The Army’s “Policy, Guidance and Instructions on Inclusive Behaviours” states that “Acts of Remembrance, on Armistice Day and others, should be inclusive and seek to avoid being conducted as a wholly religious event”. (Telegraph source - Paywall)

Fair enough, but there's more than a touch of the straw man there. Remembrance absolutely shouldn't be a wholly religious event, but it never has been.

Then the guidance then goes on to say

Acts of Remembrance should be agnostic of religious elements and separated from Remembrance Services. This may be achieved by holding a religious service after the Act of Remembrance.

But the familiar Act of Remembrance is a non-religious ceremony which involves:

• The verse from Laurence Binyon's For the Fallen - 'They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old'

An extremely serious allegation against some element of UK Special Forces (UKSF) has emerged over the weekend.

The claim is that former members of Afghan Special Forces units, the so-called "Triples", who served alongside UKSF in Afghanistan, have had their requests for assistance under the ARAP scheme turned down because of UKSF concerns "that their former comrades in the Triples might, if relocated, “give evidence to Haddon-Cave”.

"Haddon-Cave" refers to the ongoing "Independent Inquiry investigating matters arising from the deployment of British Special Forces to Afghanistan from mid-2010 to mid-2013" chaired by Sir Charles Haddon-Cave.

Veterans UK, part of the MOD, have now extended the availability of the 'HM Armed Forces Veteran Card' to all former members of the UK regular and reserve forces:

Payments under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) are currently considered income when determining whether someone is eligible for various benefits, but compensation awarded by courts for personal injury or medical negligence is exempt.

The effect is to reduce the benefits to which some veterans are entitled, or even in some cases to wipe out their enitlement altogether. This can affect war widows and families, as well as veterans themselves.