UK army to lay off thousands of troops

Eight-thousand British soldiers, many serving on the front line in Afghanistan, will be told days after Christmas that they are to lose their jobs. Redundancy notices will be sent to servicemen and women telling them their careers are over as part of sudden speeded-up cutbacks by the Ministry of Defence, according to the Daily Mail in its edition published on Sunday. The Army has already been shaken by the announcement of a swathe of cuts, which included the loss of historic regiments and the prospect of a gradual reduction in personnel over the next eight years. But now The Mail on Sunday has discovered that the MoD will make a "single devastating" cut of 8,000 servicemen and women, reducing the Army to 86,000, its smallest size since the 1700s. A further 4,000 soldiers will go before 2020. The axe will fall across every branch and regiment of the Regular Army, with only Special Forces ringfenced. Thousands of soldiers will disappear from regiments such as the Royal Welsh, the Royal Fusiliers, the Royal Engineers, the Royal Lancers and the Army Air Corps, which includes Prince Harry among its officers.