Army values

WITH every passing day the Ministry of Defence looks like it knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. The plans to make redundant an extra 5,000 British soldiers, on top of the 7,000 cuts already announced, will pile more pressure on the Armed Forces after it has been through one of the most gruelling decades since 1945. As such they are short-sighted, unfair and wrong.

Clearly some in the MoD have come to a similar conclusion, which is why a letter sent by General Sir Peter Wall, the head of the Army, was leaked. In deciding to cut whole battalions and regiments the Government may well protect soldiers on operations from redundancy but they will harm morale and place more strain on troops who have been engaged on long and bloody campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It would be unfair to criticise General Wall alone, however. He has had to cope with the black hole in defence funding, left by Labour, but he must think more about how the MoD can reform its misfiring procurement operation instead of reducing manpower. The value of those men and women serving our country must never be underestimated.