Should the Prime Minister (and, increasingly, each party leader) name and honour the recent fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan at PMQs? I had thought this quite respectful, but when I was in Afghanistan I was surprised to find a number of soldiers opposed to it. Their problem is that it reads to the nation a narrative of failure when the incredible success of the military during the turnaround against the Taleban barely gets a mention.
I raised this with Brig Mark Carelton-Smith, commander of Taskforce Helmand, when I was in Lashkar Gah and I print his response in my News of the World column today. “The casualty rate is not high,” he said. “Yet a steady drumbeat of casualties does eat away at stamina and resolve that a country needs to keep its nerve.” He would not be drawn on the practice at PMQs, understandably.
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