The Tory cadets who want a shot at the top

When Conservative prime ministers face a problem of logistics – from ambulance-driver shortages to border-force failures – there is a solution they like to fall back on: send in the military.

When Boris Johnson was London mayor, he welcomed David Cameron’s decision to invite the army to help with the Olympics after the security firm G4S failed to provide enough staff. Now Johnson is in No. 10, he regularly calls in the troops to deal with any state deficiencies. During the pandemic, army personnel worked closely with the NHS, first in helping to build a Nightingale hospital in ten days and then during the vaccine rollout. Just this week, the government welcomed ‘a far-reaching review’ of health and social care leadership co-produced by Sir Gordon Messenger, who led the Royal Marines’ invasion of Iraq.

Might the army also fix the dysfunction in Johnson’s Downing Street? At the start of the year, when the partygate story broke, Tobias Ellwood – a former soldier and the chair of the defence select committee – said that an officer should be drafted in to bring ‘a bit of discipline’.