Army cuts
 

In another forum I have read that '5000' soldiers are planning a protest march on London.

and....."one of the decision makers on disbanding these regiments is visiting 2RRF (one of the regiments being disbanded) tomorrow in Celle, Germany... He is expecting a march past... The boys are going to *ahem* give him something else.."

In view of DaveG's former army connections, and his present location, I ask him to please report any incident the german media may report, because it is not likely to be reported in UK media.

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so good old cameron wants to sack some brave soldiers so that he can put them on the dole and call them scum because theres no jobs for them to go to hes made sure of that :mad:

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My cousin has been told that he is being made redundant. He is a sergeant in the RAF and has been there for 21 years. After 22 years in the RAF you can claim full RAF pension. My cousin's redundancy will come into force when he is 7 weeks short of the 22 years, therefore, saving the RAF a fortune. He is not the only one this is happening to, there are hundreds up and down the country.
No matter how good a life style the armed forces personnel may have when we are not at war, I would never recommend to anyone that they join up. People like my cousin, who have seen active service, are robbed blind in the most underhand way when it comes to their pensions.

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Cut off Cameron's

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Meanwhile, the likes of Diamond walk away with millions.

Disgraceful. :rolleyes:

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I'm beginning to get a dislike for Mr Cameron

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Soon there will be more people at two premiership football matches than the total in the army. Disgraceful. :mad:

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Won't work ... you will get the same bs, only in a squeakier voice;)

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and you can bet he will be seen soon on TV saying how great our troops are and how much he respects them.

dont get me wrong they are and he should but from the way this government and the last lot treated our troops its quite eveident they dont give a toss about our troops

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this is to pave the way to outsource more contracts to privete firms.this is a disgrace .protect the falklands your having a laugh:mad: on the day the tories pump 50 billion by quantitive easing where is the money going ye thats right the banks who defrauded the british public.the sooner cameron and co get the boot the better.paddy ashdown where are you now??

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Come to think of it, why do you guys need a large military? Here's a scenario: Privately, Her Majesty's Government, whatever they say in public, is commited to the EU. When Germany decides that the only way out of the Euro crisis is a political union, there will be a new European Defence Force, headquartered in ... mmm, the Bendlerblock is still standing in Berlin.:rolleyes: National forces will cease to exist. On the up side, you won't have to join any US adventures into, say, Iran or North Korea. You can get rid of your nuclear subs, and axe the aircraft carriers ... save a whole bunch of money! Make a deal with the Argentinians for the Malvinas. Maybe they will throw in Lionel Messi.:alright: A great footballer is, in today's world at least, worth much more than honour, and you could always work out a deal on sharing any oil that may be there. It will really be peace in our time.

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if we didnt have a large militarty who would run around the world wiping americas arse

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Do we still have 5000 soldiers? :(

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Hes not a Banker Let, only defended our country, not defrauded it.:rolleyes:

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Massive cuts for the military were announced within the first weeks of this government and at the time some posters on here defended those cuts...but we were told most of the cuts would be made in office jobs and such...that was yet another bare faced lie.

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I think the young lad on question time tonight summed it up.. we grieve almost daily on the deaths of our lads fighting for our way of life ...and then this government say we don't need 20,000 of you.. disgusting

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If we cut the number of troops in the armed forces, maybe it will lead to us contributing our fair share, and no more, to international disputes.

Here is a list of current troop numbers in Afghanistan

United States 90,000
United Kingdom 9,500
Germany 4,812
France 3,935
Italy 3,880
Poland 2,560
Romania 1,938
Turkey 1,786
Spain 1,552

Source: NATO

NATO troops are in Afghanistan to protect the western world from the threat of terrorism. That threat is as real in Germany, France, Italy and Spain as it is in the UK, so why do we have between two and five times the number of troops there?

The USA can justify their own position.

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i would say the threat is more real for the UK than germany simply because it was the UK that lied and fabricated evidence so the UK could support america and drag the rest into it.

hence why we got bombed on 7/7 and america got 9/11 .The UK and usa are viewed as the main instigators of this so called war on terror which the UK and usa started by invading iraq a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11

do we need to keep our troops ?

as long as our government runs around kissing americas backside and upsetting the middle east we damn well do

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I find it strange that none of the 23,000 Bureaucrats employed by the M.O.D are getting the push.:confused:
Oh yea I forgot they are the ones that drew up the plan.:mad:

Over the hill with a fixed ballpoint chaps.:eek::D:D

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Beni its the same in the NHS, none of the managers on telephone number salaries, not forgetting the car, have gone down the road, this could only happen in the public sector, if this was the case in the private sector it would go bankrupt, but its a bottomless pit funded by the tax payer:mad:

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All quiet on the Western front. :)

As was expected, the Lads (& Lasses) of the Battalion remained professional throughout. Freedom of the City parade, March past & military band, there was more a feeling of sadness than outrage despite the disrespect & disdain exhibited by the British political classes to these young warriors.

