SIR – You couldn’t make it up could you? Our Government make such drastic cuts to our armed forces that now they are paying millions to a private company to recruit new soldiers to replace the experienced ones they have just made redundant.

It will then cost millions to train them up to half the standard of the ones now on the dole. Any bets on MPs having connections to the recruitment company?

I think I’ll make this tale into a script and put in on at the Alhambra next winter starring Billy Pearce. But it won’t work. It is too tall a story even for a fairytale.

Keith Rayner, Laburnum Drive, Baildon