Who will step up for troops?

AM I alone in feeling a sense of foreboding whenever I hear the words “boots on the ground”?

- John Hodgkins, Seaton Sluice

Nothing to worry about we are told. They won't be engaged in combat.

But recent history teaches us otherwise. Like when we were assured that the deployment of British troops in Helmand Province in Afghanistan would be fine. Carnage followed.

The irony is that almost all of these military engagements start in the same way, with some hapless spokesman from the MOD telling us “we are not planning to have boots on the ground” - something which we all heard on multiple occasions during the early stages of the Ukraine War.