I fear a little 'lead and lag' at play here. Defence has been working it's way up the public awareness stakes recently, but I fear economic events over the last fortnight will have bumped it way down the publics big list of things to spend money on, if we still had the cash and hadnt taken on two banks.
When your struggling to pay a mortgage, troops in Iraq/Afghanistan are a long way away. Im sure some kind people will disagree, and still give a t£ss, but the average man in the street would probably respond with....
'Armed who.....?'