Boris to give green light to a new 'Home Guard' sort of thing

[itchy300]

If this is committed to fully and properly funded it could provide an excellent service to the UK (fires, floods, Olympic security etc...) and probably cheaper than getting ripped off by crapita, G4 etc..

And of course it won't be

They don't want to properly fund and train the AR unless there is a massive war on and they're screaming for blokes so they won't fund/train any civil defence organisation that will be used once in a generation.

If it does go ahead the obvious route will be to bring organisations such as the RNLI, mountain rescue, coastwatch, RAYNET, the 4x4 volunteer groups (who in the past have been great near me) and bring them 'in house' to properly fund and professionalise them (stand fast mountain rescue/RNLI who are already top boys).

 

[ivan_the_tolerable]

If this is committed to fully and properly funded it could provide an excellent service to the UK (fires, floods, Olympic security etc...) and probably cheaper than getting ripped off by crapita, G4 etc..

And of course it won't be

They don't want to properly fund and train the AR unless there is a massive war on and they're screaming for blokes so they won't fund/train any civil defence organisation that will be used once in a generation.

If it does go ahead the obvious route will be to bring organisations such as the RNLI, mountain rescue, coastwatch, RAYNET, the 4x4 volunteer groups (who in the past have been great near me) and bring them 'in house' to properly fund and professionalise them (stand fast mountain rescue/RNLI who are already top boys).

I would suggest that there is no appetite whatsoever to create or fund any umbrella organisation for civil emergencies or contingencies.
There has already been years of austerity cuts and retrenchment within much of the blue light services. May’s decimation of the police being an example, which of course has been belatedly acknowledged as a cock up and attempts since made to undo the loss of thousands of officers.
Cameron was constantly trying to promote what he referred to as “The voluntary sector” during his tenure as PM, under the auspices of “The big society”.
Now we have COVID and public spending has increased exponentially during the last year. At some stage an attempt is going to be made to try to address the deficit and I have a feeling that future spending is going to be curbed, albeit with an eye to not strangling any economic recovery*
Unless there was a very strong business case for it or an urgent and demonstrable need, the creation of a civil emergency type corps is just not going to happen or even be on anybody’s radar.

* I hope any future chancellor doesn’t stymie the economy with some unachievable attempt to balance the books in a hopelessly unrealistic timescale.

 

[velcrostripes]

What was the thread about again? I thought that it was about the idea of receiving local volunteers to assist in the event of local emergencies, or local aspects of a national emergency, such as a major industrial fire or widespread criminality.

What on Earth has culture got to do with it? What matters is shared values and shared interests.

Hear, hear . A lot of Sikhs and a few Bengalis have been quietly running free communal kitchens in their neighbourhoods for all and sundry since March last year .
You don't have to be white and ethnically British to be public spirited

 

[Turret_Monster]

Hear, hear . A lot of Sikhs and a few Bengalis have been quietly running free communal kitchens in their neighbourhoods for all and sundry since March last year .
You don't have to be white and ethnically British to be public spirited

Some of them have been doing it since long before Covid came along.

 

[Dashing_Chap]

Part of the Sikh belief is to provide free food to anyone who attends their temples.

The Christians could learn a thing or two from that.

Langar (Sikhism) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[adouglasmhor]

That's not what " monoculture" means in this context, it means all the historic invasions were from similar European cultures which integrated to form Britain as the united kingdom, it obviously does mean we all should be Picts or Celts, that is the childish argument used to justify mass immigration.

Picts were Celts, from the same Branch as Brythons.

 

[adouglasmhor]

Part of the Sikh belief is to provide free food to anyone who attends their temples.

The Christians could learn a thing or two from that.

Langar (Sikhism) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

The big Gudwara in Glasgow used to send meals to all the customers and helpers at the homeless shelter I volunteered for. It was top scran.

 

[Gravelbelly]

But of course misses a rather fundamental point that we the English are encouraged to refer to ourselves as British and to the contrary describing yourself as English is equated to being a nationalistic racist - little Englander etc usually by the same people who revel in Scotland wales NI having their own national identity.

