Analysis comment

Tory MP Bradley ‘honours’ British armed forces – with a pic of a US soldier

‘Try again with a British soldier, you silly sausage’

Tory MP Ben Bradley has an outstanding track record of making a fool of himself, as the proud author of the most popular Conservative tweet – his ‘please retweet’ apology for ridiculously smearing Jeremy Corbyn – to deleting a tweet on race after being ‘owned’ by Martin Luther King’s daughter, a thorough self-humiliation after trying to take on footballer Marcus Rashford over school meals and condemnation of Bradley’s ‘eugenics’ comments about the poor.

So it’s perhaps not entirely surprising that Bradley managed to screw up his attempt to pay tribute to those who fell serving in the British armed forces.

Bradley tweeted a kneeling soldier in front of a union flag – but the soldier was American, not British:

Various ex-forces personnel pointed out the blunder, highlighting that the uniform and weaponry weren’t right – and that the graphic’s creator lazily seems to have grabbed a stock image of a US soldier from a well-known image licensing site:

Others pointed out that the Tories’ fondness for ‘overblown’ tributes is exceeded only by their liking for foreign wars that get more soldiers killed – and their habit of failing to provide the best equipment for serving soldiers or proper support for veterans when their service ends.

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11 comments

  1. Typical stupidity and disrespect from Bradley the moron.
    However in relation to the article’s final paragraph would point out that the Tories are not the only ones with a fondness for foreign wars.
    War monger in chief is Tony Blair who waged an illegal war in Iraq which resulted in the deaths of 172 service personnel many of whom were sent to war badly equipped and it was this lack of basic equipment which led to avoidable deaths. Reg Keyes father of one of the dead soldiers stood against Blair in one of the General Elections to highlight this.
    When Jeremy Corbyn who was leader of the party at the time spoke about the war in the House of Commons ( following the publication of the Chilcot report) Ian Austin a Blairite MP interrupted Jeremy’s apology for what had happened and shouted ” Shut up and sit down” at him . Mr Keyes and the families of several of the dead soldiers were present but Austin didn’t care so you see Bradley is not the only stupid and disrespectful moron There are many like him who still sit on the Labour benches and many who did so previously but are now like Austin in the House of Lords.
    War monger Blair also took us into Libya and into Afghanistan were we waged a futile war for 20 years before pulling out leaving the country much worse than when we arrived.
    The deaths that man caused is estimated at one million and of course we are still under threat by ISIS which grew and flourished because Blair and Bush destroyed and destabilised the Middle East. Yet Blair was/is a Middle East peace envoy and Jeremy Corbyn who never engaged in any warfare and who advocated resolving issues by discussion rather than combat is said to a “threat to national security” You couldn’t make it up.

  2. Apparently, there was a right old multi-party p*ss-up going on, on the flight out to Gib, to ‘meet the troops’, and spend Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday, with them.

    That woman from Warrington – I can never remember her name – represented Labour, two SNP and, at least, one Tory.

    One or two are back in good ol’ Blighty, already, but ol’ Ben Wallace isn’t happy with any of them – for some reason. 🙂

    High Spirits, I expect!

  3. From my upcoming book:

    “Politicians routinely dishonour the war dead, desecrating the Cenotaph every Remembrance Sunday before the world’s cameras. Sombrely dressed from head to toe, they’ve rehearsed their solemnity, are sporting poppies, are keenly aware of how their image is received, and of the electoral benefits linked to stamping their faces across it all. Meanwhile, we’re lumbered with a dominant, unelected UK oligarchy which promotes all this and whom we cannot get rid of. We have a democracy in name only, where the same old phoneys; politicians, royals, peers, senior civil servants and media talking heads can poison the air, turn on the tears and feign heartache, knowing it pays dividends.

    Whilst grief stricken, they’re secretly engaged in pursuing their own personal and organisational interests, and in doing so, are defiling the memory of countless forgotten, long dead armed forces members.

    The system is carefully designed and will default to accommodating the war-guilty when called for. This ensures the complicit are ready at a moment’s notice to appear smiling and chatty on TV and radio programmes. Here, unwary viewers and listeners will be drawn in, side-tracked from the warmongering activities and across onto safer ground, i.e. charity work, opening hospices or various positive puff pieces. To them it’s a game to be played, where they can escape any consequences for their repugnant behaviour every single time.

    These remembrance gatherings are also an annual, very public reminder of cascading, high-level hypocrisy. We can single them out and label them as hypocrites, but it’s a charge that will never permeate their thick skulls as they continue strutting around enjoying the limelight. They’re just too busy parading their arrogance and counterfeit ‘respect for the fallen’ to notice.

    Politicians can also rely upon cloaking themselves head to toe in fake glory in return for the general election votes of the uneducated masses, who’ll register nothing untoward, and dutifully queue up in their millions every five years – as directed by the idiot box in the corner – ready to be relentlessly crapped upon and lied to all over again.

    Such rancid behaviour was deeply shocking to me before I stopped watching TV and buying newspapers a decade ago. It’ll be massively insulting now to people unfortunate enough to have known and experienced the harsh realities of war, but who haven’t yet fought their way out from beneath the comfort blanket of seasoned, high-lustre propaganda.”

  4. Well I have had a trawl through the press and its clearly leaking out Piss ups by Opposition mps who spent more time binging in a Airport bar than actually doing any so called work on one of the regular all expenses paid “jolly to Gibraltar” .Meanwhile the knight in shining armour along with other knight of the realm from the lib dems Davey boy 👦are being targeted for their own Sleazey extra jobs.by the bumper sleaze experts Tory mps.Our knights blocking of a job with sleazey De Reya lawyers is front page in the Independent and also mentions Corbyn blocking Sir keir Starmer whilst he was a member of the shadowy cabinet.ITs very worrying when as Camoron once pointed out “We’re all innit together” and most especially the bottom feeding profession “Lawyers” with their second jobs like the ten thousand pounds our knight took from the Tory government “advising on Gibraltar” .I wonder how many trips to the Bar that took or how many jollys our dear leader has taken on free jollys.on the public finances.?

  5. If any of these vermin, red, yellow or blue respected the dead or our troops they’d stop sending them to fight America’s regime change wars.

  6. Last night I watched BBC Question Time (shame) & one young man’s question to Alistair Campbell brought a smile to my face when he asked why he had sent him to fight in Iraq? Campbell thanked him for his service.

  7. We need to counter the Tory Right Wing Militaristic Nationalist Right Wing narrative.
    Went to a great conference today on Islamophobia & good trade union workshop.
    Recommend Robert Winder’s ‘Bloody Foreigners. A Study of Immigration into Britain” (2013) and as a General Secretary said we needed facts.
    So if you hear someone say “These Asians are not loyal to our country” quote Winder.
    In the 1WW 2.8n Commonwealth troops fought on the side of Britain including many from the Caribbean and Southern Asia.
    In fact many fought from India including Muslims and 50,000 lost their lives, 60,000 were injured, 4,000 were taken prisoner and 12 won the Victoria Cross.
    Winder skewers the xenophobic and knowledge is a powerful thing.
    Diverse working people of the world unite!

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