Defence secretary 'bad at his job'

Colonel Tim Collins has attacked defence secretary Des Browne for being "bad at his job" and has called for a UK equivalent of America's 'GI Bill'.

Collins, whose eve of battle speech before the invasion of the Iraq war brought him international attention, left the army after being falsely accused of mistreating Iraqis.

He said the lack of support he received demonstrated a more general failure to back armed forces personnel.

In an interview with the Parliamentary Monitor, Collins said his treatment was "symptomatic of the fact that service men and women are not well regarded in this country. It is a great pity, a great source of regret and is a real shame."

And in the wake of accusations that ministers have broken the welfare 'covenant' between the government and armed forces personnel, Collins said Britain should look to the US.

"The character of the nation has changed. American society is more appreciative of their service personnel for historic reasons whilst ours is becoming a more loosely based society," he said.

"We could take a leaf out of the US book and one thing I would call for is an equivalent of the GI Bill which guarantees the rights of personnel during and after their service. That would have to include a guarantee of decent healthcare and retraining after service."

Collins was also highly critical of the ministerial leadership being shown on defence issues.

"Des Browne is a part-time defence secretary. He is only there because he is bad at his job and therefore Gordon Brown can take charge of the train-set all on his own," said the former soldier.

"Brown regards the armed forces as an attractive accoutrement but not much more than a useful electioneering prop, and he is certainly not prepared to spend any time or effort on them."

Whilst supporting the decision to drawdown troops from Basra, Collins is scathing about what he sees as a lack of direction from both the government and the Conservatives'.

"Withdrawing the troops from Iraq is sound but it is not connected to any policy because as far as I'm concerned this country no longer has a foreign policy," he told the magazine.

"I believe the withdrawal is more to do with the severe overstretch of the armed forces, coupled with the fact that NATO has failed in Afghanistan and now the UK is going to have to find the thousands of extra troops that are required.

"One of the problems has been that there has been no effective pressure from the official Opposition party because they haven't formulated anything like a clear foreign policy of their own – it's just incompetent.

"The Conservatives have approached me to support them and I have no regrets about not doing that.

"I wouldn't support them unless they came up with a foreign policy, and I see no evidence of that happening.

"At the moment the Tories are under pressure to show how they differ from Labour but I believe that in the area of defence and foreign affairs they are really missing a trick.

"If they had a coherent foreign policy they could demonstrate clear blue water between themselves and the government."