UK military shrinking by 300 a month, says Radakin
https://www.ft.com/content/bb669a96-f49a-4f73-9ab7-4fc689de3383
by ThatchersDirtyTaint
UK military shrinking by 300 a month, says Radakin
https://www.ft.com/content/bb669a96-f49a-4f73-9ab7-4fc689de3383
by ThatchersDirtyTaint
33 comments
Maybe if you paid them more it wouldn’t be. Everyone I know who is in the armed forces doesn’t want their kids to follow them.
I’ve heard from a couple of different people that the recruitment process takes so long that young people are settled into better paid jobs with better working conditions by the time they’re ready, so they all tell the MOD thanks but no thanks.
One of the biggest things in military is about fighting for something. Patriotism meant you were fighting to defend your way of life, your culture, etc.
The UK is changing so much that people don’t know what they are fighting for and in many cases, patriotism is almost frowned upon…
When an English or British flag is flown, it immediately attract comments like far-right. (Yes in every flag there is a minority like this, but it shouldn’t be an excuse to shun patriotism)
This is just my view from all I have been seeing in the west so far.
The whole thing is a shambles from recruitment to retention and then the DEI nonsense fed to soldiers constantly.
The pay is crap, postings boring so you can’t blame young people looking at other careers.
When it takes on average a Year to get someone from application to start training….something has gone very wrong.
The pay is poor.
The conditions are not great. Housing is a joke.
The government has shown time and time again that they don’t give a shit about you when you retire or are forced to retire medically.
And what are you fighting for?
This country has time, and time again shown it doesn’t give a shit about young people, Boomers have seen to that.
The NHS is falling apart and is essentailly held together by the good will of the people that work for it, there are no affordable nice houses to buy, there’s crime everywhere you look, schools were thrown up shoddily and now require rebuilding, our legal system is on the brink with multiple years waiting between a crime being committed and charged and it going to court.
Why would anyone fight for that?
The forces are on their arse. Moral is rock bottom, manpower is non existent, burnout is on the increase.
We now have a significant amount of people who abuse the medical system, part of what is helping to create manpower issues. Too many young people who can’t seem to cope with general work and get signed off to sit around at home for year on full pay, god forbid we start sending people anywhere.
I’ve genuinely not seen it this bad through a long career and multiple deployments to the middle east. Glad to be leaving shortly.
The military has a severe sickness and I’m not sure what the cure is or at this stage if one would work.
I don’t blame them, the MOD treats soldiers as dispensable.
I expect that there is a distinct lack of service numbers in this conversation. In the opinion of this coal face worker there are several factors that are causing recruitment and retention to tank;
1. It takes too long to get people into phase 1 training.
2. We are not aiming to recruit the right kids.
3. The accommodation provided is very poor.
4. The deployments are not particularly exciting anymore.
5. We don’t offer any celebrations for the armed services (the royal tournament was cancelled decades ago, Army Navy rugby isn’t televised ect)
6. The social life has been eradicated, there are no dances where locals are invited and there is very little available on base entertainment.
7. Penny pinching is the number 1 priority of most commands.
8. The MoD’s budget is strangled by pensions and entitlements (which should come out of work and pensions not defence)
9. There’s been a marked slide in the quality of leadership, too many people are getting thrown under the bus to protect officers careers.
10. There is very little confidence in government in general.
Pay’s been a problem since we’ve had an armed forces and it actually becomes competitive after a few years
– They’re not paid enough. Since 2010 their pay has fallen relative to inflation year-on-year. Their benefits have been stripped away and rates for accommodation and food have continued to increase.
– The endless cycle of nugatory “mandatory training” eats up whatever time the SPs have; meaning they spend most of their time doing bullshit lectures and repeating one-off briefs rather than actually training for their role. “Sorry guys you can’t go on the ranges this week because you haven’t completed your Defence Information Management Passport for the 4th time”.
– Mess culture is dying. Messes have been consistently under-resourced and contracts handed to companies that just don’t match the values & ethos of the Armed Forces. What they deliver is sub-standard and mess culture has withered on the vine. This has had an extremely detrimental impact on the sense of one-ness and togetherness.
– Service accommodation is fucking shocking. Mouldy, decrepit houses being serviced by, once again, bottom-line chasing private firms has put a huge burden on service people’s families. Who wants their wives/hubands/kids living in sub-standard accommodation??
– Mis-aligned priorities of Senior Leadership. Spend most of their time chasing PR, mindlessly promoting DEI and seeking media optics over literally all of the above. All whilst telling their core audience (young, white, men) that they’re not welcome… CGS only ever grows a spine once retired from post and therefore nothing ever changes.
– The offer from the private sector is just too good, considering all above.
Barely anyone wants to fight for The Yookay.
Who would’ve thought it, eh?
Why fight for a country that actively goes out of its way to let you know you’re despised?
As a member of the military I can tell you that high rankers are panicking about this. We have a town hall with *this* officer or *that* officer almost 1/2 times a month at my unit.
And honestly they are doing things to “fix” it such as lowering fitness test standards, removing restrictions on tattoos on the hands and neck, relaxing hair standards, attempting to improve uniform etc etc etc.
But there are many other issues that can’t be fixed easily or quickly:
– Significantly better pay being a civilian (Aircraft technicians working on camp on a friday in uniform and leaving, coming back in Monday as a BAE civilian getting paid much much more tondo the same job)
– Being treated significantly better as a civilian
– Changing politicial views of the UK
– Aging Infrastructure
And these are just the quick ones I could think of whilst sat in my car because my accomodations fire alarm is going off 🙄
I asked a military friend of mine. Who’s family generation been in the military about this article.
He said:
The military has been reducing since we came out of Afghanistan 10 years ago, it’s not really new.
