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The Queen Gives Approval for Foreign Awards to be Worn
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We have permission, let the suits prove us wrong we do not have to do their work for them.
The MoD read this Forum they did think they had us by the curlies THEY DO NOT.
Let them squirm.
They now know they haven't beaten us and they must be wearing the carpet out while we wear our PJM.
BBC Radio Solent tomorrow morning 15th March.

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What a huge sense of timing and relief! Our Medal~Our Right, for the 519 that never made it back this one is for you all!


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HD Committee: Amateurs in a Professional World
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Post Barry's research 
The data uncovered by Barry and his researcher are a goldmine. We now have irrefutable proof that HMQ has approve the PJM for wear. This means that the Civil Servants have been guilty of obfuscation and prevarication on an enormous scale. I would like to place on record my appreiaction for all the work that Barry and his researcher have done in uncovering what could cause a seismic shift in the corridors of Whitehall - I can hear the sugar cubes rattling in their tea cups as I write.
GerryL


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Gerald Law (ex RAF Borneo Veteran)
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Post Congratulations. 
If it had not been for Paul Alders persistence in trying to get sight of these government files we would not have got them.
If it had not been for Barry's researcher and his painstaking work we would not be at this situation now, and would be scratching our heads what to do next.
If it had not been for the rest of the fight4 team with their hard work and dedication the suits would have won.
And of course, if it had not been for the many supporters throughout the world we would have had to succumb to the rape of our democracy by filing clerks.

Well done everyone, give yourself all a pat on the back, you deserve it.

God Bless you all. I am very glad you are all on my side. Andy.

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Agreed Gerry, Barry has performed miracles, without his fortitude he has worked miracles, we must thank Barry, his researcher and the team behind him at Admin HQ and of course to his wife and family who have given their unstinted support. We mustn't also forget all the PJMers and non PJMers they are to be commended for their sheer persistence.

Can everyone as a final push just spread the news on Internet Forums (Fora?) and I shall be writing to my MP tonight to break the news and to a few more MPs.

Another fortnight and I guess that we can retire again. Just think we now don't have to carry those placards and picquet offices Very Happy Shocked Cool


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Post A toast. 
Have spent the day painting the lounge ceiling and cussing a lot, not so much about the work but the shocking news of last evening. Logged on a few minutes ago and suddenly the back ache has gone. I've also poured a large measure of my best malt...special occasion stuff...and raise it to Barry and the team. WELL DONE and thank you. I shall probably finish the bottle, with the help of the memsahib. Wish you were here.

MB.


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Mike Barton
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May I say a very BIG thank you to Barry, Paul and everyone involved in the research which led to the amazing piece of news
in The London Gazette and also to everyone who supported and worked hard for our rights.

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What a team eh guys?

I used to think it was a pleasure to work with such individuals....now I realise it is in fact a privilege!


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Post WELL! WELL! WELL!!!!! 
After my little tirade last evening, my loyalty has started to return albeit slowly. I second all the messages of congrat's etc etc. What an absolutely outstanding coup. Or should that be COUP de GRAS!? Wonderful piece of sluething and the ball is in their net, right at the back. I said i would wear my medal as i saw fit, but now i can with a clear conscience. Thank you all. However there is still bad vibes overshadowing, and there should at least be an admittance that they were wrong, and an apology, or someone disciplined for this whole bloody mess. Don't hold your breath, methinks!! I shall now proceed to toast you all especially our leaders, with first a few pints of Old Ale swiftly moving on to abottle of Bowmore. Sod work tommorow. Regards Dave


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but your sanity is not my responsibilty!
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Post A letter to a friend 
First, I would like to underline that this fight is ongoing -and that what we have achieved is a direct result of everyone's support. I cannot imagine any campaign having such brillianrt men and women supporting it.

Here is a letter I have sent to a stalwart supporter (I have not identified him but will do so when he has given his permission):


BARRY FLEMING TEP
STOCKBRIDGE COTTAGE • INKPEN COMMON • INKPEN • HUNGERFORD • BERKS • RG17 9QP
TEL: 01488 668 100 • FAX: 01488 668 900
barry.fleming@fight4thePJM.orgwww.fight4thePJM.org

13th March 2007

Dear Xxxxxxx Xxxxxx,

Pingat Jasa Malaysia
HD Committee Statement

Following our telephone conversation today, I hasten to enclose herewith copies of the letter from the Cabinet Office to the Public Petitions Committee of the Scottish Parliament.

