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Post by moby on May 26, 2024 9:04:50 GMT
Rachel Reeves just knocked it out of the park on Kuenssberg. She really wants to be Chancellor, don't envy her but she actually seems excited by the prospect.
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on May 26, 2024 9:06:40 GMT
To anyone who says "Sunak can't do anything", I can only point to him having been able to unite this whole board in saying "what a stupid idea!" on the whole subject of conscription. Out of interest, is there a single person here who thinks it's a good idea? I think it would be a good idea for Sunak to be conscripted |
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steve
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Post by steve on May 26, 2024 9:07:42 GMT
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 26, 2024 9:07:42 GMT
Im sure I heard an interviewee on R4 about 9 saying this new national service would be VOLUNTARY? Does that mean it was announced as compuslory, but has already been rolled back because of opposition?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2024 9:10:05 GMT
What? The county of Borcetshire was created not long after WW2. There is an important difference between Borsetshire and the actual county, Worcestershire, that gave inspiration to its fictional sister county. Borsetshire have a reasonable middle order and a rather more penetrative opening bowling attack. Oo-er Missis! |
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Post by mandolinist on May 26, 2024 9:14:35 GMT
I'm 72 and I decided National Service was the kind of thing people of my dad's age thought was a good idea, mainly to get them to get their hair cut (even my dad thought it was nonsense and he'd be 135 now). Yes there will be some pensioners who like the idea My dad had to do National Service in the early 1950s and hated it. Always said it was a complete waste of time. If he was still around today (he would have been 92) it would not have been a vote winner with him. My Dad had to do his in the navy, he spent months learning to do sword drill! Then months suffering from seasickness. No sooner was it over than he was back in basic training because of Suez. He got very worried about the Cuban missile crisis because he was convinced he would be re-called again. Mind you, he could moan for Britain so how accurate any of that was I have no idea. |
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Post by crossbat11 on May 26, 2024 9:15:48 GMT
Rachel Reeves just knocked it out of the park on Kuenssberg. She really wants to be Chancellor, don't envy her but she actually seems excited by the prospect. Didn't watch it sadly. Just sheltering from a heavy rain shower whilst setting up a Canal Society stand at, don't laugh, A Picnic in the Park in Alvechurch. The picnic may be a little sodden, I fear, but there is great bonhomie and that charming English eccentricity that you often find at such homespun community gatherings. Quite a bit of casual conversation about the forthcoming election. This is deep blue Tory territory and part of Javid's Bromsgrove fiefdom, but I've already met a Labour member who is going to still vote Labour but with a heavy heart. Doesn't like Starmer and is a staunch Corbynite. We had an interesting and amicable agree to disagree sort of concluded conversation, before I left him at the still to be assembled bowling for a pig skittle alley. |
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Post by richardstamper on May 26, 2024 9:15:50 GMT
I'm 72 and I decided National Service was the kind of thing people of my dad's age thought was a good idea, mainly to get them to get their hair cut (even my dad thought it was nonsense and he'd be 135 now). Yes there will be some pensioners who like the idea My dad had to do National Service in the early 1950s and hated it. Always said it was a complete waste of time. If he was still around today (he would have been 92) it would not have been a vote winner with him. Ditto my father. He recounted with admiration the genius of a fellow conscript who got himself excused National Service after a few weeks through the stratagem of following every order with idiotic precision. The most spectacular example was when they were ordered to Blanco their kit. "All my kit, sir?" "Yes, all your kit!" So he covered everything in Blanco - shoes, clothes, bedding, etc. |
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steve
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Post by steve on May 26, 2024 9:19:54 GMT
"I think it would be a good idea for Sunak
Whose army did you have in mind?
I see Sunakered as a Gideon Pillow, pillow was a confederate politician turned brigadier general as a commander he was using the technical military term crap.
Pillow commanded the Confederate garrison of Fort Donelson where following on from previous blunders he found himself surrounded by union forces
The next night, before the surrender of the fort, Brigadier General John B. Floyd passed overall command of the fort to Pillow, who in turn passed it to Brigadier General Simon Buckner. Floyd and Pillow managed to personally escape with a few aides before Buckner surrendered the remaining garrison to the army of General Grant.
