WHAT a shambles this Govern-ment has proved to be in the latest debacle over Britain's standing among the military powers of the world.

Without George Bush standing beside them, Tony Blair and Margaret Beckett have acted and spoken like complete amateurs, bowing and scraping to Iranian power games.

The Royal Marines taken prisoner by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are a force to be reckoned with, the best in the world, and quite sensibly, on finding themselves outgunned on the sea, played the only card left open to them.

Anything else would have been suicidal. Assault rifles are no match for heavy machine guns, disregarding the humiliation, 'tis better to live and fight another day under your own terms.

The Iranian President Ahmadinejad expectedly seized on the fact that one of the sailors seized, a mother of a young child, was on board a Rib patrolling the Gulf with 14 comrades, and questioned family values in the west.

He may have a point there, but the fact is women have been pressing for equality in the west for 30 years or more, they now have that equality, and who knows, in 30 years or more the women of Iran may also have it.

Iran has won the mind games this time. Let us hope that the powers-that-be have learned a lesson and make sure our forces are armed to the teeth and not skimming around the blue waters of the Gulf in open-topped Ribs, but in something with a little more protection.

And please, Tony and Margaret, if you are still in power and anything like this happens again, call Baroness Thatcher. She will point you in the right direction, without any need of assistance from the USA.

Bob Waite, Windmill Rise, Holgate, York.