EDUCATION, training and career opportunities for all were part of the message from Bournemouth, and even the word 'prudence' emerged from the lips of the PM.

Yet there is a range of activities that meets all the above criteria that I did not hear mentioned: opportunities in the armed forces reserve and cadet organisations.

These provide a wide range of training, including team building skills, ranging from self-reliance and self-discipline to supervisory management.

Such values are embraced by more than 6,000 employers in the UK, who have pledged their support for the reserve forces by giving employees time and encouragement for part-time service with the forces.

The Government also claims recognition of these attributes, but at a time when Britain's armed forces are severely overstretched, they have decided to slash 18,000 men from the Territorial Army.

This has made the overstretch worse, even when reserve forces are a highly cost-effective resource for augmenting the regulars, if only for peacekeeping duties.

Their Royal Engineers carry out mine clearance and infrastructure reconstruction. Yet many TA centres are being closed and sold off - and the Strategic Defence Review cut the defence budget by £60 million. However, under the SDR, Army manpower is to be increased by 3,300 but the Army is currently 6,000 men under strength. So there is no reason to believe that the Government is serious about meeting its recruitment target. Since 1996/97, 12,000 more people have left the armed forces than have joined.

Conservatives had warned of inevitable problems from the Treasury-driven SDR, but George Robertson claimed our reserve forces could be scaled down because of advancement of technology and the changing world.

The Government said they asked advice from chiefs of staff, but the generals were constrained by budgets set by the Treasury when they agreed to sacrifice the TA infantry battalions in order to retain the two regular divisions.

Now the Government has sent a deployment of British troops to East Timor, further increasing the pressure on the armed forces.

Despite the Government's aspirations to become one of the world's 'policemen,' Labour have no strategy for tackling the overstretch problem.

With calls on the Territorial Army increasing, because of the situations in the Balkans and the Far East, the time has come for the Government to order the Army Board to scrap the misconceived 'Strategic Defence Review Cuts.'

COUN J HIRST, Beardwood with Lammack Ward.

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