The Guardian and others are full of images like these:
and comments from the likes of ex-Army Tory MP Tobias Ellwood:
Sky News then reports:
British citizens should be “trained and equipped” to fight in a potential war with Russia – as Moscow plans on “defeating our system and way of life”, the head of the British Army has said.
General Sir Patrick Sanders, the outgoing Chief of the General Staff (CGS), said increasing army numbers in preparation for a potential conflict would need to be a “whole-of-nation undertaking”.
The comments, first reported by the Daily Telegraph, are being read as a warning that British men and women should be ready for a call-up to the armed forces if NATO goes to war with Vladimir Putin.
This is just daft. Maybe it’s an attempt to save the Tories with a Falklands 2 moment? Will they try to start something in the hope it saves them?
However, with the greatest respect to them, squaddies with guns, tanks or jet aircraft will be FA use against the Russians or the Chinese.
See this from Vlad Putin in a report from the Council on Geostrategy yesterday:
We started to develop new types of strategic arms that do not use ballistic trajectories at all when moving toward a target and, therefore, missile defence systems are useless against them, absolutely pointless…we will make the necessary efforts to neutralise the threats posed by the deployment of the US global missile defence system.
and:
Consequently, ensuring that British military facilities and forces are sufficiently covered by radar and missile defence systems capable of detecting, tracking, and intercepting hypersonic weapons is becoming a concern. To meet the future threat and generate strategic advantage, HM Government should accelerate its exploration of both hypersonic and counter-hypersonic systems and multiply the effort through deeper collaboration with similarly interested allies and partners.
The hypersonic threat to the United Kingdom – Council on Geostrategy
An attack on the UK will not be anything like WWII, or Vietnam, not even like Ukraine. It will be high-tech, cyber and supersonic. We won’t need boots on the ground or in cockpits so much as bums on ergonomic seats and young thumbs on the ready.
Finally, look at the history of these two huge countries – they don’t so much invade as get invaded. Other than in their, essentially defensive claims for buffer zones like Ukraine or Taiwan, they are not likely to attack the UK or the USA, unless pushed into it.
Talking-up Scotland 
Yes as with any failing Government the prospect of a foreign conflict is sounds very appealing indeed to deflect the masses from their awful domestic track record. I would not be surprised to learn of plans that all those nasty immigrants should be conscripted… problems solved. Yes that is the Tory mindset with God or our side we cannot fail … to be obliterated.
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To be fair a Russian invasion of Scotland and the British reaction would literally be like watching two cheeks of the same arsehole shitting on you. From our point of view i suppose the best idea is to do a deal with the Russians, get the British out of Scotland then deal with the Russians.
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AND ALL ENGLISH WHO LOVE THEIR TORY COUNTRY
SHOULD BE CONSCRIPTED
THEY LOVE THEIR COUNTRY POLITICIANS SO THEY SHOULD DEFEND THEM
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When they want’it cannon fodder, they used tae shut doon a factory, pit or shipyaird, kennin’ when the recruiters went roon the skills, the weans wid sign oan quick.
Changed days and the “generals” in the watering holes at Westminster are panicking.
Hauls the bus—-whit about all the boat people? Quick get them signed up, with a wee pretendy “citizenship offer”.
“Another double Guiseppi, n’ be quick about it”.
Giorgio Ffoulksakia, the absentee Laird O’ Colony Scotia!
Auld Pishy Pants.
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“Hauls” should read haud. Gavinochiltree
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This is a perennial ploy by the ‘military-industrial complex’ as Eisenhower warned in his valedictory speech and if anyone knew what he was talking about, it was he.
The Cold War was such a ploy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were.
I was certain the Tories would resurrect the Cold War to kindle a xenophobic jingoism as the government crumbles and disenchantment with their corruption and incompetence grows.
This can have two effects – 1. It can bring back potential defecting voters to the Tories and 2. Since Labour will feel it has to be equally patriotic then a chunk of potential Labour voters (in England) will feel they have no viable choice and will abstain. Since people in poverty rarely vote, increasing poverty increases abstentions.
Because of the nonsensical FPTP voting this can have a significant effect in Tories retaining marginal seats. So, a hung Parliament becomes a possibility and we have the appalling sight of both Tories and Labour grovelling for DUP support.
