Sir, It is extraordinarily ironic that Bill Rammell, the Armed Forces Minister, warns that Britain is so risk-averse that the public may no longer tolerate deployment of the military (report, Jan 14, and letters, Jan 15). History will show that this Government’s policies since 1997 are the main reason why we, as a nation, have become so risk-averse.
Its health and safety legislation and its “PC” culture have resulted in a generation of children being completely overprotected. Because children are not encouraged or allowed to climb trees or play conkers or take any risk, in case they might be injured, future generations are unlikely to volunteer for military service.
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Thus the fighting spirit, which saved our country from disaster in the last century, is being beaten out of us by pathetic rules and regulations designed by misguided people who for some reason believe that they are helping society. Sadly, we shall not, in future, see many men of the calibre of the late Captain Daniel Read, who was killed defusing a Taleban bomb (report, Jan 14).
John Winkworth-Smith
Bakewell, Derbyshire
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Sir, The three qualities in our society listed by Mr Rammell as being detrimental to deployment of the military — reluctance to be bullied by the Establishment, the need for different forms of communication between government and people, and freedom of information — could be argued to be healthy signs in a modern society. Mr Rammell deplores these factors as making it increasingly difficult for governments to deploy troops. Thank heavens for that, many will say. It is no surprise that people are less trusting of government’s military ambition after the scarring experience of the war in Iraq when many consider that they were misled; and the pressure for better and fuller information can only be good.
Of course these things make government with consent more difficult but when it comes to making war, it is right that those in authority should have to work very hard to take people with them. Military action should only be the ultimate last resort, when the very existence of the nation is at stake. The Government would find that, if this situation were ever to arise again, the British people would line up behind it and the military as wholeheartedly as they did in 1939 and the years that followed.
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Any cynicism there may be is entirely the result of the arrogance and careless use of power by those in authority. Let us welcome a “gentler and more humane society” (Commentary, Jan 14) and one that requires the most compelling of arguments before it is willing to risk the lives of its young people in war.
Christopher Ellis
Farnham, Surrey