Hoon adds hypocrite to long list of poor qualities

My final decision to get away from the MoD after 14 years was made for me by Geoff Hoon.  I was a very politically minded middle manager who had been principled enough to believe that lying about WMD was beyond even Blair and his cronies.  Soon after the Gulf War was over it became very apparent that Blair had lied and that Hoon was complicit in that lie.  

I say lied because on 2 occasions I chatted to serving officers who had been out in Qatar during the War and they both, independently, told me that the intelligence in Qatar was that there was no WMD.  It was then, when I realised that, even though I had worked 6 years in the Civil Service under a Labour Government that I decided I had to leave.  I could not work for an employer who was willing to lie to send people to their deaths, I could not work for an employer that had been willing to see families lose fathers because of a lie.

Hoon the poodle was complicit in that lie - he knew the truth, as Hutton and Butler showed.  At the time when the MoD most needed a strong man at the top it was left with its weakest, it was left with a poodle who put his political career above the lives of soldiers.   During the Hutton enquiry it became apparent that Hoon saved his political career by allowing himself to be set up as the fall guy – Hoon above the needs of others, Hoon kow-towing to his masters.

So this week, when Hoon said that the Tories need to raise their game I was quite frankly disgusted.  This is a politician who should have been strong in support of our troops, whose weakness contributed to our soldiers fighting a war based on a lie and who was willing to set himself up as a fall guy in order to save his career. He has no right to tell me, nor my party, how to play the game.