Andreas Whittam Smith; It's not only the public who don't respect a uniform

The Royal Air Force has had a base at Wittering, near Peterborough, for more than 90 years. You would think that by now it would have become an accepted part of the local scene. Yet the station commander, Group Captain Rowena Atherton, recently gave the order that RAF personnel should not wear their uniforms in the city because of the verbal abuse they might receive.

When this came to light last week, people were shocked. Even the Prime Minister came forward to say: "All our armed forces should be able to – and be encouraged to – wear their uniforms in public and have the respect and gratitude of the British people for the huge commitment to public service they show."

What seems to have led to the ban is the experience of an RAF nurse in Peterborough. The windows of her home and of her car had been smashed. She told senior officers she was being targeted because she wore her uniform in public. A spokesman said a number of personnel who lived in the city and its outskirts had suffered abuse when openly wearing their uniforms. The verbal attacks had come from a "cross-section" of the community, he added.

Hearing this story, I first asked myself whether senior officers at RAF Wittering had drawn the right conclusion from the reports they received. Could the violent hostility experienced by the RAF nurse have been a further example of the proliferation of mindless violence in certain areas, rather than of hostility to the armed services?

Checking the archives of the local newspaper, I noticed that, quite close to where the RAF nurse lived, another family with no connection to the services had a horrific experience earlier this year. Two of the young daughters of the household have disabilities. They were verbally abused, the parking space for their disabled car was barricaded, bad language was etched into the side of their motability van and on to the walls of their house. The windscreen of their parents' car was smashed.

I wondered, too, whether military personnel did have a strong desire to wear their uniforms in public when they were off-duty. My experience as a soldier doing National Service was that we never wanted to wear our uniforms outside the barracks except when hitch-hiking home. We enjoyed our fun in civvies. The RAF nurse was a member of a Ministry of Defence hospital unit which operates within the NHS hospitals in Peterborough. She was wearing her uniform to go to and from work.

These reservations made, however, I believe there is a genuine problem. For instance, when the RAF staged a parade in Peterborough to mark the freedom of the city, young teenagers found it funny to run between the ranks. I call that instinctive disrespect. General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the army, warned last year of a growing gulf between soldiers and the nation. And an independent study by the Labour MP Quentin Davies, which will be published shortly, is believed to show that there have been various incidents where military personnel have been turned away from shops, airports and pubs, even when in civilian clothes.

Doubtless, some of this is a form of protest at Britain's involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. This is unfair to our troops, 175 of whom have been killed in Iraq and a further 89 in Afghanistan. But if the Government of the day systematically reduces the scope for protest against these misbegotten policies, as Labour has done, disapproval will be shown in less pleasant forms than, say, demonstrating outside Parliament or heckling ministers at public meetings, both now liable to be treated as illegal activities.

Nor, despite Gordon Brown's hasty statement, does the Government show much meaningful respect for the armed services. Coroners' inquests have repeatedly shown that troops have died because of avoidable deficiencies in their equipment. Returning causalities have sometimes lacked the medical treatment they deserve. Veterans who suffer trauma have been badly served. And when the dead arrive home in coffins, do ministers show their gratitude by turning up at the airfield. Did Mr Blair ever do that? Does Mr Brown? Does anybody?

The decision taken by the RAF station commander in Peterborough was prudent but lacking robustness. On the same day that her bureaucratic decision became known, Flight Lieutenant Michelle Goodman was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the first woman ever to be so honoured. In Iraq, Fl-Lt Goodman had been exceptionally brave. She flew her helicopter at night into the middle of Basra under heavy gun and mortar fire to rescue a soldier who lay critically wounded and got him out. Thank God for such heroes.