Poor show for our troops

Welcome home. It was not so much the red carpet as the cold shoulder that greeted some 330 troops returning to Britain on Christmas leave after lengthy and dangerous deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Herald reveals today that more than 200 soldiers who had been serving in Afghanistan were made to change out of their uniforms and into civilian clothing on the tarmac at Birmingham International Airport before they could continue their journeys home. Yesterday, we reported that, on Christmas Eve, the flight carrying 130 Wiltshire-based troops home from Iraq was diverted to Prestwick Airport, where the soldiers were left without travel arrangements having been made to take them home.