Unfit for heroes

 Thus Private Eye headlines a report on Military Housing, which opens:

It must be galling for British military families stuck in damp or mouldy homes that the companies supposed to repair the are part-owned by foreign firms

which the Eye goes on to detail.

I have memories of married families accommodation which was primitive by the standards of the 1940s and 1950s. Rather than mould, what stands out is a recollection of having to cross a yard to reach a WC in both the Isle of Wight and our first billet in Aldershot. It was not much fun in the night in the bitter winters of those years. But things improved. There was nothing to complain about in our moves thereafter in Aldershot and Woolwich, and certainly nothing when my father was posted abroad in Egypt, Libya and Germany. The War Department repaid regular soldiers for their continued service during the cold war by taking care of the families.

Why are we going backward? There was some excuse for sub-standard housing in the immediate aftermath of war, but now?