AFGHANISTAN - THE NOUVEAU KILLING POPPYFIELDS

This week we are getting very close to the watershed number of 200 service personnel killed in operations in Afghanistan. This is against a background of reports (including comments from senior military commanders) of inadequate equipment. Read the books by Andy McNab to fully understand how under-resourced British troops are compared with, say, the Americans. At the same time, the MOD is taking two severely injured servicemen to court in order to try and get the level of damages and financial compensation awarded significantly reduced.

At first sight these elements seem unrelated, yet actually they reveal a frightening consistency. The British Government (of all parties) has a long and dishonourable history in the way it has resourced its service personnel and the way in which it fails to look after them once they have left military service. There is often talk, in the media, about the unwritten "social contract" the British people have with service personnel. In reality it is hard to discern what this is.

The people have one view, the Government has another. Recent events and actions by the Government such as the attempt to prevent former Gurkha troops being able to reside in Britain reveal a long-standing and ingrained culture, evident across so many areas of Government operations, of a lack of care for its citizens. It shows, for example, in the disgraceful way the Government refused to sign the EU Working Hours directive a few years ago; the way in which Gordon Brown, in his first year as Chancellor in 1997-98, started raiding pension funds of £5bn annually; or the unquestioning handouts of £800bn (now rising to around £1.3 trillion) given to banks whilst continuing to cut public services; in allowing banks to repossess an increasing number of homes; and refusing to assist charities which lost significant amounts of investment funds in the collapse of the Icelandic banks.

This lack of care is partly driven by another ingrained tradition - that of placing cost cutting and minimisation above people or long-term investment. It is driven by a short-term Treasury model from a body which is dictating policy but yet is unelected, unaccountable and undemocratic. HM Treasury does more damage to Britain and its people in a single day than the much-pilloried House of Lords could ever do in a lifetime.

So meantime, our troops as always are doing an excellent job in unimaginably difficult circumstances, sent by political masters whose primary motives are characterised by a lack of genuineness.