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Rafah atrocity
“National Service”
“Under the [“National Service”] plan, 18-year-olds will be given a choice between a full-time placement in the Armed Forces for 12 months or spending one weekend a month for a year [doing community work].
The Tories would also encourage employers to consider those who complete the Armed Forces placement during job applications.
However, the Armed Forces option would be selective – with only around 30,000 placements for ‘the brightest and best’.”
[Daily Mail]
So Sunak’s cockeyed “plan” for conscription turns out to be mainly a plan to have untrained 18-y-o young men and, I presume, women doing a kind of forced labour on one weekend per month for a year. Even by Sunak’s standards, this is pretty silly.
For one thing, the time is unbalanced. Leaving aside any Army/Navy leave or liberty days, it means that those choosing and being selected for the military or naval option will spend 365 days serving. The “civilian” option, though, will only take up 24 days.
Guess which option most young people are going to choose?
Even if you take off maybe 125 liberty days or leave days from the 365, that still only reduces to about 240 days on duty, as against 24. Ten times the commitment.
The idea that employers will give the “military/naval option” cadets an easier ride in later civilian job recruitment could not be enforced and relies entirely on goodwill.
In fact, the year of service (in either case) will set back the cadets or National Service litter-pickers for a year, especially the military/naval cadets, except those planning a Service career anyway.
As for the rest, spending one weekend a month picking up litter, helping clean hospitals, or planting trees, might not be a huge commitment of time, but will be seen by most as a kind of slave or serf labour, even if remunerated or compensated at say £150 per weekend (I have seen nothing so far, though, about any remuneration).
I suppose that, if the 30,000 military/naval cadets were offered pay (£15,000 p.a.?) and a gratuity, on completion, of some not-trifling amount (say £12,000 in cash, taxfree), that might spark some interest.
Over 700,000 or so people turn 18 every year in the UK. That means that 670,000+ will be on the monthly “community service” option.
What happens if the litter-pickers (etc) decide not to comply? Do they get taken to court? Fined? Ordered to comply on pain of imprisonment? What if there is mass non-compliance, or organized civil disobedience?
In fact, in view of the fact that the State has not the resources with which to imprison up to 700,000 young people, the most they could be given might be…unpaid work for a few days a month. Oh…
This has not been thought through by Sunak and/or those around him.
Likewise with the military/naval option. To train recruits to a basic level takes maybe 2-4 months (the British Army takes 14 weeks to basic-train standard recruits, the Royal Navy 10 weeks for ratings; officers are basic-trained for longer, 15-30 weeks), and overall training of those National Service cadets is likely to take a total of as long as 6 months (the British Army takes 44 weeks to fully train an officer).
In other words, after training, the cadets will only be available for deployment for 6 months before their time is up and they either leave or join the regular Army or Navy. Any trained to an officer level will only be available for deployment for a few months, or even weeks.
The latest statistics for UK armed forces state that 10,680 recruits joined in a year (all arms), plus 3,890 in the Reserves (former TA). So nearly 15,000 (of all ages). https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/quarterly-service-personnel-statistics-2024/quarterly-service-personnel-statistics-1-january-2024.
In other words, the increase in manpower might only be 15,000 or so, or is the idea to have both ordinary recruitment and National Service recruitment? Looks as though the end result would be much the same.
Also, who would choose to join as National Service recruit when he/she could join up with (?) better pay and conditions as a regular recruit and/or as an officer-cadet?
Will the National Service cadets or recruits be put into dedicated units, or mixed-in with regular units?
Again, this really has not been thought through.
The people this crazy scheme is apparently supposed to “help”, or change, or just control and monitor the most, those disaffected 18-y-o individuals who are not at or planning to go to university, nor into a structured career or job of some kind, will be the least likely to opt for the military/naval option, so will “choose” the “one weekend per month” option, and probably either fail to attend, or may do it very unwillingly, like a “community payback” penalty imposed by the courts.
What is the point?
Also, if the government has a force of about 670,000 “litter-pickers” (etc) to deploy, how many older (older than 18) people will thereby be deprived of the chance of doing paid or better-paid jobs doing the same or similar work?
Once again, the consequential effects have not been properly thought through.
Tweets seen
The most important problem facing both Britain and mainland Europe.
