A dwindling army

In army parlance it is known as "gatekeeper reluctance": the resistance by parents to the idea of their offspring being sent to fight in an unpopular war. In the mind's eye lurks such tragic figures as Rose Gentle from Glasgow, whose 19-year-old son, Gordon, died in Iraq in 2004 in what she dismisses as "a war about oil". The Ministry of Defence refers to the issue of army recruitment as "a difficult challenge" rather than "a crisis" but the facts speak for themselves. Last year 14,000 trained soldiers left the British Army and only 12,000 joined, despite a large increase in spending on recruitment. The infantry is more than 2000 below strength.