I prescribe to the talk is cheap theory for politicians and therefore tend not to believe any politician's protestations of support for whoever they claim to back. As a PC I see the Tories cutting police budgets whilst increasing the penalties for a range of offences and telling everyone how tough they are on x y and z. The trouble is an increase in penalties is cheap but the real cost comes with having enough people to enforce the laws no matter how tough the penalty. In the meantime the government gets lots of column inches about how tough they are at no cost. The same principle applies to May and her fine words about the armed forces. She talks about how much she values them but she isn't prepared to back up those fine words with an inflation matching or inflation plus pay rise for example. The veterans card is a fine gesture but it won't cost the government a penny as the people giving the discounts linked to it are all private organisations, but again HMG gets the good publicity but at no cost to them.