Blair better be right this time

It seems the authorities-that-be have until now been happy for her to play in mixed-sex teams.

But now they have decreed it is time for gender separation '” it'll be all girls together for this young lass on her future football fields.

I won't run through the usual for-or-against arguments regarding mixed-team sport among older participants.

The principle, though, leads me on to the really serious subject of a woman's role in the Armed Services '” in particular, being at the sharp end of operations.

It would have been bad enough if all the 15 British service personnel whisked out of the water by Iran happened to be men.

But political correctness and calls for equality of opportunity led to a chain of circumstances in which Leading Seaman Faye Turney was included on that ill-fated mission.

If the speed-boating Iranian Revolutionary Guard did not already know a woman was in those British inflatable rubber dinghies, then they must have almost wept tears of joy over the gift so thoughtlessly presented to their forthcoming political propaganda bonanza.

Prussian military historian Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz said a couple of hundred years ago that "war is merely a continuation of politics by other means".

Well, politics have forced our sailors into a war situation off the Iraqi coast, and, as such, all such excercises should be carried out on a full war footing.

Was it REALLY necessary for LS Turney to be in that boat?

It was already obvious what political capital can be made out of capturing a woman.

And that possibility was in addition to the other, worse, alternative of this 26-year-old mother-of-one being killed or injured in a fire-fight.

This brings in the controversial view that a woman in the front line can affect the efficiency of her male colleagues, either by physical limitations, the others' particular distress at seeing her wounded, or just the male instinct to try to afford her extra protection.

And it was very conceivable that the Iranians' hostage grab was only too likely to happen some time '” a similar snatch took place only three years ago.

Which brings me to the point why, in a war situation, this Iranian action was allowed to take place, anyway.

The parent vessel, HMS Cornwall, was big enough to take care of itself.

But reports say the frigate did not provide an adequate helicopter coverage to warn the dinghies what was waiting behind the cover of the vessel they wanted to investigate.

There will, no doubt, be a much-needed inquiry into all of this.

Finally, what I don't want is being forced to change my mind over the truth of the British government's insistence on the dinghies' position in those disputed territorial waters.

I, and many others, already know the experience of having our trust shattered over the WMD "certainties" prior to the invasion of Iraq.