Because Helensburgh is a military town, there probably won’t be too much opprobrium to the idea, even though it came from a cluster of yesterday’s men.

Quite the reverse. Reading the Rahane runes, as I am wont to do, it will surely be a vote winner come the election later this year. Whither defence; whither NATO; whither national survival.

Former defence secretaries Michael Fallon, Malcolm Rifkind, Philip Hammond and Gavin Williamson have all reacted to last week’s Westminster budget by calling for the UK to increase its defence spending to between two and a half and three per cent of GDP, much more than it does at present.

This, they say, is to counter the existential threats we face from the east, and potential friendly fire from the west. The ongoing war in Ukraine shows no signs of ending, and we are beholden to help Kiev win it by sending them arms and ammunition, despite the fact they are not yet NATO allies.

And there’s the rub.

Giving matériel to Ukraine costs the UK billions per year at the same time as many more billions require spent on our own defences - and as the Ministry of Defence has identified a £30 billion black hole in funding so deep that tea and biscuits will no longer be provided at its main building in Whitehall because of costs.

Concurrently, in the race to become the next President of the United States, one of the candidates, with alarmingly close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has hinted that if successful, he would withdraw the US from NATO, unless the member states he deems to be shy of the kitty remove short arms from long pockets.

There are many reasons why the world should fear a second Trump Presidency, and his pronouncement on NATO is arguably the most chilling.

It’s a trope from old salts and old sweats that the military runs on tea, and I can concur that this is largely true. But if the Darjeeling demise isn’t bad enough, there are suggestions that the UK, with an ever-shrinking Army - smaller than at the time of the Napoleonic wars - would not be able to carry out NATO commitments.

And if that happens after the US leaves NATO, with a rapacious enemy on the eastern flank, then we are in a pickle.

The outgoing head of the Army, General Sir Patrick Sanders, has said any future conflict, and by that he means with Russia, would require conscription of young men and women on a scale not seen since the World Wars.

And with the best will in the world, with so many in that cohort unwilling to turn a hair to defend this country, and who would go out of their way to seek legal or medical recourse to avoid it, we face a potentially calamitous future.