The encouragement hasn't been that successful. Try singing "Jerusalem" (19th Century, see below), or ask yourself what Nelson's message was at Trafalgar (19th Century)?

Perhaps there would be less irritation on the subject if you were encouraged to identify as British (albeit recognising its from a Scottish bit of Britain)

Been there, done that - there was a 150-year period where referring to yourself as "Scottish" was a political statement verging on sedition. Hence the North British Railway (the North British Hotel on Princes' Street was only renamed in the mid-1990s), the Royal North British Dragoons, the Royal North British Fusiliers...

It all started after the Act of Union in 1707, and carried on into the late 19th Century. It certainly didn't prevent two vicious civil wars (while 1715 and 1745 are more Rangers/Celtic than Scotland/England, it doesn't stop your less thoughtful Nat from implying it as such) or the Highland Clearances. Unfortunately, the resulting whataboutery approaches Irish Nationalism in its fervour.

and perhaps more importantly We (the non nazi 99% of England) were allowed to identify with our heritage without being called Bigots (regardless of creed, colour etc.

Then perhaps more English should carry the St. George's Cross, and the FA should get serious about stamping out the travel of its morons. The SFA did something similar with the "Tartan Army", for which the turf at Wembley is eternally grateful

Remember Italia 90? England fans isolated on Sardinia, still managed to stone their own team's bus? Meanwhile, the Scotland supporters are partying hard with the Brazilian supporters, and determinedly "not being English"?

Like it or not, the ongoing PR image of "Englishmen identifying with their heritage" isn't a good one. Perhaps the FA should strongly disown the EDL.

 

[Mineral_Slayer]

This may be evidence of some of the long term thinking emerging from government about changes to national resilience required due to climate change. Some scientists are now arguing it is too late to prevent some of the worst outcomes. When you consider how much housing and infrastructure is located around the UK coastline - a bad storm season could easily overwhelm the various FRS, Coastguard and RNLI units designated as first responders to this type of event. If you then throw in a smaller army and global insecurity also predicted as an outcome of climate change, then having a trained pool of low cost manpower for home duties makes a lot of sense.

A previous poster mentioned the Australian experience. I am en ex-member of the State Emergency Service (SES) in Australia and am a Coastguard volunteer in the UK. I do believe the UK could do with an overhaul on how civil defence is managed and some centralisation would not hurt. In Australia the SES are the one organisation everywhere, with individual unit capabilities determined by what they are likely to encounter on their patch ( ie cliff rescue, storm damage, cyclones, etc). In the Uk, you have separate organisations providing similar capabilities but with a lot of diversity - eg coastguard, mountain rescue , lowland rescue, etc. All of these organisations have their own admin and training teams, and I sometimes think centralisation could make the whole thing more efficient and enable deployability across the country due to standardised training / comms / etc.

 

[br9mp812]

This may be evidence of some of the long term thinking emerging from government about changes to national resilience required due to climate change. Some scientists are now arguing it is too late to prevent some of the worst outcomes. When you consider how much housing and infrastructure is located around the UK coastline - a bad storm season could easily overwhelm the various FRS, Coastguard and RNLI units designated as first responders to this type of event. If you then throw in a smaller army and global insecurity also predicted as an outcome of climate change, then having a trained pool of low cost manpower for home duties makes a lot of sense.

A previous poster mentioned the Australian experience. I am en ex-member of the State Emergency Service (SES) in Australia and am a Coastguard volunteer in the UK. I do believe the UK could do with an overhaul on how civil defence is managed and some centralisation would not hurt. In Australia the SES are the one organisation everywhere, with individual unit capabilities determined by what they are likely to encounter on their patch ( ie cliff rescue, storm damage, cyclones, etc). In the Uk, you have separate organisations providing similar capabilities but with a lot of diversity - eg coastguard, mountain rescue , lowland rescue, etc. All of these organisations have their own admin and training teams, and I sometimes think centralisation could make the whole thing more efficient and enable deployability across the country due to standardised training / comms / etc.

