In China under Mao Tse-tung the families of condemned men were forced to pay for the bullet that would kill their father or their son. I was reminded of that exquisite little cruelty by the government’s confession last Monday that the bereaved families of troops killed in Iraq have been forced to pay hundreds of pounds to get access to the official records of their children’s deaths.

These documents are freely available to the army and to the coroner, but shocked and grieving families had to find the money. Apparently these large sums were to cover the cost of photocopying done by the coroner’s officials; one man had to pay £600. It is not enough, clearly, to sacrifice one’s husband or child: one has to pay to learn about their deaths. Harriet Harman said she was “surprised”.

It would be nice to think that this was an unusual error — a bureaucratic blip — and that the armed forces and their families are normally treated with the respect and gratitude they deserve. Not so. In fact the way that servicemen and women are treated is almost an object lesson in how to mismanage and demoralise what was once one of the greatest military forces in the world. This has been obvious for a long time but we seem to have reached some sort of tipping point.

The newly retired General Sir Mike Jackson emerged from years of discretion to say on Wednesday in his Dimbleby lecture that our armed forces are underpaid, under-equipped and poorly housed; they are shabbily treated and absurdly overstretched, attempting impossible tasks with inadequate means. We do not offer enough of our treasure for their blood.

Many people think he should have said this while he was still in charge of the army; the internet is awash with comments from angry soldiers. “Shame he didn’t remember this stuff before he started drawing his pension,” said one. “Too late to go grubbing about for credibility — now we’re four infantry battalions down . . . and have lost the regimental system for the infantry . . . you hypocritical old wino,” said another.

One could argue that despite his duty of discretion he should in extreme circumstances have spoken out, as has Sir Richard Dannatt, his brave successor. For these are extreme circumstances. Even though this country is involved in two difficult wars, there seems to be a cultural agreement in Whitehall that our troops can be fobbed off with second or third best. According to John Keegan, the military historian, there is an anti-military clique in the Treasury.

Gordon Brown must answer for this; it was the chancellor who personally took part in cutting the army’s infantry battalions at a time when infantry was urgently needed to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. But generally, too, there seems to be a remarkable lack of understanding or sympathy for the armed forces.

If the government had deliberately set out to demoralise them and undermine recruitment it could hardly have done a better job. Only a couple of weeks ago the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had to admit that it had supplied British soldiers in Afghanistan with duff ammo. Shortly after our charming prime minister had been out to schmooze the troops fighting the Taliban, it emerged that they had been sent cheap and defective machinegun bullets made in Pakistan or the Czech Republic instead of the usual more expensive stuff. These cheap bullets kept jamming their machineguns during heavy fighting. British soldiers had to scrounge rounds from the Canadians and Americans. It was only when the Paras kicked up a fuss that anything was done.

Then there was the body armour scandal of 2003. The government sent troops into Iraq without enough enhanced body armour, having ignored requests from the army for two months. Sergeant Steven Roberts was killed by bullets on the fifth day of the invasion; he had selflessly given his own body armour to a colleague because there was not enough for everyone in his regiment. With body armour he would have survived. It has taken three years for the MoD to accept liability. Such prevarication only adds insult to bereavement.

The same goes for the delay in holding inquests into army deaths. There is, incredibly, a backlog going back to 2003, meaning that families have to wait years for an account of what happened.

One hardly knows where to begin with the substandard treatment offered to the armed forces. Dannatt has been bold enough to speak about this. So many military hospitals have been closed (largely under the Conservatives) that servicemen and women have to go into civilian wards and take their chances. One wounded paratrooper in uniform was screamed at by a Muslim visiting a patient. “You have been killing my Muslim brothers in Afghanistan,” he shrieked at a man who should have been enjoying a hero’s welcome. Another wounded soldier was told to remove his uniform for fear of “offending” anyone.

Lord Bramall, former chief of the defence staff, has reported claims that wounded soldiers face long delays on general National Health Service waiting lists and poor aftercare. This lack of respect is astonishing. If anyone has been brave enough to risk death and injury in the service of our country, the least we could do is to provide top-quality specialised hospital care in dedicated military hospitals or wards, as the Americans do. We don’t.

As for what servicemen and women are paid, it is pitiful: £1,000 a month is hardly an incentive to risk your life in Iraq. And it is pointless perhaps to compare the derisory £2,400 bonuses offered to combat troops with the £41m paid to MoD civil servants over the past four years. As for what service families live in, it can in many cases only be called slum housing — “frankly shaming” as Jackson said. Our government — and our society — cannot seriously be bothered with our armed forces.

This is not just wrong. It is decadent. For if we lack the will to defend ourselves, or rather to defend those who are there to defend us and to fight for us, then we are simply rolling over to display the soft underbelly of decadence to the world’s predators and scavengers. Those who think that our armed forces don’t matter will soon discover that other people’s do.

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