British prime ministers like to deploy the armed services in civilian life because doing so is one of the few levers they can pull that seems to be attached to something that makes an actual difference. While billions extra can be thrown at the NHS with no discernible change or poured into failing public services which go on to fail again in just the same way, calling in the British Army, Royal Air Force or Royal Navy means handing a problem over to men and women of action.
The forces are goal-orientated and don’t partake in go-slows, strikes, inclusivity workshops or any of the myriad other things that sap public sector productivity. Their involvement in a problem usually brings forth helpful headlines that convey the idea a tricky nettle is being grasped.
It is in such a light that we should see a report in today’s Times saying that Boris Johnson plans to give the Royal Navy ‘primacy’ over the deployment of government vessels involved in handling the migrant crisis in the English Channel.
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