Troops will bitch & moan, but at the end of the day they knuckle down & get on with the job regardless of their personal doubts, distaste or disagreement with an issue. That has every been the way of the Tommy & it's this resilience in the face of adversity that earns our forces such respect the world over, but sadly not from our own "leaders".

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It is a pity that they didn't protest in some way - a two fingered salute maybe:)

The movement for a protest in UK appears to be gathering momentum.
There are Facebook pages for regiments as well as a main protest page.
They are arranging gatherings of soldiers, ex soldiers and members of the public, at war memorials on 24th July.

The national gathering is to be at the Cenotaph, but whether that will be the 24th or 28th appears undecided yet.

Many war veterans are planning to attend and to return their medals.

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That comes across as the bigoted "Opinion" of a union leader.
Stick to what you know about.
I would sooner see our troops performing in ceremonials than coming back in boxes.The days of numbers for cannon fodder have long gone and so it should be.

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Not without hi-vis jackets and an assesment from H&S, GOOD HEAVENS Sir, they are professional pen pushers!
:o

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Speaking as one pacifist to another (seemingly).
I have never been a 'leader' in anything - union or otherwise.
Soldiers 'bodies in boxes' is as abhorrent to me as it is to you.
In this thread I relay what I have read about the ordinary soldiers reaction to redundancies.
They appear to be very angry, and missed an opportunity to vent it in Germany.
Whether their anger is justified or misplaced is not for me to say, since you so rightly say I don't know enough about it (never have, or even aspired to be, a soldier)

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So would everyone i know!! But thats sod all to do wi cuts etc that are depriving long serving people from there "Full Pensions":rolleyes: Which has nowt to do wi what yeh know about, nowt to do wi union leaders, more to do wi fairness n decency, maybe thats n area you are lacking in?

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They are professional soldiers, they were on duty, they are a well trained force not a rabble, duty first then they'll gripe.

Whatever would it have looked like if those squaddies had marched past like an uncontrollable mob on a picket line?

It is up to us, the citizens to protest on their behalf.

At least they will find The WMD they were sent to seek, at last, (Welfare Massive Depression).

Perhaps we are meant to get 'hot under the collar'?

Whatever are they pushing through that will be well hidden when they back down on this one?

Drastic actions call for drastic measures, this looks drastic to me.

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After 21 years service he will have a bigger pension pot than you or I ever had,
take into consideration redundancy payment and resettlement allowance for that amount of service, how much will he loose?
There are many service associations, not unions, who would not allow this to happen to the man's pension.
I would guide him in the right direction, not send him to the nearest barrack-room lawyer.

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Still don't get it,Still missing the point,:rolleyes: Yer previous reply to MargaretR, makes you sound like a barrack room lawyer.

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And the biggest office building in the world is the Pentagon;) Thing is tho', you can't privatise the military ... altho' "private security forces" seem to be popular in the US.:rolleyes: And I don't see the private sector as being all that efficient. Unless that efficiency is directed towards shady dealings which benefit only the top execs ... Barclay's comes to mind for some reason:D

It used to be "we've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too" ... not any more. The bottomless pit no longer exists, except as a piece of empty rhetoric.

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Eric all public services think they have a bottomless pit of money, that money is taxpayers money, every 4 or 5 years the politicos tell us they will spend that in the best way, they publish a manifesto, setting out their plans for the voting fodder, then the day after the election they through it in the bin and do exactly what they want and that's in every country in the world

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Why not get " Cardboard Soldiers" just like the cardboard traffic cops on the M55 not long after it opened.

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I don't think this is about the reality of what we can or cannot afford..it is the reality of the usual across the board spending cuts that always follow a Tory government.. this and past Tory governments simply cut and slash.
To create unemployment by sacking millions of people (a large majority under the age of 35) is a lazy not thought out policy that wil come back to haunt the economy of this country in years to come.

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My late husband was a regular in HM forces during Harold Wilson's reign in the 1960s. Maybe you'd like to explain why Wilson cut their allowances and cut their numbers making tens of thousands redundant in that period. It was noticeable that the men with most experience and thus had larger wages were the target of the cuts. It was a period when Kenyon Asian refugees were streaming into Britain, which meant long council housing waiting lists and not many job vacancies.

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Ya Lucy and wasn't it Harold Wilson's Government that is the only government ever to cut spending on the NHS, think it was back in 67 round about the same time that the pound has ever been devalued

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good job it was de-valued then or we would have no exports now.

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Now you've just confirmed your a total twit for want of an a:rolleyes:

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I recall that the influx of Ugandan asians was 1971/2.
I can be that specific because I worked that one year at DHSS (now DWP) in Blackburn and spent 6 months of that year doing nothing but interviewing those immigrant asians.

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Yes Margaret, the Ugandans arrived at the beginning of the seventies while as Lucysgirl says Kenyans came here in the sixties.

History of asylum in London : Commonwealth migration and non-European refugees

However looking at the figures in the link above the figures are surprisingly small - tens of thousands only.

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it was funny at the time :D

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.....because they came to Blackburn instead of London

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Wasn't if you were alive, your hardly that now never mind then, well brain wise anyway:rolleyes: