The Queen's shilling has just reached 11 pence!

The Government seems to have awoken to the poor morale in the armed forces, - it has taken the penny a long while to drop!

Is pay to be increased? Are they going to get the modern, effective equipment they need? Is front-line food to become edible? "No", to all these, at least until finances improve.

Instead they have made two "generous" offers.

The first is to allow former servicemen to study at university without paying tuition fees like anyone else in England, - they will still have to find subsistence and other costs, which are the larger part of student debt. There will probably not be many takers, even if it is backdated to servicement in 2003 onwards. It will probably not be a very expensive policy.

The second is to promise preferential treatment to the military and their families in housing, education and health. What happened to the whole basis of the NHS "charter" of service on the basis of need, rather than wealth or occupation? Will it be to all military, including pen-pushers fighting a war back home from a desk?

The second may be more attractive to service personnel, especially over housing where the process of bringing military houses up the level of "fit for human habitation" has had a very low priority for many years.

How much these will please the forces depends in part on how long they will take to introduce. Morale will sink even lower if these take years to introduce, and whether they value them enough to reconsider their intentions of resigning as soon as possible remains to be seen.

The gesture, which is the normal Government response, is not likely to make a big difference after years of neglect and under-provision, as well as being taken for granted so often.