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Private Richard Hunt, the 200th soldier killed while fighting in Afghanistan will be remembered by his superiors and his mates as "a true Welsh warrior".

He died on Saturday in hospital in Selly Oak from wounds he suffered in an explosion near Musa Qa'la in Helmand province three days earlier. He was with the 2nd Battalion The Royal Welsh, was twenty one and had enthusiasm and potential "by the sack-load" according to both commanding officers and the friends he'd made while training and serving in the army. He would have been twenty two this Sunday.

That he's the two hundredth soldier to die will matter little to his family. That he has died couldn't matter more. They've lost a son, a brother, an uncle and immediately sent their thoughts out to all of those who've been bereaved, from number one to two hundred and sadly, already beyond.

Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth has read the tributes to Richard Hunt. He'll have seen that the "real Welsh Warrior" was keen to get to Afghanistan, wanted to "get stuck in." His death, Mr Ainsworth recognised, was a tragedy for his family and his fellow soldiers.

He will have recognised that every one of the two hundred deaths has been a tragedy. He'll recognise too that the two hundred dead milestone is one that spawns headlines, makes people call into debate programmes to question the war, makes vivid what the Prime Minister has described as "a very difficult Summer" - but he'll know that passing this particular milestone is not unexpected, an inevitable part of the strategy being followed in Afghanistan.

. "This hypocritical government" should end it, should cut through what he's described as "the public's vague support for a misunderstood war" and admit it is lost.

Mr Flynn is a man who regularly declares war on the government - another Welsh warrior perhaps but I've rarely heard him more angry than he was this morning. He's just left having set out his own version of what 'recognition' should really mean in this instance: a realisation that the stated aims of the war in Afghanistan are unattainable.

Clearing terrorist networks from Afghanistan, supporting the elected government against the Taliban, tackling the heroin trade that funds terrorism and building longer term stability - all laudable aims said the Labour member for Newport West but each and every one of those wars have already been lost.

"We should say so now" he repeated over and again, not because a milestone has been passed but because it is true.

There'll be no such recognition by the government of course because, as the Prime Minister has repeated over and again, it is not true that his government's aims in Afghanistan are unattainable. But what Mr Flynn knows will really count most is a recognition not by politicians but by the public - vague or otherwise - that this milestone is just about the last it can stomach.

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