Military Air Traffic Controller in the RAF. Enjoy the core task, don’t enjoy constant unpaid overtime, jumping through hoops at the whim of a madman. 6 years to go, one eye on the exit.

Renton, also not sure what to do. Have you thought about trying the charts with the armourer song?

Cobrakai, I’d try and chisel for a job but I know NATS’ policy to ex-mil over 30!

M@MI5.gov.uk
tblair@labour.gov.uk
😆

pprune thread

Some more informed speculation here for those interested.

cranberry – Member

I don’t know. His anti austerity stance has been backed as a sound plan

By both Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe.

Some people from Venezuela and Zimbabwe did question the policy of printing money until it had no worth, but don’t worry, they have been decried as tories and enemies of the revolution.

I love Llandegla, my local, but I do find the big dull climb at the start tends to discourage a second lap! Haven’t found that at other trail centres that don’t all share a common start, hence can be more interesting out of the car park.

Incidentally, for a beast of a starting climb, it’s got to be White’s Level at Afan! Was at Hopton a few weekends ago, and seemed to be going uphill the whole time there! All subjective I guess.

You may recall that parliament refused military action in Syria, ground troops were never even proposed, certainly due to the way Afg and Iraq had gone. Same goes for the Americans. There’s a distaste for interventionism, which will last until the next Rwanda.
I’m not arguing that the military are better than NGOs at disaster relief type work, rather that they can offer complimentary capabilities to them, and operate in higher threat environments, as a side-effect of the role they are primarily configured for (although things like humanitarian intervention are secondary roles in the UK Defence Mission anyway). I don’t see any need to apologise for that.

Has anyone considered that the reason that NGOs don’t spend big wodges of cash on C130s, Chinooks, security etc is because they have assorted militaries to call on for that sort of thing, enabling them to spend more money on medical supplies, fishing nets, irrigation projects etc. It’s almost like they’re complimentary capabilities. And yes, military forces are generally configured primarily for a war role, but there’s a lot of crossover in the equipment and capabilities for things like humanitarian operations.

natrix – Member

The Help for Heroes Rehabilitation Complex at Headley Court was built with funds raised by the H4H, not from MOD spending http://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/how-we-help/headley-court/

If a firefighter for example received a similar injury to a serviceman they would not be able to access such a specialist facility, but would have to rely on the NHS.

Headley Court was there before H4H, although they have splashed quite a bit of cash on the place. As we’ve withdrawn from Afghanistan now, I wonder if there’s spare capacity for civil emergency services?

The French Army are in quite a few of them though. I’m not belittling the work of NGOs by the way, but a military force can provide its own security (or that of NGOs and various other agencies) better than a civilian organisation.

bencooper – Member

The military are the best (and in many cases the only) people for the job.

The military are better at providing food, medical and disaster relief than Oxfam, Save The Children, MSF or many other expert organisations?
Posted 18 seconds ago # Report-Post

Depends how dangerous it is!

Disingenuous. £20bn per year, as you know. £100bn are the Trident replacements projected full life costs (50yrs+). The point stands.

Most people weren’t imagining WW2 until a few years before it broke out. Or the Blkans, or Sierra Leone, or GW1. Luckily, there are people paid to think about and plan for these things.

There is a mindset now, after Iraq and Afg, that intervention is inherently unethical. In the 90s, the West was pilloried for not intervening in Rwanda and the Balkans (earlier). It’s cyclical. With a resurgent Russia threatening Europe (credible deterrence?), Islamic fundamentalism and bonkers regimes like North Korea, plus the South Atlantic, I can think of plenty of potential future conflicts.

Cut the armed forces by 2/3rds. You’ve now got a token “home defence force”, unable to meaningfully contribute to any kind of overseas ventures, even ones you might approve of, or protect the UK’s interests or her people overseas, or meet our obligations to NATO. You’ve saved £20bn, not a lot compared to the NHS and welfare budgets. Meanwhile, you’ve put a lot of people out of work.

natrix – Member

There are two aspects to this which wind me up, the first being the assumption that anybody in the armed forces who becomes injured is automatically a ‘hero’ and deserves better treatment than is available on the NHS for the likes of ‘non-heroes’ such as firefighters, paramedics, police etc who may be injured through their work (which clearly isn’t heroic enough).

