Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth has admitted that the Government did not do enough to support British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq at the start of the conflicts.

He went on to say that the Service men and women were completely justified in their complaining about lack of interest from ministers about their work, and also from the wider population.

The head of the Army warned that Britain had failed to deal with the military campaign in Afghanistan at all properly.

Ainsworth told the Daily Telegraph, “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”.

Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannat said, “We should be under no illusion, we are at war and if we want to succeed, which we must, we must get onto a war-like footing”.

He went on to say that success for the future is winning in Afghanistan and that it was very much in our “national interest” to do this.