It's a long way to Limavady

Gordon Brown with a strange assembly of places where the British armed forces will be serving over the holidays --

But I think particularly today when it is Christmas you remember men and women who are separated from their families, who are working in the most difficult of conditions, sometimes in the theatre of Iraq, sometimes in Afghanistan, sometimes of course in the Falklands, or in Northern Ireland or in other parts of the world where we still have a presence.

So the list comes across as saying that Northern Ireland, which is of course part of the UK, is actually somewhere far away like the Falklands or just another of those places where Britain "still has a presence". In Gordon's mind, with the Martin-Ian love-in going so well, are they already gone?