Civil Servants who mislead the Public
Hamish, following your suggestion of contacting Mr Mathew Parris following his excellent article in yesterday's Times, I have taken up your suggestion, and penned the following :: (a bit lengthly, but it should get the point across !)
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Mr Mathew Parris 9th February 2007
c/o The Editor
The Times Newspaper
Dear Mr Parris
I am a great fan of your column articles in the Times newspaper, and have just read your excellent and well-informed opinion of civil servants entitled –
‘MoD staff who mislead the public should be exposed’. You say of these civil servants that, in your opinion, “
There is a culture there that sees the public as a damn nuisance. The culture is endemic and needs to be stamped on very hard indeed.” How so very true.
I, and several thousand of my colleagues, cannot but totally agree with you. I don’t think for one moment you need more confirmation of what you have said, but allow me to bring to your attention a glaring example of such arrogance.
Briefly, in Mid-2004 the award of the Pingat Jasa Malaysia (PJM) Medal to Commonwealth personnel who served in Malaya-Borneo between 1957 and 1966 was announced by the Malaysians, for physically fighting hard to maintain their newly found Independence. It took us – approximately 35,000 of us - from mid-2004, until 31st January 2005, when to achieve a state where the Minister for Trade, Investment and Foreign Affairs, Mr Ian Pearson made a Written Ministerial Statement to the House of Commons, which deigned to allow us to accept the award. He went on to add that we were
not to wear it !
Since the very beginning of these events, we have been fighting an extremely vigorous uphill and very frustrating battle to have this decision on wearing the medal rescinded. We have a well known website
www.fight4thepjm.org, and our campaign is supported by Early Day Motions in the Commons with over 300 signatures, a Petition to The Queen, interviews on BBC Radio, and world-wide support from places as unexpected and as far away as Vietnam. As you can imagine this campaign, along with all our emails and letters, has placed these civil servants with their backs firmly against the wall. And they do not like it. They totally fail to realise that if we do not dare to stand firm and defend the freedom to question anything and everything, we are on the very slippery slope to becoming a pre-Darwinian species.
This brings me to the comment you made above regarding their culture. They reacted by publishing a gross misrepresentation of the truth on the Veterans website, open to the public, in which they said, amongst other things
“……………that the MOD has refused to allow veterans to receive[sic] a campaign medal offered by the Malaysian Government for service between 1957 and 1967.” This is untrue. The government have said that we may accept the award but
not wear it.
They then continued, with unrivalled arrogance to say
“Seeing individuals proudly displaying a number of campaign medals has prompted some veterans to ponder about the overseas service they performed during their time in the Armed Forces, both as Regulars and National Servicemen. This has encouraged them to seek new campaign medals for past service.” We did NOT seek this award, it was offered to us by the King and grateful people of Malaysia.
The article prompted me to call to mind the last time I was addressed or referred to in a veiled manner such as this; it was as a rather errant schoolboy, when my housemaster expressed unfair displeasure at my activities during the previous term. I was not prepared to accept his words with total resignation then, and I am most certainly not prepared to accept it quietly from these people now. I will not humbly bow my head and shuffle off in shame.
I could, Sir, ramble on and on regarding this subject, as it is one issue about which my colleagues and I feel very strongly. I simply write to let you know how much we are in total agreement with what you have written.
Yours most sincerely
AJDavies