Alasdair Macdonald
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Elwood isn’t ExMillitary.
He is very much part of the Neoconservative Atlanticist Security Apparatus!
In September 2018, Ellwood announced that he had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel as a reservist in the 77th Brigade, based at Denison Barracks, Hermitage, Berkshire, a psychological operations unit responsible for ‘non-lethal’ warfare which disseminates government-friendly podcasts and videos.
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It is notable when the deeply unpleasant Old Carthusian (former pupil of Charterhouse School, like Jeremy Hunt) interviews Mr Elwood she always, says, with a sweet smile ‘Hello, Tobias’ and the proceeds to feed him lines and not challenges y of his assertions.
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Your union needs you!
It’ll be good to see how many remain “staunch”.
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Rhetoric I would say.
When so many within this still sceptered isle want to defeat the system and bring about meaning change, I very much doubt they will train and arm the citizenry.
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I think you make a good point. Disarming the army after a victorious conflict was always a priority of governments. They do not want to have militarily experienced service people from the hoi polloi having access to weapons, which if there was social discontent could lead to a defeat of the public school boys and their paid mercenaries, by a citizens’ army.
So, it is unlikely that those who run the Money Laundry of the City of London will train the general public in the way the general is proposing. Nevertheless the general is playing his part in sowing fear and insecurity, because, over the years it has been a way of getting a fair number of turkeys to vote for Christmas.
While there are still turkeys, I am not sure if 40 years of increasingly repressive neoliberal economic policies will evoke the king of jingoism shown IN ENGLAND by so many when the Falklands War was started. I think that the enthusiasm derived partly from the bad tempered football World Cup match 16 years earlier between England and Argentina at Wembley, where a referee, again, ensured that England went on to win the World Cup.
Alasdair Macdonald.
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Yes Alasdair, excactly that. Another dead cat thrown up for the distraction they desperately need, expect more distractions.
I would say the mood in many parts of the country is just as bad as the mood post “Great” War. They were soiling their pants then.
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The Tories will be gone in a few months. Away to other pastures. Leave them to it. Complete and utter nonsense.
Independence will stops wars.
Trump will stop wars.
A few more months of this hell hole to go. The Tories keep digging. Last requiem before defeat. Desperation setting in.
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And LabourStarmer will continue the same bollocks!!!
I would suspect that ToryLabourKeir will try to conscript Scottish kids first,
just like the PollTax, after all we have always been expendable.
Labour branch office have a few in the ranks of the 77th Brigade…Kate Watson for one!!!
Scotland can’t trust Labour, remember they work with the tories whenever it comes sucking our rich country dry!!!
Vote SNP the biggest party in Scotland and show them we won’t take their damn lies anymore.
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With at least 50% of Scotland’s population in favour of independence I cannot see ukg arming and training us. Even risky for their precious union than the red menace.
Stewart McMutrie
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It’s farcical……and puts into perspective the madness of nuclear weapons which are promoted as keeping strategic stability and ……preventing large scale wars……
I assume that General Sanders knows that his current Tory UK government has cut armed forces and thus expecting our young people to ‘take up the slack’ for what he states is needed as in his stating “increasing army numbers in preparation for a potential conflict would need to be a “whole-of-nation undertaking”….is a tad shameful and disingenuous of him…….’Oh what a lovely war’ indeed…….
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MPs children up first up front before anyone else and no going straight into officers core. Infantry.
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He is right about one thing though. There definitely is a 1939 feeling around, as “authoritarian” governments become more so.
Unfortunately, he completely lacks the self-awareness necessary to see that ukgov is, increasingly, amongst their number.
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Not discussed is how is the broke UK going to pay for fighting Russia, and who will be declared the enemy once a competent soldier calculates the odds of beating them? Remember Orwell in ‘Animal Farm’ when the puppies were taken from their mothers and brought back as ferocious hounds to maintain order and suppress dissent on the farm? Who are the real targets?
Once they have enough well drilled sojers they have a compliant population ready to be conscripted to make them money. To replace the workers no longer coming to pick fruit, run care homes, sweep streets. Think back to various no-longer-fringe elements of the Tory party and building camps. Silenced at the time maybe because the time was not yet ripe.
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