Libya: Bristish Incompetence and Selfishness.

[Colwyn]

In the last few of days Turkey has evaluated, by air, around 5,000 of its citizens from Libya. Today, belatedly, the  UK Government has decided to follow suit and hired a chartered airliner. This is still on UK tarmac several hours after it was scheduled to take to off due to "technical problems".

This afternoon I listened on Radio 5 to some messages (smuggled somehow out of Libya despite the attempted communication crackdown) from Britisn citizens over there. They told of breakdown in law and order, armed gangs roaming the streets, looting everything they could find, and killing anyone who got in their way. Obviously the Brits  were terrified. Within minutes, Radio 5 listeners were texting and tweeting the radio station saying anyone who chose to holiday or work abroad had brought this on themselves and shouldn't expect UK taxpayers to bail them out. Let them find their own way home.

Sometimes I have contempt for (some of) my fellow citizens.

[Highlander]

Couldn't agree more Colwyn. Well said.

[stoop]

Me too Colwyn!

[fethiyeflo]

and today the turkish goverment has sent ships over to libya to rescue more citizens,it was all on the news and looks like they will be arriving into marmaris
same happened with egypt the turkish goverment sent planes more or less straight away whislt the uk dillied dallied about it

[Gorgeous_bird]

and I expect a great many of the British citizens work in the petrochemical industry, which our wonderfully sympathetic citizens forget is required to get them to and from work in the UK, the transportation of food onto the table etc and many of them will have pension schemes which are investing in these companies overseas run by our citizens. A very shortsighted view. Agreed!

[GordonA]

The brilliantly successful (NOT) Tory Minister, Mr. William Hague, said early today that an airliner from the U.K. was already in the air, on it's way to Libya, it transpired that this was the aircraft that was still sitting on the ground somewhere! ( See Colwyns post, above). He then had the unmitigated Tory gall to appear on the 6.00pm news to deny that he, or anyone in his office, had said any such thing!! Well, all I can say is, that both Loz and myself must be hearing things, because WE  heard the announcement!! Openly lyingon World-wide T.V.News, subject normal for our fantastic CONDEMS!!

[Scunner]

I would also like to highlight the fact that not all Brits working in places like Libya are there for the huge salaries, tax free or otherwise. I worked for a number of years in the petrochemical industry and I remember my good luck in being sent to Abu Dhabi the day before my colleague was sent over to Libya for a similar assignment. Neither of us were on a huge tax free salary, we got the same money whether we were sent to Tripoli or Tipton.

[stoop]

I'm not a Hague lover but I tend to think the same would have happened whoever was in Downing Street. We always seem slow to respond to this type of crisis and remember had it not been for Brown and Blair we would probably have not done the deal with this Tyrant and murderer in the first place. Maybe then we would not have had so many British Nationals in the country working in the oil industry.

As it is we need to get them out asap and to blame them for going to work there is like saying any British holidaymakers who died in the earthquake deserve it for being able to afford to go on holiday to NZ. I'm sure there are those who probably think that as well. Sad, jealous people.

[BM06]

Not that I agree to selling arms to such an unstable character or region, and in no way am I a lover of Blair or Brown, but with the Russians,Chinese and French waiting in line to do the deal,without any conditions, which the main one achieved by Blair was to remove the capacity from Libya/Gaddafi to produce a nuclear weapon, can you imagine the lunatic with his finger on the button at the moment? I can only say well done Blair/Brown perhaps they got something right.

[tony]

With such volotile situations in various countries around the world, it makes you wonder if its wise to cut our defence budget.