http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23155942

The bits about day jobs are laughable.

There needs to be an exemption for small firms where losing a member of staff can be significant to the running of the company overall.

sadly, part time armed forces on the cheap ...

No substitute for a proper full time army.


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Here's the thing : If we didn't have a bunch of grandstanding pricks for politicians, we wouldn't need a massive full time army. Or at least not one anywhere near as big as we do. Look at the size of the armed forces the Scandinavians have. They're pretty much our geopolitical equivalent these days. The Swedish army is half the size ours. The Danish army is one twentieth.

It's only because our eejit politicians feel like sending them to every godforsaken dustbowl on earth in the name of 'The War on Terror' and some rabid desire to maintain a seat on the UN Security council that we pour tens of billions of pounds a year into an armed forces that, if we actually used them in a rational and reasonable way, we would only need a fraction of.

I'm not saying get rid. But the bare fact is we simply don't have the notion of the entire soviet army heading over the Rhine at short notice any more. We simply don't need a massive standing force. The notion of using reserves backing up a small highly trained cadre of full time soldiers is actually a really good one. It fits what we actually need to do and it fits the amount of money we should actually be dedicating to our military capability. But what we get is some bizarre notion that reducing troop numbers is somehow an affront to our national identity. It is a load of genitals.

What is an affront to our national identity is closing hospitals and libraries and privatising the NHS while we spend £25billion building a ballistic missile submarine fleet we will never, ever use.

I think that Trident or its replacement is the politicians willy waving. As you said it has no other benefit other than for politicians grandstanding on the international circuit. I agree with every thing else you said. Personally I would rather we scrapped trident and boosted our hunter killer subs and the two carriers. We could still develop another way of delivering nukes if necessary that are not so expensive.

A smaller army would restrict our leaders ability to have big wars and potentially a state funeral in remembrance. It would also reduce if not eliminate the large numbers of disabled troops requiring benefits.


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my battalion was involved, in the late 70's, with a full military exercise with all NATO forces which simulated a full USSR invasion

without the use or requirement of WMD (nuclear weapons)

even allowing for a 50% failure rate of all USSR equipment they had over run and destroyed all NATO forces and were at the channel within 42 hours
so i believe in strong full time armed force on land, sea and air but WMD are a lose, lose situation and the need for them are redundant because if they are used everything is redundant ...

I would rather see our navy and airforces maintained at higher levels so that the army is not needed. We do not need trident and the savings could enable us to have two carriers and a well resourced army and airforce as well.