UK military in coronavirus public relations exercise
As the coronavirus crisis escalates in the UK, the British military has apparently spotted an opportunity amid an intensifying national emergency.
The British army in particular appears to be overly keen to exploit the crisis as demonstrated by the intensive public relations exercise of the media-friendly army officer leading the construction of a makeshift hospital in east London.
Colonel Ashleigh Boreham, who is in effective charge of NHS Nightingale, which is under construction on the site of the old ExCel arena in London’s Docklands area, has compared the situation to the Battle of the Somme, a notorious battle in the first world war in which hundreds of thousands were killed.
”My grandfather was at the Somme; this is no different”, Boreham said whilst adding “I’m just at a different battle” to highlight his own role in what many would regard as a highly exaggerated analogy.
The 54-year-old Boreham, who is a veteran of British military campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo, is working with the National Health Service (NHS) to increase the Nightingale’s capacity from 500 to 4000 beds.
Whilst the British government has come under intense criticisms for its mishandling of the coronavirus crisis, the military appears keen to exploit the public’s lack of confidence in the government.
In addition, the British military - and the army in particular - may be using the crisis to compensate for or even overcome some of their own pressing problems, not least a lack of sufficient traction with the country's young. Indeed, the British army has faced acute recruitment problems for at least 30 years due to the unwillingness of the country's best and brightest to join the force.
Sympathetic elements in the British press are helping the army drive home its self-serving message during the coronavirus crisis.
Soldiers helping to build NHS Nightingale in London compared the coronavirus crisis to the Battle of the Somme. It is their biggest mission yet, in today's @DailyMailUK https://t.co/iCI4T4Vg8y
— Larisa Brown (@larisamlbrown) April 1, 2020
Beyond the construction of NHS Nightingale, the military has a wide remit to intervene during the coronavirus crisis under plans codenamed Operation Rescript.
In the event of coronavirus-related social unrest the military can intervene to prevent the “breakdown of civil society” under the guidelines set out by Operation Rescript.
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