Oak is the new khaki

Comedy Scotsman Gordon Brown has finally squared the circle.

He has struck a much-needed balance between those universal prudent economic values shared by all hard-working families throughout Britain on the one hand, and the need to preserve important and valuable pieces of military equipment such as helicopters; body armour; both the Royal Navy's foreign fishermen's support vessels and, oh, those other things - what are they called again? Forget my own head if it wasn't screwed on...You know hard and brown on the outside, red and squishy inside.

Oh yes; servicemen.

Apparently the far-Right media such as the BBC and The Guardian have been spreading rumours that British ground troops are vulnerable to land mines and booby-traps which the Taliban are putting wherever they hope to lure them to walk or to drive in armoured vehicles - some of whose armour is so strong that it almost reaches TCCB-approved levels for helmets, pads and boxes for three-day matches.

It seems that the heavy tread of a fully-equipped British soldier concentrated on as small an area as a footprint or the weight of almost any motor vehicle is enough to set off these improvised explosive devices.

Since the new vehicles recently provided for the campaign have insufficient balance, they have a tendency to roll over and to crush some to their occupants under them.

Contrariwise, it is feared that any more helicopters which might be brought into Afghanistan might prove ever-more valuable targets for the Taliban if ever the Iranians and other foreign supporters provide them with anti-aircraft missiles.

What is needed therefore - and this is Mister Brown's stroke of genius - is a vehicle that is robust, spreads a soldier's weight over a much greater surface area and thus minimises the chances of detonating an IED, which is lightweight and cannot crush them, and which can operate under even low-level anti-aircraft fire.