Making the news today....

[eggsarascal]

28 minutes ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

So, it turns out the Major General (retired) Rupert Jones gained his notoriety for breaking lockdown rules to cheat on his wife so perhaps not quite the moral compass the country appears to need after all. 
 

Shame he didn’t inherit his father’s self less (arguably foolish) leadership which gained him the posthumous VC at Goose Green.  

I’ve got a lot of time for the military, and those who’ve served it, but a coup?

[Woodworks]

We just had a sort of attempted 'coup' from 55 Tufton street but looks like it failed.

 

Does the Conservative party now head back nearer the middle of politics shedding a few from the far right?  

Edited October 20, 2022 by Woodworks

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

1 hour ago, Woodworks said:

We just had a sort of attempted 'coup' from 55 Tufton street but looks like it failed.

 

Does the Conservative party now head back nearer the middle of politics shedding a few from the far right?  

Far right?  

 

What is that again….?

 

 

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

8 hours ago, eggsarascal said:

I’ve got a lot of time for the military, and those who’ve served it, but a coup?

Here’s the thing eggs, what would it take then….

 

Government in turmoil ✔️
 

Markets react ✔️
 

economic crash ✔️
 

Public sector pensions unpaid….. That was closer than you might realise…

 

Bank of England intervene against government policy ✔️
 

Utility bills off the charts ✔️
 

Food prices already at 10% inflation ✔️
 

You are only ever 3 days away from supply chain failure and empty shelves 

 

So when there’s no food, no heat, no light, no money and the civil unrest starts and there are millions of ex forces, coppers, firemen, nurses not getting the pensions they earned, who is going to maintain order??

 

3 years ago you’d have watched “contagion” and thought - that was a good movie, scary, never happen, I’m off t’pub. Bit different now though. 
 

The 3 days to civil unrest scenario has been part government planning for at least a decade, I’ll see what I can pull up from the files. 
 

if you think it is outlandish and impossible why do you think there has been a contingency plan for so long? Bigger brains than us see it as a distinct possibility. 
 

I’ve always thought the error in the plan is the expectation that HM forces will step into the public order vacuum to restore order. 
 

Think about it, it doesn’t necessarily have to be an active military coup - it could simply be the refusal to suppress a just uprising. 

Edited October 20, 2022 by kevinjohnsonmbe

[Stere]

 

Now  😂

 

[eggsarascal]

1 hour ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

Here’s the thing eggs, what would it take then….

 

Government in turmoil ✔️
 

Markets react ✔️
 

economic crash ✔️
 

Public sector pensions unpaid….. That was closer than you might realise…

 

Bank of England intervene against government policy ✔️
 

Utility bills off the charts ✔️
 

Food prices already at 10% inflation ✔️
 

You are only ever 3 days away from supply chain failure and empty shelves 

 

So when there’s no food, no heat, no light, no money and the civil unrest starts and there are millions of ex forces, coppers, firemen, nurses not getting the pensions they earned, who is going to maintain order??

 

3 years ago you’d have watched “contagion” and thought - that was a good movie, scary, never happen, I’m off t’pub. Bit different now though. 
 

The 3 days to civil unrest scenario has been part government planning for at least a decade, I’ll see what I can pull up from the files. 
 

if you think it is outlandish and impossible why do you think there has been a contingency plan for so long? Bigger brains than us see it as a distinct possibility. 
 

I’ve always thought the error in the plan is the expectation that HM forces will step into the public order vacuum to restore order. 
 

Think about it, it doesn’t necessarily have to be an active military coup - it could simply be the refusal to suppress a just uprising. 

It’s a good question, in our lifetime we’ve had mass strikes, riots in Brixton, Toxteth, Strangeways. At the time we also had mass unemployment, people handing the keys back to the banks because they couldn’t afford their mortgages, did we have a military coup, nah. I can’t see it Kev.

[GarethM]

Think Kev is mistaking the UK for one of those countries that have had democracy for all of five minutes.

 

They are the ones that riot, rebel and military coup, we have had a parliamentary system longer than any other.

 

The army are sworn to serve the monarch, which in effect is the government. Okay I've simplified it but military coup is a complete impossibility.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

22 minutes ago, eggsarascal said:

It’s a good question, in our lifetime we’ve had mass strikes, riots in Brixton, Toxteth, Strangeways. At the time we also had mass unemployment, people handing the keys back to the banks because they couldn’t afford their mortgages, did we have a military coup, nah. I can’t see it Kev.

I hear ya….

 

But your examples are of those days not these days. 
 

What I mean is, over relatively short periods of time, human behaviour has the potential to change immeasurably - exponentially. 
 

Example: just a 100 years ago, 880,000 (6% of the UK adult male population) willingly walked into the kill zones of German machine gunners on a sense of ‘duty.’
 

Technology, awareness, access to info (whether genuine or otherwise) all of these things have changed beyond recognition in a 100 years. The rate of technological change is accelerating beyond the ability of humans to quietly adapt. When it reaches a critical mass there will be a Big Bang -  ✈️ ↘️🏙

 

You say Strangeways, I say poll tax protests. 
 

You say Brixton, I say anti war marches. 
 

We’re on a curve mate, where it peaks or peters out who really knows but suddenly, apparently out of no where, (unlike the French) the Brits will take more than can be realistically imagined, then, all of a sudden, boom, the WI are slapping on camo cream. 

[GarethM]

Great, now I've got the mental image of the WI forming table and chair bake sale road blocks, smearing pastel coloured camo cream on their faces to blend into the concrete jungle!. Older ladies rocking in the corner screaming you've not seen what I've seen in a 1960s Vietnam vet style.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

3 minutes ago, GarethM said:

Think Kev is mistaking the UK for one of those countries that have had democracy for all of five minutes.

 

They are the ones that riot, rebel and military coup, we have had a parliamentary system longer than any other.

 

The army are sworn to serve the monarch, which in effect is the government. Okay I've simplified it but military coup is a complete impossibility.

Yes mate, you have over simplified it and you’ve massively over stated the relevance of a single human life span. 
 

Less than 400 years since the English civil war - ½? ⅓? of the life cycle of an Oak? Get a sense of perspective beyond a single human life span which is the default for so much human decision making but which is patently ludicrous. 
 

400 years - that is literally **************** all when measuring human history and behaviour and that’s BEFORE you add the technological changes into the equation.