Eyes left . . . er right . . . er shut . . .

Don't you just love the smooth, seamless way that Government works like a well oiled bag of spanners.

On the one hand we have Gordon Brown encouraging our troops to wear their uniforms with pride when they are off duty and off camp, which must have been music to the ears of the squaddies off on the pull around the local clubs or watching the town footy team take on Millwall or Cardiff.

All this to a background of encouraging noises about a national holiday to honour our servicemen and discounts on admission to cinemas and so on, spirit of the blitz and all that. Perhaps our armed forces could even parade down Whitehall with missiles and troop carriers, all supported by heroes of the tractor factories, on, say, May 1, with the Cabinet taking the salute from some suitable balcony.

But I digress. While all this flag waving and back slapping for our brave lads at the front is going on, the other hand sees Defence Secretary Des Browne sidling into the High Court to try to gag coroners to prevent them criticising the Ministry of Defence at military inquests.

MoD lawyers are claiming phrases such as "serious failings" might imply some sort of blame or even liability when some mother's son gets blown to bits because the equipment that might have saved him had not been ordered, or was not in this year's budget, or was still in boxes in Aldershot.

This from an organisation which seems to have no problem with liability when it is happily shelling out hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation to employees who seem to do llittle more than ladder their tights or snag their trousers in defence of the realm.

Perhaps if the Government really wants to do something to honour the troops fighting its wars then instead of parades and holidays and cheap admission to Alton Towers they might start to look at providing them with the manning levels, budgets and equipment to do the job. That might even have the added bonus of coroners no longer finding "serious failings" without having to resort to the cowardly act of a gag.