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Foreign Affairs and Defence

I am prepared to look at any suggestion that may be made as to how to improve the way the message is put across to the public. I suspect that the hon. Gentleman and perhaps others put too much strain on one part of the quite extensive machinery that exists in all the services individually in relation to handling the media. The decision was to remove the individual supports for the individual chiefs. I am not sure that it has had the effect that he says it has, but I am prepared to look at that again. The reason that I spend so much time on that matter is that it seems there is a serious point to be made about the nature and balance of the reporting of what our troops do when they are abroad. It is hard to resist the temptation to say that certain organs of the media have an agenda and that that agenda does not allow them to tell the whole story of what is being achieved, lest it reflects to the credit of others who are involved in policy decisions. That is as may be, although I have noticed recently, in particular over the past few days, that increasingly there is a balance in the reporting and that some of the stories that the hon. Gentleman and I wish were told more accurately are now starting to get out.