The second is the assumption that serving in the armed forces in Afghanistan gives automatic ‘hero’ status. The local paper is full of drink driving stories, most resulting in a one year ban, the notable exceptions being squaddies who get the ‘hero’ treatment (although they probably just spent 6 months fixing landrovers in Camp Bastion) and get let off by the magistrate with a warning.

If this is really happenning for that reason, it’s wrong and it shouldn’t be. I agree the term grates, for random members of the Forces as much as the England football team. I’m not a hero, but I’ve met one or two.

It’s also a British thing. Much higher rental rates in France and Germany, I seem to remember.

Don’t believe it’s a right, I bought something I could afford. I just don’t want to have flushed tens of thousands down the proverbial!

Future classic car? Or bikes? Ignore all these people saying red or black, put it on zero. That way, you get 36 times your stake when it comes up. Fact.

Just run us through how you’re being punished exactly?

Why is it that some people presume that the government has some kind of moral obligation to set economic policy so that homeowners have an asset that must endlessly appreciate in value way, way beyond rates of inflation, pay rises etc?

It seems to be regarded as some god-given right nowadays. It isn’t. Its a deliberate perversion of The Market, in that governments have consistently artificially propped up prices for political reasons (home owners borrowing money they don’t have, against their ever-appreciating ‘asset’ to buy shiny things they don’t need).

It needs sorting out, before it once again becomes another major contributory factor to another potentially catastrophic, but predictably familiar boom and bust cycle

you bought a house with 20k deposit of 200k.

the market drops and your house now only worth 150k.

you have paid in say 20k over 3-4 years …..

you still owe the bank 10k + have no equity to get a deposit on your new 150k house……

Exactly^. I’m not in favoir of prices rises, jsut against price falls, stagnent prices seem to be the least worse option, stopping the moving goal post problem.

The brick took the words out of my mouth. Cash terms stagnation would seem to be the least worst option. Given time and rising wages (try not to laugh) this makes housing more affordable, both for new entrants and mortgage holders, without hitting those of us who bought after the boom with negative equity.

Binners, re-read my post. I’m not asking for an endlessly appreciating asset, I live in my house and I borrowed what I could afford, still (just!) the case after getting divorced. I just don’t want to be trapped in it by negative equity. I was lucky enough to be able to afford to buy out here in the Shires. I’ve worked hard and made sacrifices to pay the mortgage down. There are a lot of us! A tad unfair, don’t you think, if Government policy wipes out the tens of thousands of pounds we’ve paid in to our mortgages? Granted, worse things happen at sea, but still not a great situation.

Awesome. And still doing the business today 8)

A house price drop would penalise and trap many people like myself who have saved for a long time and just managed to buy a house. Better to have a stagnation of prices. This stops housing becoming an investment opertunity but allows people who have bought a house still the possibility to move about when needed.

This^. I’ve made a lot of sacrifices to buy my place (which I live in), bikes not bought, holidays not gone on etc. Do I deserve to be punished for that because I have the temerity to earn over 40k?

Guardian video

Watching the Guardian video above, it looks like the engine surges about 4 seconds in?

Thatcher’s wars? The Falklands? Surely that’s a more black and white one than Iraq/Afghanistan? As was GW1, the Balkans, Sierra Leone. People have short memories. We were targets anyway, as a Western, secular, ostensibly Christian, leading free-market economy. France, Spain and Bali, just off the top of my head, have all been hit by fundamentalist terrorism despite a much less interventionist stance than us.
OP, perhaps British people are generally embarrassed when talking about patriotism etc, as well as being part of a highly skilled team, but I think they’re certainly motivating factors for most. I’m proud of what I do and I think HM Forces are a force for good in the world. Remember the media just report the bad stuff!

“Hero” is overused and not just in the Forces, sportsmen for example? As others have said though, “Help for average guy/girl trying to do his/her job in the wrong place at the wrong time” wants for a little snappiness.

I joined up because I wanted to be a fast jet pilot, for the same reasons I like mountain biking I suppose. That didn’t work out, but I still wanted to work with aircraft, do an interesting job and travel a bit. Plus most of my mates were joining up.