L’homme qui rit (en Chinois)…
As if the pathetic French government is going to be able to do something/anything about this. The biggest weakness of all French governments is that they mistake making a gesture for actually accomplishing something. Macron is a prime example.
In fact, thinking of the French love for demonstrations and marches, most entirely ineffective, the tendency goes wider than just the political leadership.
Pity that the British Empire no longer exists. Churchill killed several empires, in effect— the German Reich, the British Empire (which died after using its sting to kill the German Reich), and the other European empires, which all eventually succumbed in direct or indirect consequence of what happened after 1939.
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This is what the near future has in store for the UK— a literal Israeli agent as Secretary of State for Defence. Look at ex-MP John Woodcock (now “Lord Walney”), a sex pest and depressive case who is one of the worst Israel/Jewish lobby puppets at Westminster. He is apparently over-excited by the possibility that Israel will have yet another of its main “candidates” at Cabinet level, right in there with the others (Starmer, Yvette Cooper, Rachel Reeves, Liz Kendall, Lisa Nandy etc).
All true (about Starmer), but all I myself am interested in, re. the upcoming General Election, directly, is to collapse one of the two main System parties, even at the high cost of allowing the other to become an “elected” dictatorship. Only by unbalancing the “two main parties” system can a social-national alternative arise.
Ecce the ****-poor quality of political reportage in the UK. Beth Rigby (the woman with the ludicrous accent or diction on Sky News) thinks that Lancing (West Sussex) is “near” Oxted (Surrey). Near? Well, 65.4 miles by road; as the crow flies, maybe 50 miles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxted
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancing,_West_Sussex
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beth_Rigby
Pathetic.
Says it all. A Con Party MP, with a majority in 2019 of 4,214, prefers to vacation rather than try to save himself from being ejected. He knows that he and his party are toast (in fact, his own majority has been sliding since 2015: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wycombe_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s).
Those are the sort of cretins advising ministers and prime ministers in this country…
I think that that was in Downing Street, though, not at CCHQ (Con Party HQ). Maybe I am mistaken, but that was my recollection.
So the Jewish chief of the Con Party election campaign is being accused of falling down on the job, thus making it even easier for pro-Israel Starmer and his cabal to win said election with a huge majority? I feel a conspiracy theory coming on…
[Addendum, same day: a regular reader of the blog suggests that Isaac Levido is not Jewish. I do not know for sure, despite the name(s) and the look of the said publicist, so am adding this cautionary addendum in the interests of accuracy and fairness].
Having said that, why the voters are turning away from the Con Party is not mainly by reason of poor presentation but by reason of very poor actual government of the country over the past 14 years, and especially the past 5 years.
Late tweets
As Schiller put it, “Against stupidity, the Gods themselves struggle in vain“…[Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans].
It is probably pointless to speculate on why those poor people, living on pennies, support the ultra-wealthy little Indian money-juggler. Mental degeneration? Insanity? Congenital mental problems?
Having said that, they are not entirely wrong, inasmuch as the Labour Party under Starmer, Rachel Reeves, Yvette Cooper, Liz Kendall etc will probably be as bad as, and maybe worse than, Sunak and crew as far as social security “welfare” in concerned.
What can it be? The Israeli flag is to replace the Union Jack? Unlikely (too obvious). Sunak has resigned and there will be an immediate leadership election? Just about possible. British troops are being sent to fight on the Ukrainian frontlines? In that case, Goodnight Vienna London; it has been a pleasure…
At time of writing, it is —right now— 2229, so back in a minute or so…
2235. Still waiting. The clowns cannot even get their big announcement out on time.
So that’s at. A desperate attempt to hold on to at least the former Con Party core vote of pensioners. The full registered electorate of the UK is about 45.5M; persons 65+ total about 11M, so about 27% of the electorate. Also, far more likely, traditionally to vote, either by post or in person.
These are pretty much the only people, or at least by far the biggest bloc, still likely to vote Con at GE 2024.
Whether it will make much difference, hard to say. Many pensioners will wonder a. as to whether Sunak will even be there after 4 July, and b. whether he can be trusted. There again, not all vote on the basis of perceived self-interest.
As a “big announcement”, slightly underwhelming, but I expect it will buy at least some votes. Absolutely desperate though, as a tactic.
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Ian Robert Millard 