You get the heroes you deserve. And Brexit Britain has Gavin Williamson

What a time to be alive for Conservative former chief whip-turned-defence secretary Gavin Williamson.

Keen to turn back the clock to the days when Britain’s men in uniform could brutally quash a native uprising in the morning, appropriate half of India’s wealth in the afternoon and enjoy a G&T or seven in the evening, the man who once kept a pet tarantula in his office to cultivate an air of ruthless cunning has appropriated an image befitting his new role: action man.

Having said, in the wake of the Skripal poisoning in Salisbury, that “frankly Russia should go away and shut up”, Williamson was last week talking about how Brexit gave Britain an opportunity to “enhance our lethality” in response to grave threats posed by Russia and China.

Part of this “enhanced lethality” was an announcement that Britain would send a Royal Navy aircraft carrier into China’s backyard. This “idiotic speech” led to him being accused of “gunboat diplomacy”, and was thought to be the reason China then decided to cancel a visit from the chancellor, Philip Hammond.

But our all-action minister was undeterred, ripping off his Clark Kent suit to reveal, once again, the full camo of Britain’s best and bravest. Photos released this morning show a grimacing Williamson emerging from icy Norwegian waters, where he joined marines for an Arctic dip. Afterwards, the defence secretary took a little rum and toasted the Queen, according to a reporter present.

All of which makes you wonder what Williamson will come up with next. Britain is in the midst of a full-blown identity crisis, and Conservative politicians are especially ready and willing to retreat into the kind of imperial fantasies that even children in the 1950s thought were a little passé. Confirmation from the Ministry of Defence was not forthcoming, but it’s easy to imagine big bad Gav has a few more stunts up his sleeve.

There he is, commandeering a 19th-century frigate, packing it up with the collected works of Patrick O’Brien and setting course for the strait of Gibraltar to take on the Spanish navy. Here he is, going rogue at an MoD paintball away day, putting some of his marine experience to good use and choking a middle-ranking civil servant into submission to win the day for Team Big Will. Next, taking inspiration from bare-chested salmon slayer Vladimir Putin, GW sets out for the freezing waters of Siberia, a harpoon in his hand and a team from a bespoke branded content agency hired by the MoD at his side. Picture him now – as he will be, in three months time, as parliament prepares to vote yet again on Theresa May’s Brexit deal – astride the deck of a repurposed HMS Conqueror, preparing to re-invade the Falkland Islands. From the southern Atlantic our hero, dressed as Kenneth Branagh in Dunkirk, heads to Australia, where he demands that prime minister Scott Morrison iron his collection of Union Jacks, before discussing the transfer of 50,000 detainees from the UK’s overcrowded prisons to Norfolk Island.

Back home, our handsome hero is securing government funding for a new series of Sharpe, in which he replaces Sean Bean in the title role. In the meantime, he’s coming to work in a red guardsman’s jacket and getting his sword out in the middle of meetings. A photo shoot in an adventure playground takes an unfortunate turn when our Gavin, keen to show his prowess, falls off the monkey bars and bangs his knee. TV cameras catch his yelps of pain and the BBC buries the footage in the interests of the nation.

As he approves funding cuts for the army, navy and air force, gung-ho Gav announces that he will swim the channel with David Walliams to raise funds for a war chest to invade France. Invoking the spirit of Agincourt and Poitiers, the defence secretary announces that the MoD’s cross-channel GoFundMe will finance new cavalry and longbow units to rain down 14th-century fire on any Frog that gets in Britain’s way.

In the House of Commons, General Williamson (an honorific title he has bestowed upon himself) calls for John McDonnell to be strapped into a catapult outside the Houses of Parliament and flung into the Thames for daring to question the legacy of Winston Churchill.

Winston Williamson, in a homburg hat and chewing on a cigar, offers to operate the catapult himself. Roars of patriotic approval erupt from the benches of the Conservative party and the newly formed independent group. The defence secretary rises to his feet a defence secretary no more. He is now the leader of the Conservative party and the prime minister of the United Kingdom of England and Wales (Northern Ireland having joined the Irish republic and Scotland having seceded from the union). Half the Commons rises with him as music fills the gothic chamber and the words of a proud nation’s new anthem ring out: Land of Hope and Williamson.

• Oscar Rickett is a journalist and writer