Having read the HD Committee’s explanation of events in the attached document, the reader could be forgiven for believing that all was well with the UK Honours System and that it was in safe hands, being protected from “disaffected” (the MoD’s term for us on their web site) medal chasers whose ill-informed and annoyingly persistent lobbying might adversely affect the integrity of the Imperial Honours System. But even a superficial scrutiny reveals more of their misleading disinformation. By any standards the document is a disappointing attempt, by civil servants who answer to no-one, to justify withholding from British veterans formal permission to wear the medal they have earned. In particular:

• The paper states that the PJM is not of sufficient standing to warrant it being worn by British citizens. This is a further snub to both Malaysia and British veterans. It also implies that Australia and New Zealand have less than satisfactory standards because they have accepted it.

• Reference to the 5-year Rule is knowingly misleading because the Committee must be aware that the rule has typically been referred to as “more or less of an arbitrary nature” because that is how the Cabinet Office themselves referred to it in the 1970’s, which is even before the 1992 Russia and 1995 Malta medals were agreed 50 years after the events they commemorate.

• The paper claims to be complete. It is not. It omits many fundamental issues that would, in my view, demolish their arguments. The most obvious omission is reference to the Malta medal – any such discussion would, of course, be very embarrassing to them bringing a question mark over their integrity if anyone were to ask "Why did you omit a proper comparison". Well, I do question their integrity because they have lied by omission in order to deny British veterans.

• They selectively extract issues that are not on all fours with the PJM so what they have included is misleading. Reference to Kuwaiti awards are references to a Medal of Honour and/or a Foreign Campaign Medal – the PJM is neither (the medals they refer to were administered by the MoD not the FCO!). But, again, why no mention of the Malta Medal which was a Foreign office medal?

• Half-truths – they imply we are wrong about Foreign Office records. We are not. The FCO Honours Secretary told me that they do not keep records ‘by name only by event’ although they do have some names of people who have been awarded Foreign decorations.

• The paper makes a callous and unnecessary reference to those men whom they knew were dying, and died, waiting to hear their decision. The implication is clear - that human life is less important than the HD Committee endeavouring to justify out-dated medallic semantics – and failing even after two years.


Then there is the matter of the London Gazette entry of 3rd May 1968 – a copy of which I enclose. Here The Queen decrees that if She approves a Foreign award to be accepted by a British private citizen, then She is also approving the medal’s wear. This is a fundamental issue that we unearthed only last week. I have no doubt that the HD Committee will say something like “Ah … but we didn’t mean you!”, but the existence of that decree makes the civil servant’s intransigent obfuscation appear less than ‘honourable’. The Gazette entry clearly states that British private citizens (i.e. not in the service of the Crown) have The Queen’s permission to wear their PJM yet I have not seen any mention of this from any Government Department or any civil servant therein. The implications are clear.

Oddly, although we have uncovered singularly important documents pointing to the London Gazette entry, I think the most devastating conclusion I have come to is that a handful of civil servants have again publicly snubbed the King and People of Malaysia in order to protect their outdated agenda. And not for the first time. In the mid-1960’s the HD Committee had caused so much embarrassment to the Malaysians that they undertook to fast-track Unrestricted recommendations whenever an award was received! In our case, and no doubt in others, they have reneged on that undertaking.

I have hundreds of pages of photocopies from the National Archives that prove that this appalling behaviour has characterised the last sixty years of Foreign Decorations policy (mis-)management. I have countless examples of official files notes and exchanges of letters between Government Departments that clearly and repeatedly state that the system is flawed and needs to be corrected and liberalised (liberated, more like!). We also need people managing the Honours System who have the intellect and integrity to carry out an open-minded review in an open manner, rather than one geared to defending their position within the claustrophobic, and slightly unsavoury, secrecy of those Whitehall corridors. This is not on a Wish List of civil service improvements. It is a fundamental requirement under the Civil Service Code that they look at matters with an open mind even when it may be embarrassing to them, and potentially damaging to them, to do so.

I have photocopies of FCO and/or Cabinet Office papers from the National Archives to substantiate the above statements.

In closing, I would like to point to the date on Brennan’s letter – it is the 12th March. That was Commonwealth Day! In the context of the Commonwealth PJM one wonders - should the British Honours System be in the hands of people with such insensitivity - people who display such a total disregard for others and the wider issues of critical importance in this, the real world, a global and very dangerous world. The one in which we have to live and the one which our servicemen and women die to protect. Just as so many of our friends did in Malaysia.

