The invoice reads as follows:
INTERNAL ISSUE VOUCHER
Basic price is 22.51 per DofQ as at 18-JUN-10
Item: 51WR 6240-99-9965601 LAMPFILAMENT
Well I'm no expert but that doesn't sound like your everyday run-of-the-mill light bulb to me, and indeed the Ministry of Defence confirmed that later this morning: "It was a precision-made lamp filament for the Watchman radar. The MoD purchases about five per year."
The Sun article says "The Sun launched a War On Waste campaign last year, calling on readers to report bunglers who throw around public money." Well, in my view it's high time the media launched an internal campaign of their own to stop the "bunglers" posing as journalists spewing out wildly innaccurate stories whose only purpose is attack those who strive to deliver excellent public services and defend our country.
Similarly, we need to stop the "bunglers" who somehow managed to find jobs as government ministers from taking more heed of tabloid newspaper stories than of the experts in their own departments. If Liam Fox had bothered to enquire within the MoD before blurting out his attack on his predecessors, he could have saved himself from demonstrating the idiotic incompetence we witnessed from him today.
Update:
The MoD have since responded again, this time saying (according to the BBC) that the "the thrust of the Sun's story was correct." In other words, there are some dodgy procurement practices in the armed forces that mean sometimes more money is spent on items than it should - but there's no mention of the specifics around the light filament invoice, which is central to the Sun's story and to Liam Fox's comments.
What has almost certainly happened here is that the ministers have realised how silly they looked and ordered the civil servants in the MoD to release a statement admitting to some unspecific, vague guilt around overspending - hence the assertion about "the thrust" - but that fails to address the fact that the example that was held aloft above all others - that of the £22 light filament -relates to a specialist piece of equipment and not a generic light bulb. If this government is to reduce the UK's deficit without doing undue harm to our services, they need to have much better attention to detail than that.
Update:
The MoD have since responded again, this time saying (according to the BBC) that the "the thrust of the Sun's story was correct." In other words, there are some dodgy procurement practices in the armed forces that mean sometimes more money is spent on items than it should - but there's no mention of the specifics around the light filament invoice, which is central to the Sun's story and to Liam Fox's comments.
What has almost certainly happened here is that the ministers have realised how silly they looked and ordered the civil servants in the MoD to release a statement admitting to some unspecific, vague guilt around overspending - hence the assertion about "the thrust" - but that fails to address the fact that the example that was held aloft above all others - that of the £22 light filament -relates to a specialist piece of equipment and not a generic light bulb. If this government is to reduce the UK's deficit without doing undue harm to our services, they need to have much better attention to detail than that.
