Here’s one I never thought I would have to do. The Royal British Legion, or rather, those at the head of the RBL. It’s been announced today that the RBL is closing the four hotels it runs. The clown they just had on North West Tonight, who had obviously never served a day in his life, said it was to help veterans in other areas. A few weeks back though, the excuse was that the four hotels cost £6.5 million per year each to run and the RBL had a deficit of £40 million. However, it’s been revealed that the RBL has somewhere around £270 million sitting in the bank. This thing with the hotels goes back to November last year, and when I asked a guy manning a RBL stall in my local shopping mall, he got shirty and told me that it was only temporary. He then snottily asked if I’d ever served (I was wearing a hoodie that had “Royal Artillery Commando, with a red commando dagger beneath it). I was also wearing my HM Armed Forces badge. Of course I replied that I’d served for over twenty years. I later asked an RBL outreach worker I know, and she told me what was confirmed tonight, that the closures were permanent. So much for the lying cunt at the stall. And think on this, most of the staff at the hotels were volunteers. Some of them had been there years, and now they’re out of a job. And I would point out that I am in no way having a go at ordinary employees.
And the hotels aren’t the only thing the RBL are getting rid of. They’ve also gotten rid of their team of handymen, who were all veterans themselves. Those men did a brilliant job, for free, and now they’re unemployed. Of course, that hasn’t been widely mentioned. The fact is, those hotels provided a welcome break for veterans and their families, who might not necessarily be able to take breaks. More importantly, we were among people we could relate to more easily, other veterans. And in the summer, they opened to serving personnel and their families. Not anymore. Now the RBL has taken that away from us.
It seems to me that the RBL, which was once run by people who had served, has now gone the way of charities like Save the Children, the British Heart Foundation, Water Aid, etc and has been taken over by a bunch of arrogant, clueless pricks, who’ve never served a day in their lives, and whose sole aim is to make money. Well, not from me. Apart from buying a poppy come Remembrance day, they won’t get a single penny out of me. I’ve cancelled my direct debit. And I’m not the only one.
It’s a real shame, because the Legion has done a lot for me, and other veterans over the years. Unfortunately, the upper echelons have now been infested with the kind of middle class, elitist, know better than you types that infest other charities. Those people are cunts.
Nominated by Quick Draw McGraw


