Member

Strip out the county associations and replace them with a single national body—headquartered, inevitably, in London, or maybe Manchester—and you cut the geographic and ceremonial link between the lieutenancy and the cadet forces and the Reserve Forces that has, in various forms, existed for almost 500 years. Once that link is gone, we will not get it back. If that happens, it will be yet another example of something good, traditional and historic being destroyed for no other reason than the administrative convenience of the Civil Service.