That we can't even leave a memorial behind says everything

All over the world, from Vimy Ridge and El Alamein to Rangoon and Rorke’s Drift, stand memorials to British war dead, most of them places of pilgrimage for descendants and tourists.

Future travellers, however, will find no such proud relic at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan. When the Army lowered the Union flag there on Sunday, our memorial — etched with hundreds of names of the fallen — had been dismantled and flown home.

Had it remained in war-torn Helmand province, it seemed certain to face desecration and destruction. There could be no more vivid manifestation of the failure of Britain’s Afghan mission.

Great cost: Wing Commander Matt Radnall carries a carefully folded Union Flag under his arm and back home to the UK as he walks out towards the last British helicopter to leave Camp Bastion

Ministers and generals are obliged publicly to applaud and justify its achievement, for the sake of relatives of the many British military personnel who have died on operations in the country since 2002.