Paul Alders
Joined: 04 Mar 2006
Posts: 931
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Sir Gus O’Donnell KCB
Cabinet Office
70 Whitehall
London
SW1A 2AS
Pingat Jasa Malaysia Medal (PJM)
Sir;
I respectfully wish to draw your attention to two miss-leading statements which originated from Mr Denis Brennan’s department in June 2007.
These two statements have since been used by the FCO and by Ministers. Meg Munn MP has even suggested that they should be placed in the House of Commons Library if this were to happen it would result in miss-leading Parliament.
The intention of these two statements is to deny Veterans the right to wear Foreign Medals that have been accepted by Her Majesty where She is not Head of State, see London Gazette 3rd May 1968. 5057.
Statement one
“These regulations do not relate to awards of campaign or commemorative war medals.”
This statement comes from FCO 57 106-1968-69 (file No TXH 1/5) and is not from the London Gazette file.
Statement two
“It is well understood that offers by commonwealth and foreign countries of general service or campaign medals are not considered under the terms of the Foreign and Commonwealth Orders Regulations but are dealt with separately by the H.D. Committee by submission of separate Reports to the Queen.”
This Statement comes from FCO 57/15-1967-68 (file No TPD1/13/2) and is from the file concerning the London Gazette Notice, but has been taken out of context.
The LG Statement clearly states that if the medal has been accepted then you automatically have permission to wear along as you are not a Crown Servant when the medal is conferred.
When I wrote to the Cabinet Office in July 2007 and ask which file these two statements originated from Ms Abby Oshodi informed me that they came from file CEREMONIAL OFFICE H31.
In August 2007 I ask for a copy of this file and Abby refused my request.
On the 18th March 2008 Ms Tanya Collingridge of the FCO in an email informed me that these statements came from an old HD paper in 1968 and she was unable to give me a file number as they do not keep files that are more than three years old.
If Tanya Collingridge did not have these files how was she able to correctly brief Meg Munn MP?
The PJM was first offered to the British Veterans on the 28th July 2004 and since then there has been a campaign to deny Veterans of the Malay/Borneo campaign their right to wear this honourable medal with pride.
I am confident that should the case for wearing the PJM be looked at with an open mind come Veterans Day I shall once again be able to add my PJM to my medal bar as I did so for the Merdaka Parade in KL Malaysia last year.
I thank you for your time and look forward to your reply.
Kind regards
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