Steerpike Steerpike

Tories parade their military attire

(Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

As the reputation of Westminster sinks ever lower and our elected masters seem able to do even less, candidates for political office seek outside areas by which they can bolster their credentials. Once it might have been the Church: now it’s often business. But one evergreen way of commanding instant respect in Tory circles is a connection, however tenuous, with the Armed Forces.

Unsurprisingly therefore, those leadership candidates with such a connection have been doing their upmost to mention their service at every available opportunity. Take Tom Tugendhat, the man who’s quipped that his ‘biggest weakness’ is ‘talking about the army too much.’ He proudly sported the tie of his former regiment, the Special Boat Service, last night in the Channel 4 debate. Unfortunately, while such sartorial attire likely goes down well with the average Tory member, not all in the military community are similarly impressed. Mr S has heard all kinds of grumbling from army sorts, with one former Forces man moaning that ‘it’s like the porter guy from Serco in a hospital telling people he’s a brain surgeon.’

In fairness to Tugendhat, it’s not just him who has come under fire. Penny Mordaunt has said during the contest that her experience in the Royal Naval Reserves and values of military service make her ideally suited to becoming PM. Her (frequent) claims that leadership should be ‘less about the leader and more about the ship’ are an obvious example. But despite her claims that she ‘perhaps better than any other candidate’ understands the government’s responsibility to the Armed Forces, even her over-enthusiastic supporter George Freeman MP took things too far when he claimed in a TV interview that she had ‘fought in the Navy.’

Unsurprisingly, the Daily Mail – which has come out strongly against the bookies’ favourite – has found one ‘highly-decorated former senior Royal Navy officer’ who complained to the newspaper that Mordaunt isn’t currently ‘a trained or paid reservist, she’s never qualified or commissioned.

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