Pillow 's political career ground to a rather sudden halt
Floyd was last seen making a fortune on the after dinner circuit burbling at Drunk americans
While Pillow returned to his Malibu mansion.
The last bit might be slightly inaccurate.
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Post by jib on May 26, 2024 9:22:36 GMT
To anyone who says "Sunak can't do anything", I can only point to him having been able to unite this whole board in saying "what a stupid idea!" on the whole subject of conscription. Out of interest, is there a single person here who thinks it's a good idea? I think it would be a good idea for Sunak to be conscripted They're going full UKIP (unfortunately, it's the Paul Nuttall version) |
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Post by xanadan on May 26, 2024 9:25:12 GMT
If the young are forced to do free labour (volunteering) perhaps they should get something back, like free post-school/college education?
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pjw1961
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Post by pjw1961 on May 26, 2024 9:29:57 GMT
Im sure I heard an interviewee on R4 about 9 saying this new national service would be VOLUNTARY? Does that mean it was announced as compuslory, but has already been rolled back because of opposition? It was announced as a mandatory requirement to volunteer. You couldn't make this up. |
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steve
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Post by steve on May 26, 2024 9:30:26 GMT
My father was a pilot in the raf at the very end of world war two, he didn't talk about it much but in his old age was a very active member and Secretary of his local British legion, who did him proud at his funeral.
Faith 's dad was a soldier with Montgomery 's army where he was shot by an Italian .
He recovered and was moved to the quartemasters department where he discovered his career as a petty thief!
My maternal grandfather having arrived in Scotland from North Africa as a child was promptly dispatched to North Africa in world war one where he ended up in the camel corp, someone was obviously taking the piss, apparently he was pretty good at it as he ended his career as a sergeant major , he could only have been in his late twenties at the time.
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pjw1961
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Post by pjw1961 on May 26, 2024 9:39:18 GMT
Just heard my very own parliamentary representative Mr James ("remind me where Braintree is again") Cleverly explaining the conscription idea on the radio. He managed to make it sound like the reason that the country has gone to hell in a handcart after 14 years of Tory government was due to feckless 18 year olds. Apparently that are 'fragmented' and need to discover a sense of purpose. Hopefully some more may discover the purpose of voting these people out of office.
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Dave
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Post by Dave on May 26, 2024 9:45:20 GMT
Our next door neighbour's kid can be pretty, I'll be honest, irritating. Lots of kids can be and when I was one, looking back I would definitely count myself in that happy number. Anyway, lately he's taken to kicking footballs as high as he possibly can in the air. Inevitably, only some land in his garden - the rest in ours and the neighbours' the other side of the little angel's garden. Sometimes he deliberately does it - not with us - but with the next door neighbour on the other side. He then screams and screams the name of their similarly aged child, basically to get contact with him. That's a pretty understandable way of getting the attention he clearly needs and wants. To politics ...
Some of us have said on here over the last months and longer, that no-one is listening to the Tories any more. Maybe this deranged-never-going-to-happen-even-if-they-won conscription 'policy' is the political equivalent of my next door neighbours's kiddie. A way of getting heard. Not by most people in the UK I suspect, in a positive way, but in kind of all-publicity-is-good-publicity-kind-of-way. At least we're talking about them. Mind, we're politically keen and many in the country aren't but I guarantee that this will be an item on the next Loose Women for example and probably QT as well if other attention-seeking barminess hasn't emerged in the meantime, which I suspect it will.
I also think it's clearly aimed at the as someone put it earlier "it never done me any harm" very elderly by now generation as well as red wall voters for whom they hope it will chime. It wouldn't surprise me if this was either brain-stormed at yesterday's definitely-not-a-relaunch event and hurried out there, or if yesterday's event was to look at Tory polling on what might get attention/ the dial to move / or more likely shore up support amongst wavering voters of a certain kind, in an effort to avoid heavy defeat.
