Following on from my previous comment about helping the military, I return almost at once with a disgusting tale of neglect by the MoD who, to be fair, are only puppets of their LieBour masters.

HMS Glasgow was my father’s ship and is currently in Pompey rusting and awaiting being turned into razorblades. She won’t even have the dignity of being sold to some dodgy third world country and an extra five years of looking menacing.

Pity then, the current crew of HMS Nottingham (pictured). Laid up alongside the Glasgow, the ship, which suffered £45 million worth of damage when it hit rocks off Australia six years ago, is currently mothballed until she is finally decommissioned.

A Navy spokeswoman said: “When the marine engineers attempted to fire up the heating system they discovered a fault with the pipes.

“This is preventing heat from getting round to the external compartments of the ship.

“The engineers are now working to rectify that, and in the meantime electrical heaters are being distributed to the mess decks so that the sailors are more comfortable.”

The actual truth is that sailors are sleeping in their clothes to stay warm.

In order to pretend that we still have a fleet, the Navy are claiming that the Nottingham would be able to return to active service if required, but the truth is that she will become razorblades in 2010 despite the expensive repairs to the 160ft hole in her side in the accident in Australia.

The ship has also since undergone a wasted multi-million pound radar and electronics upgrade.

And there are rumours that our new carriers will be delayed because of Broon’s recession too.