WATCHING David Cameron recently while he told us all just how great he is to be enshrining the “Forces covenant” into law, I couldn’t help but think how much he looked like my younger brother as he practised winning lines in the mirror before going on a date.

I’m sorry to do him a disservice, but it looked too rehearsed and polished to my mind.

Listening to him, I couldn’t help thinking, “what a hypocrite”. He boasts about doing something which is not his idea but, in reality, is also unworkable and costs nothing.

After cutting service personnel allowances, after slashing wounded personnel benefits and making them harder to get and retain, after taking away reservists’ (territorials) day-to-day job security while serving on the front line because it burdens employers with too much red tape, after cutting all the services to the bone, leaving the country exposed, after all this, and more, how easy it is to heap praise on gestures like giving the town of Wootton Bassett a Royal title as though he is personally responsible?

In reality the gesture shows the true face of our country’s common people, and to give these lovely people the praise they deserve in an effort to look good is disgusting.

After all this, David Cameron tries to fool us all with this meaningless act. And it is meaningless – how do you differentiate between a wounded soldier and an injured firefighter or police officer, or a nurse who is attacked by a drunk in A&E, or a customs and excise officer who is shot by a smuggler, or all those other heroes who put their safety second to serve us?

Glen Deeprose, Wellington Road, Brighton