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pjw1961
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Post by pjw1961 on May 26, 2024 9:47:22 GMT
Johnson gets firmly behind Sunak - about 3,000 miles behind:
"Former prime minister Boris Johnson will be out of the country for most of the election campaign but will help from afar, friends have told the Sunday Telegraph. Johnson, who has ruled out standing as an MP this election, has a series of pre-arranged trips over the coming weeks which he will not be cancelling."
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steve
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Post by steve on May 26, 2024 9:51:12 GMT
18-year-old would not be jailed for refusing 'mandatory' national service, says minister
Home secretary James Cleverly said 18-year-olds would not be jailed if they refuse to carry out “mandatory” national service under Tory plans.
Asked on Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme whether the consequences of resisting the compulsory scheme could involve a prison term, he said: “No, there’s going to be no criminal sanction. There’s no one going to jail over this.”
He said in other countries with similar schemes there is a “very, very wide scope, take-up, acceptance and enthusiasm for this”.
Wtf
So it's compulsory but not compulsory!
I suppose no one asked not So Cleverly if he'd care to name the countries where conscription is met with enthusiasm.
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Post by graham on May 26, 2024 9:52:48 GMT
graham Thanks for that trip down memory lane to your student days in Liverpool 50 years ago. I'm sure it's highly relevant to the situation in 2024 I was actually at Leeds but the fellow student came from Liverpool. He was much more Left wing than myself but based his expectations on the Local Election of April/May 1973. You may not wish to see the parallel but I think it is there. Far more recent examples exist - indeed remain ongoing - such as Watford and possibly Gloucester.
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on May 26, 2024 9:57:08 GMT
"I think it would be a good idea for Sunak Whose army did you have in mind? Well hopefully not ours. Maybe the Foreign Legion? The conscription thing reminds one of the episodes in Yes Prime Minister where Hacker wants to introduce conscription. (If Sunak announces an end to Trident as well we’ll know where he is getting his ideas from). m.youtube.com/watch?v=qVO85anasrAand from the same episode, the classic bit about polling m.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks |
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on May 26, 2024 10:02:01 GMT
I think it would be a good idea for Sunak to be conscripted They're going full UKIP (unfortunately, it's the Paul Nuttall version) Hopefully they’ll do some polling on it, meantime here’s some related polling from January: More than a third of under-40s would refuse conscription in the event of a world waryougov.co.uk/politics/articles/48473-more-than-a-third-of-under-40s-would-refuse-conscription-in-the-event-of-a-world-war“This figure is higher than the number who say they would either volunteer or accept conscription - although if the British mainland were under threat more would be willing to fight” |
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neilj
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Post by neilj on May 26, 2024 10:05:56 GMT
Dave'Our next door neighbour's kid can be pretty, I'll be honest, irritating' You can hardly blame him for being good looking
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steve
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Post by steve on May 26, 2024 10:07:09 GMT
When Labour post victory has to face the Brexit sized elephant in the room they will be doing so when just 2 of their 400+ mps supported leave.
There's no opposition to rolling back the catastrophe other than those the Labour leadership impose on themselves.
