Lord Dannatt warning on defence personnel cuts

A former head of the British Army has warned that defence cuts will make it "very difficult" for the county's armed forces to fight on multiple fronts.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's The World At One, Lord Dannatt - who served as Chief of the General Staff between 2006 and 2009 - said that "with great difficulty, the Army managed to put a force into the field in Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously for an extended period of time between 2003 and 2009.

"I will be very difficult, verging on the impossible, to do that when the Army is down to 82,000 by 2020."

Almost 4,000 military personnel have today been given redundancy notices - in the second round of job losses for the armed forces. Nearly 30% are being forced to leave, while the rest have volunteered for redundancy.