Battlefield hero takes leadership prowess to frontline of politics

LINCOLN JOPP knows what it means to be at the centre of the action. His courage under fire in Leone won him the Sierra Military Cross and his leadership skills were again tested commanding troops in Afghanistan's Helmand province.

- David Williamson

The son of a racing driver - whose mother was an early presenter of Top Gear and whose wife co-founded the first Military Wives choir - does not seek a quiet life.

And he was marked out as one to watch from the moment he arrived in Westminster in July as a newly elected Conservative MP.

With the Tories facing the challenge of rebuilding after turmoil and defeat, leader Kemi Badenoch will need people by her side who are good in a crisis.

Mr Jopp looks destined to play a key role in this recovery mission.

At Sandhurst he was one of the "blade runners" - the ambitious officers-in-training competing for the coveted Sword of Honour presented to the best cadet.

He won this fabled trophy but his true turning point took place a few years earlier, when he was a St Paul's schoolboy familiar with being told off.

A teacher called his name and he wondered what he had done to get in trouble this time. "Jopp," the teacher said. "We've been discussing you in the common room.

"We think you've got a spark of leadership and you need to think about how you're going to use that in your life." The teenager thought this over for around 12 hours with, he admits, all the "arrogance of youth". He remembers: "I came back into school the next day and said the two purest outlets for leadership were politics and the Armed Forces. I chose the Army, and I choose politics now."

His father, racing driver Peter Jopp, and mother, motoring journalist Judith Jackson, did not have "any military bent", but they backed his decision to join the forces.

He relished life as a soldier, finding himself competing against one of Britain's modern sporting legends in the 110m hurdles at the Army athletics championships.

His rival in the adjacent lane was a staff sergeant by the name of Kriss Akabusi.

"He was peeling off his Seoul Olympics warm-up top," Mr Jopp recalls.