By Brian Nicholls

Last updated 11:36, Monday, 19 May 2008

Hypocrites! It has become fashionable amongst opposition politicians and some national newspapers to shout about the treatment our wounded soldiers receive and the poor conditions many of the rest have to live in when not on active service.

Hypocrites! The politicians will have cynically worked out that there will be votes in it for them and, as for the editors of the national tabloid press, they don’t actually care about anybody or anything unless the story sells more newspapers.

It should be taken as read that anyone wounded in the service of their country should expect to receive the very best medical and rehabilitation care that a grateful nation can offer.

The last thing on the minds of any servicemen or woman on active service should be the worry about what will happen to their families should they be called on to make the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of the rest of us.

It’s only taken 200 years for these people to cotton on to the idea that it is a British tradition to treat our soldiers like expendable commodities. They fight like lions saving the faces and reputations of politicians but when the wars are over they are thrown on the scrap heap.

In 1824 a grateful Government, sick of the thousands of discarded soldiers home from the Napoleonic wars wandering the roads of Britain looking for employment, passed the Vagrancy Act which made criminals of all unemployed ex-soldiers asking for work, begging for scraps of food or sleeping rough.

Former French soldiers, the losers, were treated far better by their country. Attitudes have barely changed.

Even our annual Poppy Appeal was originally an admission that the state did the minimum for old soldiers and charity was expected to do the rest.

In places like the USA and Canada veterans are special and even get discounts on many goods and services they buy. Here we seem to be embarrassed by the whole thing and the best our heroes can expect is a parade.