Bloody rude
Sir: Michael Portillo (‘The view from Basra’, 28 March) accuses the British army of arrogance and, effectively, of incompetence. He says we’ve been humiliated. This may accord with his new television persona, but it is still disingenuous, apart from being bloody rude. It is his own political class that has been shown up — shamed, shown treacherous and craven — by reducing the British army again and again, until it could fit into Wembley stadium, but still expecting it to undertake counter-insurgency work.

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