoun t/
Fiona and Graham Didlick
- Posted by Fiona and Graham Didlick