The Defence Secretary has admitted that the Government did not enough support British troops at the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Defence Secretary, Bob Ainsworth said that military personnel were justified in complaining about a lack of interest in their work at the beginning of the campaigns.

Mr Ainsworth said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph that improvements to  pay, equipment and support over the last two years had been absolutely essential.

Mr Ainsworth said

“People were pretty cheesed off with the attitude not only of the Government, but of the British public” 

“They were out there in Iraq, they were out there in Afghanistan, they were doing hard yards and putting their lives on the line – and nobody back here was nearly as interested as they ought to have been.”

Mr Ainsworth also said that he thought that the defence budget would have to be given a higher priority in future, which ever party was in government.

“We are going to wind up with a real debate on defence. It has not necessarily had a high enough profile,” 

 ”We have tended in politics in this country to concentrate on the domestic, on the here and now – the ‘what’s in it for me’.”

Mr Ainsworth agreed that some past decisions to cut defence spending icould now be seen as mistakes.

In 2004, Gordon Brown’s Treasury imposed a significant cut in the Ministry of Defence’s budget for helicopters, which critics say has contributed to a current shortage.

 ”You can’t totally and utterly predict where the threat might be, where the need might be, years in advance,”