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Post by Mark on May 26, 2024 10:07:52 GMT
Good Lord! The latest Tory proposal for some form of National service for 18 year olds. Day 4 after the Election announced, never hinted at before and presumably the fruits of the PM being closeted with his inner Circle today. One might make the observation that the young did their National service by observing lockdown during a Pandemic to protect the elderly when the Pandemic was of little risk to them, missing out on Education and the fun of teenage years. Others have pointed out this is aimed at the elderly voter and probably plays well with the Refuk cohort. It's also barking mad, what happens if all 700,000 18 year olds elected to do their bit with the armed forces! we would have to exponentially increase the Forces just to be able to take the youngsters on! Well I hope it motivates the young to register to vote and stick two fingers up to this. I think there is a distinct possibility that all the wheels may fall off this Tory campaign and we may witness a real disintegration. Six weeks seems like a long time. After this announcement, they really do deserve to have the wheels come off... Apart from the moral implications of this (would those forced to participate get paid a fair wage? Or at all? Will certain demographics be "encouraged" to take the military option?), there are practical implications as well, such as.... * Students - many students take weekend work such as in pubs or restaurants to help funds their studies. we have already been told that universities are in trouble and fees will likely go up. * Employment - a fair few jobs, particularly in the retail sector include weekend work. Employers of such obs would be less likely to take on 18/19 year olds. * Existing vlolunteer work - a fair smatterng of young people alreay give up time, especially on weekends to help out with charities and causes they care about. * Entertainment - Things like forming bands, while not exclusively so, is largely a young persons thing. Many are in work or education. Band practice or even gigs tend to be at the weekend. As well as soft power, entertainment brings in large sums of money to the treasury. Where is the next Idles or Arctic Monkeys going to come from? |
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Post by bardin1 on May 26, 2024 10:13:53 GMT
After this announcement, they really do deserve to have the wheels come off... Apart from the moral implications of this (would those forced to participate get paid a fair wage? Or at all? Will certain demographics be "encouraged" to take the military option?), there are practical implications as well, such as.... * Students - many students take weekend work such as in pubs or restaurants to help funds their studies. we have already been told that universities are in trouble and fees will likely go up. * Employment - a fair few jobs, particularly in the retail sector include weekend work. Employers of such obs would be less likely to take on 18/19 year olds. * Existing vlolunteer work - a fair smatterng of young people alreay give up time, especially on weekends to help out with charities and causes they care about. * Entertainment - Things like forming bands, while not exclusively so, is largely a young persons thing. Many are in work or education. Band practice or even gigs tend to be at the weekend. As well as soft power, entertainment brings in large sums of money to the treasury. Where is the next Idles or Arctic Monkeys going to come from?I guess the plan is the little monkeys won't be idle any more One thing that struck me was we currently have massive labour shortages in the care profession. My 20 year old nephew has finally found a job (after being refused entry to the armed forces) as a care worker. That whole cohort of potential health and care workers will be taken out. More immigration anyone? - Perhaps we could send boats across to France to Press youngsters from the refugee camps into service in the care homes and hospitals, offering a shilling at the bottom of a glass as encouragement |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 26, 2024 10:28:46 GMT
Im sure I heard an interviewee on R4 about 9 saying this new national service would be VOLUNTARY? Does that mean it was announced as compuslory, but has already been rolled back because of opposition? It was announced as a mandatory requirement to volunteer. You couldn't make this up. But in the consersation it was said there would be no penalty for not volunteering. |
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neilj
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Post by neilj on May 26, 2024 10:31:48 GMT
Interesting talk about fathers and conscription. My father was in the KSLI, he just missed the D Day landings but then was part of the advance through France and Germany
He was shot in the leg on the 20th April, shortly before the war ended
A lot of his comrades died in the attack
He didn't begrudge fighting for his country, but only talked about it in his last years
After he was stationed in Germany in the Army of Occupation, his overwhelming memory of this later period was he and his comrades just wanting to go home
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 26, 2024 10:36:31 GMT
He didn't begrudge fighting for his country, No but he very well might if he had been forced to do some stupid makework at a fire station or run round assault courses when there was never any possibility of being an actual soldier in a worthwhile war. |
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Post by moby on May 26, 2024 10:38:52 GMT
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on May 26, 2024 10:43:06 GMT
If the young are forced to do free labour (volunteering) perhaps they should get something back, like free post-school/college education? or maybe get paid to go to college |
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pjw1961
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Post by pjw1961 on May 26, 2024 10:44:42 GMT
18-year-old would not be jailed for refusing 'mandatory' national service, says minister Home secretary James Cleverly said 18-year-olds would not be jailed if they refuse to carry out “mandatory” national service under Tory plans. Asked on Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme whether the consequences of resisting the compulsory scheme could involve a prison term, he said: “No, there’s going to be no criminal sanction. There’s no one going to jail over this.” He said in other countries with similar schemes there is a “very, very wide scope, take-up, acceptance and enthusiasm for this”. Wtf So it's compulsory but not compulsory! I suppose no one asked not So Cleverly if he'd care to name the countries where conscription is met with enthusiasm. He only said no one would go to jail. Other sanctions are available. For example, perhaps if you refuse to do mandatory volunteering, you could be sentenced to do compulsory community service! |
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