This country is a complete joke.

Army 2020 is beyond a joke. Absolute balls up of a restructuring, expecting the territorials, sorry the now re-branded 'Army Reserve', to make up the gap in manpower. Reserves are great, but they are exactly that, reserves. Better to have full time soldiers, who are constantly training to ensure our strategic capability. Can't expect people to actually join, especially when the government have failed to bring in any proper legislation protecting the employment rights of reserve soldiers. Glad it is biting the government back, what they deserve for laying off so many soldiers. Civil servants are the only thing keeping this country running, now the government want them to keep the Army going? Hah.

I don't think you're really getting the right end of the stick.

It's more of a "lead by example" type thing i.e. not expecting the private sector to bear the burden of reservists, and also to lead by example in terms of demonstrating how to accomodate reservists at work.

Civil servants though.... Come on... Is a civil servant really going to be an effective infanteer? Realistically? No.

Lead by example? That's why we have officers, who have been trained for a year at Sandhurst. Not some mong from Westminster.

Reservists should not be leading regulars anywhere.

Civil servants though.... Come on... Is a civil servant really going to be an effective infanteer? Realistically? No.

Lead by example? That's why we have officers, who have been trained for a year at Sandhurst. Not some mong from Westminster.

Reservists should not be leading regulars anywhere. They are complimentary. If that.

No, no. You aren't getting it.

"Lead by example" in terms of the government (public sector) showing a good example by accomodating reservists and showing how it can be done.

Of course it's not going to be a case that the old Indian lady at HMRC is suddenely going to roll up tomorrow as OC of an infantry company. But it's equally wrong to assume that Civil Servants are for some reason incapable of being reservists. The point is that anyone so-minded should have the opportunity to do so. A reservist can be a teacher, a nursery nurse, a petrol pump attendant, a shop floor worker at a supermarket.

This will be us in 2020.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=gI6sARmxEuc

99% of the medical reservists are NHS. Civil servants. No less effective for it.

One of the guys who used to work with my Dad for English Heritage (a government body) was a TA driver/sniper and perfectly well trained and respected for it.

You can't simply lump civil servants into one category, there's half a million of them ffs, some of them are going to extremely capable, motivated and keen. Of course, not all are, that's inevitable but hell, you can very easily say the same about the people in the regulars.

What? A bunch of gay paedophiles?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/10938988/Civil-servants-to-fill-Army-reserves-gaps.html

Are you even serious?

Thousands of civil servants are to be encouraged to join the Army reserves to help the Government fill a gap in numbers caused by sacking thousands of full-time troops. What the actual ****.

Yes, because we all know how courageous, fearless and warrior like those civil servants are. True Spartans. What a joke.

I realise there will be tough nuts here and there, but it's basically like trying to find a needle in a hay stack. I really can't see Albert from the pensions department storming compound walls on the weekend. This is what I mean. Reservists are good (some are anyway) but they can not replace regulars. Certainly not reservists that are bloody civil servants!

Im sorry, but how does this warrant 'This country is a joke'?
People like you who complain about the UK should honestly be shipped off to live in another country for a few months and see what its like
THEN you will see real corruption, idiotic governments, crime, injustice and lack of opportunities.

THE IGNORANCE
IS REAL

The joke being 1/4 of our Armed Forces "should" become reservists, and 1/6 of the population of reservists should be civil servants. We are going to get laughed at.

The joke being 1/4 of our Armed Forces "should" become reservists, and 1/6 of the population of reservists should be civil servants. We are going to get laughed at.

THEN you will see real corruption, idiotic governments, crime, injustice and lack of opportunities.

No the Greeks on the right.

Hence why they're asking for 1%. Not 10, not 20.

1%. Of 450,000. That is a needle in a haystack.

And again, tired clichés of civil servants that you trot out are only one part of the story. Do you not think there could be some serious hard cases among the Prison Guard population to name but one? Do you not think that among many departments you'll find guys and girls who remember their OTC days fondly and want to get back into it? Your stereotype of a 50-something civil servant pen pusher is just one extreme and you're ignoring everyone else.

We all agree that the idea to scrap regulars on the off-chance of recruiting enough Reservists is a bad one, but by the same measure, pretending that there aren't people out there who are capable of doing this is idiotic.