Anger over Iran hostages' media deals

As Faye Turney sells her story of her time as an Iranian prisoner for £100,000 to ITV, opposition leaders are heavily criticising the government and Navy's decision to wave the usual rules against sailors doing such a thing "as a result of exceptional media interest".

It seems especially thoughtless that these sailors should be subject to such financial reward when the families of others who have given their lives in this conflict receive so little.

After all, there is nothing heroic about being captured. It doesn't require any particular skill or courage.

So why have the Navy and the government made such an exception in this case?

Critics said it was a politically inspired move, but the MoD argued that the families of the service personnel had already been offered large sums of money to tell their stories and by allowing the former captives to speak it was able to retain some control over the story. The announcement also risked diminishing sympathy for the 15, who had been nervous of the reaction in Britain after they were seen on television in Tehran confessing to entering Iranian waters - a claim they retracted on their return.

Colonel Tim Collins, who commanded the 1st Battalion the Royal Irish Regiment in Iraq, said: "This episode has brought disgrace on the British armed forces and it comes from complete ineptitude at the top." He contrasted this case with the capture of 11 members of the Royal Irish Regiment in Sierra Leone. "They were held hostage and there was a real chance that they would be killed before they were eventually rescued by the SAS. There was not so much as a peep out of any of them afterwards, no talk and certainly no mention of money."

Mike Aston, whose 30-year-old son, Corporal Russell Aston, was one of six military policemen killed by a mob in Majar al-Kabir, Iraq, in June 2003, said he was "absolutely amazed" by the MoD's stance. "I think to actually sell [my] story it would besmirch my son's memory."

The reaction that the 15 received on returning home was very good when one considers the fact that they had, in effect, sung like canaries ever since they were first captured. However, I don't think the public will remain on board once they are seen to be making such large profits out of singing again - even if they are now singing to the British media.

One can only think that the government wants people to hear that they were not treated well to, in some way, even out what they must regard as a PR victory for Ahmadinejad.

William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, told Sky News's Sunday Live: "If, whenever people have been in a difficult situation, they are going to be allowed to sell their story quickly after that, then I think we are going to lose steadily that dignity and respect for our armed forces."

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, told BBC News 24: "I am very concerned about what those governments that were trying behind the scenes to get our personnel home are going to think. And there is, of course, the very understandable feeling of the families of those who have died in Iraq as to why it should be that those who have survived should - putting it bluntly - profit in this way."

It is a very clumsy decision that I feel will do the fifteen more harm than good. They were already riding their luck when the public decided to go along with this portrayal of them as heroes, but to attempt to make huge profits out of the episode can only turn the public off.

It used to be considered tasteless to "kiss and tell", now we have "surrender and tell", which takes us to a new low altogether.

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Tags: UK, Iran, 15 captured sailors, Blair, Ahmadinejad, Bush, Faye Turney