Patriot games

Since he came to power, he has fallen over himself to shove his flag-waving patriotic credentials in our collective face.

With his obnoxious pronouncements about "British jobs for British workers", his knee-jerk defence of the Proms against mild criticisms made by one of his own ministers and Friday's demand that all Britons voice their "gratitude" for the sterling work carried out in foreign climes by our brave servicemen, you could almost believe that he's the reincarnation of Winston Churchill.

"I encourage the local police to back up our armed forces so that not only can our armed forces wear their uniforms in public but they should have the gratitude of the British public for the work they do," he thundered at a Downing Street press conference.

Brown was responding to reports that disgruntled members of the public in Peterborough had been giving uniformed personnel from the nearby RAF Wittering base a hard time over their supposed involvement in the Afghan and Iraq wars.

One RAF source declared that the abuse had come from "yobs," although, if this is the case, they are unusually articulate yobs.

One unnamed Peterborough resident told reporters that, "if the armed forces really did 'a great deal for this nation,' they would be respected more in public.

"Working as the instrument of a lying government and doing its filthy, oil-inspired murderous deeds for it is hardly worthy of pride."

This doesn't sound like the beer talking. It sounds like a considered critique of the armed forces' role in carrying out the imperialist dreams of Mr Brown and George Bush and is entirely understandable.

However, while stopping short of sharing Peterborough Tory MP Stewart Jackson's claim that, "if an airman in uniform was to walk through the streets of Peterborough today, I think people would stop and clap and cheer," the Morning Star does not endorse individual incidents of abuse.

The Stop the War Coalition has rightly pointed out that "anger should be directed at politicians and the government who took us into these disastrous wars" and has also made the point that many service personnel are strongly opposed to the wars - which put them at far more risk than Mr Brown - but are prevented from speaking out by military discipline.

Those that leave the services to avoid this will not escape however.

Former SAS soldier Ben Griffin, who put his career on the line to reveal Britain's complicity in rendition and torture, has been slapped with a Ministry of Defence gagging order, which was extended on Friday until April.

His offence was to call for Mr Brown, Tony Blair and other senior ministers to face charges of violating international law.

Mr Griffin is right and so is Stop the War. The best way to voice public disgust at what has been done in our name is not to call individual airmen names, but to mobilise en masse on March 15 and let this warmongering government know that it will be held to account for its crimes.