General Election 2024

[westlondonmist]

1 hour ago, Keith Houchen said:

National Rebirth Party. The latest group from self styled fuhrer Alek Yerbury. 

I'd never heard of them before today, fuck knows why anybody would actually admit to supporting them.

[Keith Houchen]

8 minutes ago, westlondonmist said:

I'd never heard of them before today, fuck knows why anybody would actually admit to supporting them.

To own the libs, obvs!

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

1 hour ago, Boycie said:

 I was more focused on getting drunk with my mates mostly.

Then the army would have suited you down to the ground.

 

[Carbomb]

I'd genuinely been given to understand by military people I'd met that the forces are generally against conscription, preferring the model of small, focussed, well-trained, elite bodies to a mass of ordinary soldiers with basic training. Admittedly, this is all anecdotal, but it does seem to be a major political point for them, as well as a point of pride.

From a complete layman's perspective, this would appear to make sense as well, looking at how modern wars seem to be fought; there seems to be a lot more emphasis on lots of tech manned by well-trained operatives, supporting small units carrying out focussed operations, instead of mass movements of troops like in WWII. Not to mention that there's a lot less tolerance for high casualties these days; the public and the media tend to start turning against war sentiment when the body bags reach the hundreds. No way anyone would accept the millions or hundreds of thousands of the World Wars, Korean War or Vietnam War. So there'd be no need for a large conscript army anyway.

EDIT: Also, with most modern militaries relying on their air forces, if the intent is to make the military more effective, conscription wouldn't work.

Edited May 28 by Carbomb

[d-d-d-dAz]

The military dislike time-bound conscription, especially of the young, because they have to spend a year of their lives training the fuckers who are just clock watching, counting down the seconds till they leave.

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

I have a number of friends in the forces, from reasonably senior officers to infantry and none of them are in favour. As Dazzler says, no one likes a clock watcher.

[gmoney]

10 minutes ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

The military dislike time-bound conscription, especially of the young, because they have to spend a year of their lives training the fuckers who are just clock watching, counting down the seconds till they leave.

It's why it was dropped in the first place. 

[Keith Houchen]

14 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

I'd genuinely been given to understand by military people I'd met that the forces are generally against conscription

I’ve had this experience too. I don’t know a single person who served who supports it. The people who want national service are, by and large, people who never did national service and never served in the military. 

[d-d-d-dAz]

The military is like any other critical public service, we come to view compensation for doing those jobs only as 'what the state can afford' - and then act surprised if people don't want to do those jobs out of a sense of duty alone when the money is crap.

People considering working in jobs with high risk, or that demand a lot out of you emotionally, physically or mentally will want commensurate salaries to the risk/demands involved. People are never all duty, they're a mix of duty and pragmatism.

If you need more nurses, or soldiers, or firemen, or whatever... pay them properly. It's the only way to ever increase numbers sustainably, with people who actually want to be there.

Edited May 28 by d-d-d-dAz

[Carbomb]

8 minutes ago, d-d-d-dAz said:

The military is like any other critical public service, we come to view compensation for doing those jobs only as 'what the state can afford' - and then act surprised if people don't want to do those jobs out of a sense of duty alone when the money is crap.

People considering working in jobs with high risk, or that demand a lot out of you emotionally, physically or mentally will want commensurate salaries to the risk/demands involved. People are never all duty, they're a mix of duty and pragmatism.

If you need more nurses, or soldiers, or firemen, or whatever... pay them properly. It's the only way to ever increase numbers sustainably, with people who actually want to be there.

Abso-fucking-lutely.

People who do that sort of job should be compensated properly so that they can keep on doing it.

[Donald J Trump]

32 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

From a complete layman's perspective, this would appear to make sense as well, looking at how modern wars seem to be fought; there seems to be a lot more emphasis on lots of tech manned by well-trained operatives, supporting small units carrying out focussed operations, instead of mass movements of troops like in WWII. Not to mention that there's a lot less tolerance for high casualties these days; the public and the media tend to start turning against war sentiment when the body bags reach the hundreds. No way anyone would accept the millions or hundreds of thousands of the World Wars, Korean War or Vietnam War. So there'd be no need for a large conscript army anyway.

Lean and well trained has definitely been the conventional thinking for many years and it's the model our military is currently based on. The way events have unfolded on the eastern front has caused ripples of doubt though, not necessarily that mass is more important but that our military is too small either way. I'd be inclined to agree but the preference would always be for a volunteer army. 

I wouldn't give the Conservatives any credit for planning ahead, but this announcement did bring to mind points that have been made over the past couple of years. One was that the public had to be ready to accept a mindset shift as we move from a post to pre war era. If you're looking at ways you get get from A to Z without being overly alarmist at the begining, this type of initiative being part of every day life might be an effective way of at least starting that conversation. I know talking about this as being the first step of a "soft" process to prepare the public for potential conflict does sound slightly conspiratorial, but it is in line with what individuals like our defence secretary and senior figures in NATO have themselves said in recent months. Another point was that the army itself may need to prepare for some form of rapid expansion in the event it was necessary. I think this would be in the form of tens of thousands of volunteers, but they would need to be ready to move quickly. One suggestion was training Ukrainian troops on UK soil, but something like this might be an alternative to putting the groundwork in place if it was ever needed in a real scenario. 

[Keith Houchen]

So what you’re saying is give soldiers footballers wages?  I see. 

[d-d-d-dAz]

2 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

So what you’re saying is give soldiers footballers wages?  I see. 

They're soldiers. They can take them for themselves.

[BigJag]

Why has Diane Abbott been treated this way?

[Carbomb]

I couldn't qwhite say.