Brown draws fire from 'hero of Iraqi conflict'

London: The youngest soldier to win the George Cross has criticised Gordon Brown for "betraying" the Armed Forces and revealed he now works in a call centre, selling insurance.

"My medal says I am a hero of the Iraqi conflict, a man of extraordinary valour and strength of character," said Chris Finney. "But now I work in a call centre. My life has gone from one extreme to the other."

At 18, Finney won Britain's highest civil accolade for rescuing a wounded comrade from a burning Scimitar armoured reconnaissance vehicle, despite being shot in the leg. If the action had involved the enemy, he would have won the Victoria Cross. They were victims of US "friendly fire" that killed comrade Matty Hull during the Iraq invasion in 2003.

In a moving interview, Finney says that when he received his George Cross, "the queen told me she had not presented a GC for ‘such a long time' and that it was ‘a privilege' to give it to me".

Finney, 25, left the Household Cavalry as a Lance Corporal of Horse in July.

He admits he has been humbled to find his George Cross counted for little when seeking work in the middle of a recession. "When I left the army, I qualified for a resettlement allowance of just £500 (Dh3,021). By contrast, MPs who leave the Commons receive between 50 and 100 per cent of their salary to help them ‘adjust' to life outside Parliament. Where is the fairness in that?"

Finney criticised the government for its penny-pinching and failure to equip troops in Afghanistan. He adds: "What makes me even more furious is the demonstrable lack of respect shown by the Government to those who have paid the highest price and made the ultimate sacrifice: the war dead."

Treatment of war dead

"Why is there no Minister in attendance when our fallen heroes from Afghanistan are brought home to repatriation ceremonies at Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire?"

He was furious when he heard that Brown had enquired about Britain's Got Talent contestant Susan Boyle after her breakdown.

"He doesn't phone any of the bereaved military families," he says. "I thought that was disgusting, a real slap in the face for the parents of the hundreds of soldiers killed."