Analysis: Why so many when terrorist threats remain just the same?

But it would seem they have been singled out for more than the 20 per cent that was forecast and the burning question must be why?

Up to 75 per cent of the MoD police are armed when on duty, yet there is no apparent reduction in the threat to our nuclear bases and other sensitive sites throughout the UK from terrorists and the like.

If these swingeing reductions go ahead, the force will have no option but to concentrate on fewer locations and spread armed patrols at MoD sites across the UK on a dangerously thin basis.

Currently they are based at 86 locations and also provide up to 100 officers for specialist tasks abroad, working with the UN, Nato and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Admittedly, some military bases will be closing as part of the government’s Strategic Defence Review, so some rationalisation is to be expected, but the latest figures being bandied about seem seriously out of kilter with these. Nor is there likely to be much of a reduction in the need for its investigative branch to look in to crime on the military estate.

So how their senior staff eventually skin this very tricky cat should be of concern to us all, especially as most of us are living not so far away from one of their stations here in Scotland.

The MoD Police are, for example, the only constables trained to operate in radioactive controlled environments.

They have the largest number of waterborne policemen in the UK and at HMNB Clyde, for example, work very closely with the Royal Marine Fleet Protection Group. They are involved in the movement of nuclear materials by road and where necessary by rail, many of these convoys passing some of us regularly.

This is not a case of “shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted”, as so often happens in security matters. Rather, the government seems to be hoping the “horse” will calm down and leave the doors alone.

• Clive Fairweather is a former SAS Deputy Commander