Army leaders may have belatedly wised up to the fact that every additional performance requirement comes at a price, but their solution of transferring risk to industry is just going to accelerate the migration of contractors into other lines of work.

FORBES: Army Mistakes Endanger Future Jeep

Given the well documented differences in the price and performance of the two school systems one could argue that transferring students from public to Catholic schools would greatly benefit both taxpayers and students.

ECONOMIST: Letters

But the government faced calls from Labour former minister Frank Field and Plaid Cymru's Adam Price for a Commons vote on Britain's role in Afghanistan and a timetable for transferring responsibility for security to the Afghan forces themselves.

BBC: Queen's speech debate: Foreign affairs and defence