Even with the increase in spending it’s still set to reduce further as they aim to have a “smaller more lethal” force while expecting it to do more.
wondered why i was getting spammed with recruitment ads these past months
So more spaces for minority and women to fill to make things more inline with the nations demographics?don’t see an issue. Oh can’t get them To join really either because crap pay,conditions,treatment,after service help,years of cuts and demonisation and there being nothing bar the people who will treat you like shit to fight for?shocker.
Quality is important but a problem the army has is the cut off age for officers is 28, which means there are a lot of very suitable, experienced people out there over that age that are interested but dont want to join as a regular.
What am hearing from the still serving is the government propensity to contract out military support functions to civvy grifters is having a bad effect upon morale.
Having my son in the services and have him moan about the shit food the lack of skills for civilian life.The pay is not great and accommodation is crap it’s a wonder any young person would join any arm of the military.
20 percent of the UK is not UK born, and have little to no reason to join .
More UK Muslims join jihadist groups than the UK military .47 percent polled have a sympathetic view of Hamas.
British and enthno nationalist types are viewed as right wing extremists and imprisoned when possible , so they have little to no reason to fight for the UK government.
Left wing types view the UK as a systemically racist and oppressive nation who are complicit in genocide , so they have no reason to join up.
The UK armed forces have actively discriminated white British men into it’s officer and technical roles. So they won’t be joining up in a rush.
So who exactly do they think is going to want to join up?
Westminster doesn’t give a shit about British people, why would they fight for it
I guess people don’t want to fight and die for the future Islamic state of the UK.
I mean it’s a multifaceted problem really, first and foremost there’s nothing to fight for. Why would young people join the military to get treated terribly by the country they’re serving. All there’s to come back to is inflation, the shrinking middle class, poorer job prospects, no housing, etc. When people don’t feel served by the government, why spend their entire lives risking their lives for the government. Secondly people probably don’t wanna be associated with the loud mouthed patriotic people, who constantly twist being proud to be British into being proud to be white, and other horrid stuff like that.
Finally the current military is doing fine enough protecting the uk, and it’s not like we need troops to actively fight in places like Ukraine. Furthermore people aren’t coming back from war to warm celebrations like in WW2. Thanks to the UKs meddling in the Middle East military services is much more morally grey, and I’m sure many people don’t want that weighing on their conscious.
Why should the men and women of Britain join the military when you treat your own people like criminals making it clear you hate whites and are going out of your way to discriminate them for employment, you also let mobs of illegal scum enter our lands paying them to remain here to rape our women and children destroying and replacing our culture with theirs,
you also turn your backs on our own veterans for years leaving them to sleep in the streets living in homeless shelters to prioritise people who have no right to even be here in our nation!
how can one be patriotic for a nation that not only hates them but go’s out of it’s way to treat them like shit on a shoe while it actively replaces them with these so called illegal future engineers and doctors.
We are nothing more than a broken nation full of greedy leaders more interested in selling us all out for a few extra quid in their pockets.
Nobody wants to get shot at for minimum wage. Doing something about that might help.
My issues is whilst serving is policy isn’t been followed. Policy stated flexible working, completely ignored by the CoC. Choosing when to go on leave, ignored without any valid reason. Not even following the basic policies to help improve soldiers live. I’m currently starting an initiative to try improve soldiers lives
People value their freedom now. Not just their free time.
You see how kids scream at you if you take away the mobile phone or iPad? It’s no different when people grow up. They can’t even take them away at school. So we are hooked on those notifications, messages and updates. The dopamine requirement is entrenched.
Everyone at work now either sneaks a peek at their phone in work, or use a smart watch to check messages. Or take weirdly long breaks to check their phone. We’re not even supposed to have phones on person at work.
I certainly believe we will see the real world crumble as we focus all our energies as a human race on the online world.
So can you play on your phone whilst on duty?
I applied to join the forces. By the time I got to interview like 6 months later, I had a job that netted me close to £4,000 more per year, didn’t require me to relocate, and was probably better suited for me at the time.
I do still consider enlisting. But they absolutely need to speed up the recruitment process, and they need to make the pay more attractive.
Plus the facilities are atrocious. I won’t say where I went for one test but I’d guess a prison would be more homely than the bed you got. I understand the whole point is you’re going to be out of your comfort zone but I had a feeling I was going to get tetanus and it was better to sleep on the floor.
Lack of trust is likely a big issue. The number of sexual harrassment/assault cases that get ignored, swept under the rug, or outright lied about is a disgrace. Who the hell would want to place themself in that environment. Deepcut was a scandal, so was the young lass recently who killed herself after her SA reports were ignored, and the young lad a week or so out from his wedding who was found assaulted and hanged, but whose death was ruled suicide. Fuck that – why the hell would you put yourself at risk… you own should be the ones you can trust, not the ones who put you at risk and then ignore you.
Why risk my life for just being a political pawn in someone else’s war ??? Plus why the fuck should I die for a country that year by year gives less a fuck about its people ??
Give people a good life and country they are proud of and the possibilities are endless!
What happens when you outsource recruitment to a vendor on a contract, looking to maximise its profit – for national defence…
Well duh, considering what’s happening to ex soldiers been tormented by dodgy lawyers…. Why join up?
With a poor recruitment policy (well medical policy), people with strong views on foreign policies, better paid work in civi street, a general lack of interest in military (I don’t think kids play soldiers in the woods/playground or have action man or Britains soldiers anymore?) and an era of family with no massive war experience (I come from an era raised by people who fought in WW2.
It all adds up, there’s still some good ones slowly coming through the system but even take the reserves, they are starting to dwindle. Last month our unit has lost 15+ with no signs of others coming through just yet.
Maybe if the mod did treat people like dirt and actually behaved like a decent employer they wouldn’t have that issue.
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