‘Join the Army and see the world’ used to be the War Office’s boast. In those inter-war years it meant Egypt, Malta, Jamaica and Hong Kong, but for a lucky few recipients of the King’s shilling their next deployment will be to organise rubbish collections in Birmingham.

The government has announced that a ‘small number of office-based military personnel with operational planning expertise’ will assist Birmingham City Council in dealing with the effects of a month-long strike by refuse workers.