"Strong feelings and contrasting emotions ... tempered by an understanding of the feelings of others."

Following the conclusion of the Scotland Independence Referendum, Royal staff have taken the unusual step of releasing a written message on behalf of HM The Queen. The message reads:

More stories have appeared in the UK and international media about the "fury" of Scots armed forces personnel who are unable to vote in the historic referendum.

Complaining that "Only those who still have an address in Scotland will be able to take part, affecting troops stationed in England, Cyprus and Germany", a Daily Mail story did concede that forces personnel could "in theory" register at an address where they would be living were they not in the forces, or at a previous address.

BAFF has uncovered an astonishing error in recent reporting about the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS).

Both the Daily Telegraph and the BBC have claimed that 36,000 new claims were registered in one year 2013-14, an extraordinary figure which would certainly suggest a high level of abuse, and go a long way to explain the "serious delays" in processing such claims.

But that figure is completely wrong.

While we are in no doubt that the mistake was honestly made, we have not seen any attempt to correct it, and we are appalled that it has given encouragement to a whispering campaign aimed at reducing the cost of the AFCS.

A prominent centre-page piece in today's Daily Telegraph declares that Scottish soldiers based at Catterick in Yorkshire "have been disenfranchised" in the independence referendum.

But the article omits the fact that regular service personnel from Scotland have the option of registering there as service voters, and then of voting by post or by proxy.