Christians against Dinosaurs? Not even the Romans thought of that!

You’re right, the majority are pilot error, but to me that calls for better pilot training (which is happening), as I don’t think the technology’s mature/secure/robust enough yet for unpiloted.

Having worked with UAVs a lot, I emphatically don’t second that ^^. The Hudson ditching was an example of airmanship saving the day, would a UAV have done that?

Met the young lady on okcupid, it’s pretty good. You need to put some effort in to your profile though!

Much better to spend all that money we don’t have on killing some random dudes in a HiLux in Iraq? Even conservative estimates of the cost of the Iraq air strikes put the cost higher than the estimates of the cost of setting up an independent Scotland.

Really? A few bombs and some fuel cost more than setting up an independent country of 5m-odd people? I smell bullshit.

Park in the car park in the NE corner. Head N out of the car park until you find where the woods slope steeply downhill to the North, then ride West along the trail that runs along the top of the slope. There are a load of trails running down the slope that you can access from here. There is a parallel trail at the bottom of the slope as well. Have fun!

Captain Flasheart, I too have heard that the translation from the Koran’s Arabic might be raisins, not virgins. Something to do with the value of dried fruit in desert climes back in the day. Those martyrs are going to be mighty hacked off when they’re presented with a box of SunBlest!

Apologies if this has been done as I couldn’t be bothered to wade through all 43 pages, but regarding the military, this chap dissects the planned split quite nicely and dispassionately. As with so many things, the devil is in the detail, which is why I’m always suspicious when people say things like “we just take 9% of the assets and people, simple” (I’m paraphrasing there).

Navy:
http://thinpinstripedline.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/assessment-on-proposals-for-scottish.html

Air Force:
http://thinpinstripedline.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/assessment-on-proposals-for-scottish_30.html

When you consider that that’s just the MOD, and think of all the other agencies of state that similar difficulties would apply to, don’t you think it’s a bit TFD? I realise that’s a negative argument, but you will not achieve the dream if you bankrupt yourself in the process!

I can’t guarantee the quality of the workmanship, or that nobody will draw a cock and balls anywhere.

I wonder about that £10m figure. Is it one of those dodgy stats that include costs that would have been incurred anyway, like the salaries of all the servicemen, running costs of St Paul’s etc? In the same way that you read about helicopters costing £20000 an hour to run.

So what if you’re called Paul and you drive a BMW?

.As for being touchy; call somebody some of the terms used on here to describe Scots/Irish/Welsh in any public sector job and see what happens.

Armed Forces?

Afghan!

Hermione Cockburn from Coast. Lovely girl.
Michaela has still got it.
The lass on springwatch, Kate I think? Makes wellies work.

Words fail at times like this. Deepest condolences.

Thanks for the good wishes. Happily I’m a REMF and not in any real danger! I question the illegality of the original invasion actually, law is a matter of interpretation and you could definitely argue that Al Q were proxy actors for the Taliban state (or pakistan or Saudi, but that’s a different argument) They trained and fought the northern alliance together. Incidentally, during that time thousands were massacred at places like mazar-e-sharif, with casualties way in excess of what we have seen since 2001. Millions of refugees have come back since the end of the Taliban period. If you’re going to talk about how many civilians we have killed, you need to compare it with what was going on before. I would query that the Taliban are defending their country too, about half of them aren’t even afghans. Overall I think the current situation is far from perfect, but the lesser of all the evils Afghanistan has known for the last 40 years.

Ok, you’re saying they wouldn’t let prince William go in to harms way? True, it’s declared policy i think. But they are letting Harry because he’s allegedly illegitimate? It’s beginning to sound a bit like one of those conspiracy websites isn’t it? Prince Andrew, the spare at the time, did a naval career and flew in the falklands. Was he illegitimate too? They are a military family. Harry doesn’t even look like James Hewitt, more like a mix of prince Charles and earl spencer, unsurprisingly. Look at the bone structure.

That apart, another thing that went through my mind, on the subject was what precisely are we doing about the scourge of heroin while we’re there? Fantastic opportunity to truly disprupt that evil trade you’d think wouldn’t you?

Plenty.