The term “the military covenant” may not be an antique phraSe, having been minted only a dozen years ago in a Ministry of Defence booklet called Soldiering—The Militaiy Covenant. But the

The term “the military covenant” may not be an antique phraSe, having been minted only a dozen years ago in a Ministry of Defence booklet called Soldiering—The Militaiy Covenant. But the obliga­tions that it enshrines, of a government’s and of a society’s duty to support members of the Armed Forces in return for the personal sacrifices they may be called upon to make in the service of this country, has a long pedigree. More than four cen­turies ago, under Elizabeth I, an example of such a covenant was formajised in an Act that compelled parishes to contribute to the care of veterans.

Yet in recent years, members of the Armed Forces have had cause to wonder whether the coun­try for which they put their lives in jeopardy has been meeting fully its part of the compact That MoD booklet mapped out a covenant in which Brit­ish soldiers, in return for their courage, "must al­ways be able to expect fair treatment, to be valued and respected as individuals, and that they (and their families) will be sustained and rewarded by commensurate terms and conditions of service”.

One term that soldiershave always taken for granted was that they would benefit from subsi­

What could be more fitting than that of all the films that have brought the producer Harvey Wein­stein glory and success over recent months, from The Iron Lady to My Week With Marilyn, the one that has generated the most trophies is The Artist?

For The Artist catapults audiences back to the eve of Hollywood’s heyday, when the new boom in talking pictures would turn men like Jack Warn­er, Irving Thalberg, Louis B. Mayer and Sam Gold- wyn into moguls whose studios manufactured the magic that defined entertainment in the Amer­ican century. And Weinstein is the closest Holly­dised military housing. It is regarded as a pillar of the covenant Yet as The Times reports today, the MoD is considering cutting costs by making mar­ried soldiers living in army accommodation move out of their home after eight or so years of service and find a new roof for their family by renting or buying on the civilian market

The Army is the most mobile division of the Armed Forces, a mobility that makes it tricky to buy or rent property in one location. As a result, at least 60 per cent of army personnel live in service accommodation. Married service personnel have a full-career entitlement to married quarters at a subsidised rate, a guarantee designed to underpin the attraction of a long-term army career. This deal not only fosters a flexible workforce but also, as the recent TV series The Choir showed, creates tight-knit military communities.

These are straitened times for everyone. Strug­gling to find affordable accommodation in the pri­vate sector is a challenge for many at a time when the deposits required by mortgage lenders ar£ steep and when rents are rising giddily as thwart­ed buyers are forced to postpone their home-own-

wood today has to one of those industry legends.

When he walked into the Kodak Theatre last night for the 84th Academy Awards ceremony, Weinstein had notched up 303 Oscar nomina­tions over his career, 10 of them for The Artist — a film for which he had bagged international distri­bution rights on a hunch that audiences would fall for a quirky film that, thumbing its nose at modern Hollywood’s commercial arithmetic, was shot in black and white, had no dialogue and didn’t star George Clooney or Anne Hathaway. That may ex-, plain why Thomas Langmann, its French produc­ing ambitions. At the same time, government cuts crafted to return Britain to a more sustainable eco­nomic footing have changed life for many on the State’s payroll, notably in the terms of their histori­cally gilded pensions.

The Government might feel that the Army can­not be insulated from this need for thrift. But it has a choice between using an axe and a scalpel. Too often, Armed Forces have not enjoyed the consid­eration of the scalpel; sometimes at the cost of sol­diers’ lives. When 14 servicemen were killed after an RAF Nimrod crashed in Afghanistan in 2006, the accident was deemed an avoidable conse­quence of the MoD’s cost savings. Snatch Land Rovers designed for use in Northern Ireland be­came known as “mobile coffins” when transplant­ed to Afghanistan. Military housing is often dingy; compensation for injuries often ungenerous.

Cuts are now a way of life in Britain. The Gov­ernment must weigh the worth of every penny it spends. The MoD has, inevitably, not been im­mune. But given the great commitment that the Armed Forces make to their country, they de­serve to be treated with the greatest

sensitivity.

er, calls Weinstein “le boss”. Meryl Streep, star of The Iron Lady, trumps that by calling him “God".

And yet he retains a reputation as an outsider, a champion of art house movies that he turns into gold; from Sex, Lies and Videotape to The King’s Speech via The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love and Pulp Fiction. He has a famously fiery tem­per, a reputation for being Machiavelliari and a pugnacity that recalls Sam Goldwyn’s confession that, “I’m willing to admit that I may not always be right but I am never wrong.” In Hollywood, fa­mously a city of players, he stands as The Player.

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