Article published in The Daily Mail, 22 February 2025. © Richard Kemp
On first impression, the grime rapper Stormzy has little in common with Field Marshal Lord Kitchener.
But should conscription be reintroduced in Britain, it would be the likes of Stormzy, Ed Sheeran and footballing ace Harry Kane tasked with reprising the moustachioed general’s immortal refrain: Your Country Needs You.
Last week, Sir Keir Starmer said he was ‘ready and willing’ to put British boots on the ground in Ukraine. My first reaction was to laugh. Like it or not, our military is on its knees.
Since the end of the Cold War, successive governments have slashed defence spending leaving us with an army that would struggle to defend Dover let alone hold back a Russian advance over the steppes of eastern Europe.
The British Army currently has just over 74,000 full-time personnel of which around just 20,000 are battle-ready soldiers. Russia, on the other hand, boasts close to 1.5 million active soldiers, making it the second-largest fighting force in the world behind its close ally China. Our army is slightly smaller than that of Romania and slightly larger than that of Armenia.
Considering Ukraine shares an unenviable 800 mile-long border with Russia, any Nato force stationed there would need to be formidably large, highly-skilled and ready to combat Russian aggression at a moment’s notice.
Short of discovering a division or two of soldiers behind the sofa, I’m not quite sure what Starmer is thinking. The British Army is already responsible for maintaining a pair of permanent military bases in Cyprus and a garrison in the Falklands, as well as keeping obligations in the Baltics and other parts of the world. That’s before you factor Continue reading