The stock answer is a battilion of troops and the rafs duty chinnok, remeber the floods a bit back with troops seen wearing life jackets made of kapok circ1940

 

[Bob65]

When you consider how much housing and infrastructure is located around the UK coastline - a bad storm season could easily overwhelm the various FRS, Coastguard and RNLI units designated as first responders to this type of event

Generally the coast tends to be fine, because the infrastructure there is built for it, or affected only in relatively localised ways. What we've really seen in recent years is flooding of houses and even towns built on flood plains... The clue in the name having completely gone over the heads of the planning departments and property developers and homeowners. There's the RNLI and the Coastguard as you say but there's no organisation of volunteers that can respond in a coordinated way to flood plain flooding. Maybe a nation-wide force of Boris Brigade (or whatever they end up being called) could include this within its remit.

 

[alfred_the_great]

This may be evidence of some of the long term thinking emerging from government about changes to national resilience required due to climate change. Some scientists are now arguing it is too late to prevent some of the worst outcomes. When you consider how much housing and infrastructure is located around the UK coastline - a bad storm season could easily overwhelm the various FRS, Coastguard and RNLI units designated as first responders to this type of event. If you then throw in a smaller army and global insecurity also predicted as an outcome of climate change, then having a trained pool of low cost manpower for home duties makes a lot of sense.

A previous poster mentioned the Australian experience. I am en ex-member of the State Emergency Service (SES) in Australia and am a Coastguard volunteer in the UK. I do believe the UK could do with an overhaul on how civil defence is managed and some centralisation would not hurt. In Australia the SES are the one organisation everywhere, with individual unit capabilities determined by what they are likely to encounter on their patch ( ie cliff rescue, storm damage, cyclones, etc). In the Uk, you have separate organisations providing similar capabilities but with a lot of diversity - eg coastguard, mountain rescue , lowland rescue, etc. All of these organisations have their own admin and training teams, and I sometimes think centralisation could make the whole thing more efficient and enable deployability across the country due to standardised training / comms / etc.

Did you see what happened when the central HQ of the RNLI tried to remove a cox’n? Complete uproar, as if the jackboot of the state was trying to crush the plucky local volunteers.

Good luck trying to organise various weasels in a sack...

 

[Lindermyer]

The encouragement hasn't been that successful. Try singing "Jerusalem" (19th Century, see below), or ask yourself what Nelson's message was at Trafalgar (19th Century)?



Been there, done that - there was a 150-year period where referring to yourself as "Scottish" was a political statement verging on sedition. Hence the North British Railway (the North British Hotel on Princes' Street was only renamed in the mid-1990s), the Royal North British Dragoons, the Royal North British Fusiliers...

It all started after the Act of Union in 1707, and carried on into the late 19th Century. It certainly didn't prevent two vicious civil wars (while 1715 and 1745 are more Rangers/Celtic than Scotland/England, it doesn't stop your less thoughtful Nat from implying it as such) or the Highland Clearances. Unfortunately, the resulting whataboutery approaches Irish Nationalism in its fervour.



Then perhaps more English should carry the St. George's Cross, and the FA should get serious about stamping out the travel of its morons. The SFA did something similar with the "Tartan Army", for which the turf at Wembley is eternally grateful

Remember Italia 90? England fans isolated on Sardinia, still managed to stone their own team's bus? Meanwhile, the Scotland supporters are partying hard with the Brazilian supporters, and determinedly "not being English"?

Like it or not, the ongoing PR image of "Englishmen identifying with their heritage" isn't a good one. Perhaps the FA should strongly disown the EDL.

I dont disagree with any of that - in fact regarding the last few im fully on board we have allowed the media and the left wing to bully us away from our national flag and thus hand it to the xrw and other fuckwits.

My point stands though that British is supposed to encompass us all - Foreignors conflating English with British - isnt the fault of the English . Perhaps if we all identified as British the descriptor would take root.