I shall keep you advised as to progress but would like to thank you, on behalf of all of us at “Fight For the PJM”, for your ongoing support which is an inspiration to all those fighting for the right to wear the Pingat Jasa Malaysia. We are determined to fight on, not blindly, but in the sure knowledge that our case is a just and deliverable one. And one day we shall win.

With kind regards.

Yours sincerely,


Barry Fleming

Encs: Copy of Brennan letter and his enclosure to the Scottish Parliament
Copy London Gazette 3 May 1968


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BarryF, who fought for the Right to Wear the Pingat Jasa Malaysia
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Post Queen's Approval - Given in 1968 
I wonder if some one will try and have the London Gazette amended?
I don't think that they would find that too easy, or easy to get away with.

Just seen Barry's letter; If an FCO Senior Civil Servant in the Protocol Office
can address a member of the Johore Royal Family DEAR SHAH, its conceivable
that the Bren gun didn't realise it was Commonwealth Day - you couldn't say they
were well informed, could you?

SPECIAL THANKS AND CONGRATULATIONS TO BARRY, HIS RESEARCHER,
AND TO PAUL ALDERS;


"THE GREAT EIGHT WINS OVER THE GREAT HATE"

BEST WISHES TO EVERYONE!

David



Last edited by GLOman on Wed Mar 14, 2007 7:15 pm; edited 2 times in total
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I have just sent a copy of the LG article to Don Touhig, with a covering letter.
GerryL

Dear Mr Touhig

Following on from my letter of yesterday, our research at the National Archive has today revealed that all restrictions to our wearing the PJM were removed by an announcement that was promulgated in the London Gazette on 3rd May 1968. I enclose a copy for your perusal. It is clear in our minds that the HD Committee had no legal, moral or constitu-tional powers to impose any ban on the wearing of the medal once that Her Majesty had approved its acceptance.


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Gerald Law (ex RAF Borneo Veteran)
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WELL AIN'T HONESTY JUST THE BEST POLICY,THE PROB THE SUITS HAVE HAD IS THERE'S BEEN SO MUCH OF A.B.C. SYNDROME THEY REALLY CAN'T GRASP WHAT HAS BEEN SAID TO WHOM,HENCE THE CONSTANT FUDGING,WHEN REALLY IF THE TRUTH WAS CONSTANT,THERE WOULD BE NO NEED,FOR WHAT WE HAVE SEEN HERE UNRAVEL! THAT LONDON GAZETTE IS THE KILLER POST.THE SUITS WILL ,HAVE TO ACKNOWLEDGE ITS EXISTANCE IN THE FIRST PLACE,AND THEN PROVE IT HAS BEEN RESCINDED,COURSE IT SHOULD BE POINTED OUT TO QUEEN ,HOW SNOTTY JANVRIN HAS BESMERCHED THE ROYAL REPUTATION,BY HIS INCOMPETANCE ALONG WITH THE REST OF THE UNHOLY CREW,I MEAN HOW SERIOUS HAS IT TO BE TO BE STRIPPED OF YOUR HONOURS,DRIVE A CAR BADLY IS ONE I CAN THINK OF,A LYING LORD SEEMS ACCEPTABLE. PSE PSE ,I COULDN'T DO IT FOR LAFFIN,BUT COULD SOMEONE PLEASE ADVISE SNOTTY HE CAN PUT UP HIS PJM WITH HIS KBLAH ETC ETC,AND DON'T THINK ABOUT LIVING IN A KAMPONG IN RETIREMENT! CAN WE HAVE SOME MORE ICONS TO CHOOSE FROM PSE.SHAFTED NICE ONE TO ALL AT HQ.I THINK WE SHOULD ALL HAVE A WIP ROUND,AND BUY A KNIGHTHOOD FOR WHO FOUND THAT GEM Wink

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So why not ask the top suits in the HDC, the FCO, the MoD, the Cabinet Office and all others who have misled the great unwashed public for an apology.


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Post London Gazette May 1968 
Barry - you are a cunning General, that's you and Paul and John etc. etc.

History points time and time again to occasions when battles appear to have been won; then all hell lets loose. The enemy, smiling and full of itself, retires smugly back to barracks - when all the big guns start, weapons they never even knew existed arrive, falling painfully upontheir heads.

Their intellience (in more than one way!) proved disastrously wanting.

I am so grateful to you all for all you have done - the London Gazette brought tears of joy to my ageing eyes !!!!

Many many thanks.

Tony

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