Failing that if we dont like the British descriptor then we all need to challenge media and political rhetoric about racist little Englanders - because British wont go away until English is an identity Westminster the media and the SNP accept


Edit regarding the EDL - the only people that present them as anything other than a broken brained minority (asides from equally broken brained xrw - is the media, Labour and leftwing activists and thats because presenting it as a mainstream opinion enables the systemic racism narritive


*as for Nelson England expects was probably a fair one as the Scots and Irish given political considerations of the day probably didnt care either way on that one

 

[BuggerAll]

As it was coined by one HSF member:
"We are young enough to fight but a bit too old to run away."

Private Sir Edward Des Voeux HKVDC was killed on 19 Dec 1941 in the Battle of Hong Kong. Sir Edward was 77. He was part of the Hughs Group roughly analogous to the Home Guard. The Hughseliers were deployed to guard the Hongkong Electric Company power station at North Point. The Japanese attacked. It is reported that Sir Edward decided to stay in place and continue to kill Japanese when the rest of the group withdrew because he was too old for all that dashing around.

He may well have been the oldest member of Commonwealth Forces to have died in action in uniform in close combat with the enemy.

The experience of the Hughs Group also suggests that the Home guard would have performed well had they been called upon to do so.

 

[Yokel]

Did you see what happened when the central HQ of the RNLI tried to remove a cox’n? Complete uproar, as if the jackboot of the state was trying to crush the plucky local volunteers.

Good luck trying to organise various weasels in a sack...

Is that just hunan nature or does it reflect the grass roots approach to things? Many charities and the like do operate at a national level, so it should not be to much of an ask to get local volunteer groups to operate to national standards.

I dont disagree with any of that - in fact regarding the last few im fully on board we have allowed the media and the left wing to bully us away from our national flag and thus hand it to the xrw and other fuckwits.

My point stands though that British is supposed to encompass us all - Foreignors conflating English with British - isnt the fault of the English . Perhaps if we all identified as British the descriptor would take root.

Failing that if we dont like the British descriptor then we all need to challenge media and political rhetoric about racist little Englanders - because British wont go away until English is an identity Westminster the media and the SNP accept


Edit regarding the EDL - the only people that present them as anything other than a broken brained minority (asides from equally broken brained xrw - is the media, Labour and leftwing activists and thats because presenting it as a mainstream opinion enables the systemic racism narritive


*as for Nelson England expects was probably a fair one as the Scots and Irish given political considerations of the day probably didnt care either way on that one

A third of the men in Nelson's fleet were Scots.

 

[Lindermyer]

A third of the men in Nelson's fleet were Scots.

Wasnt arguing about the scottish (or other ) contribution to the fleet - but a tongue in cheek comment referring to the political reallity of the day.

asides from which wasnt "England expects" used simply because it was quicker

 

[gaijin]

A third of the men in Nelson's fleet were Scots.

The English government has been giving them jobs and handouts for over 200 years and still they moan.

 

[Countryboy]

About 14 years ago I visited the Diefenbunker in Canada, near Carp, Ontario. I always felt that the three unluckiest people on the camp in the event of the Cold War going hot would have been the three sentries at the surface-level guard post. Basically that had to close the gates and ensure that the blast doors were closed after the PM had exited his helicopter and made his way inside (there was also a surface-level hanger for a CF medium-lift helo).

CFS Carp - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

What were they expected to do afterwards?

 

[gaijin]

What were they expected to do afterwards?

Just drift in the wind as radioactive ashes

 

[History_Man]

What were they expected to do afterwards?

Stick their heads between their legs and kiss their arrses goodbye!

In all seriousness, their was a surface-level hanger for the helo and a guard shack - neither of them were reinforced in any way. I've always wondered if the helicopter would have flown away to another location, but it might well have been that the crew would not be able to get away in time and so were resigned to their fate. Of course, the Soviets might well have missed, but the inaccuracy of their ICBMs was compensated for by the size of their warheads...