Daily briefing - general in fatigues

[Westfacing]

Is this to add gravitas and weight?

I really don't see the need for his presence, other than to maybe bolster Raab and 'big things up'.

DHs army job- looking at spreadsheets in an office- is directly involved in the Covid effort. He doesn't have the right qualifications to drive a truck of supplies...

I think he was wearing camouflage because the Armed Forces are on an Operational Footing.
I thought he was pretty impressive, delivered his brief very well! Certainly no worse than any of the Ministers who have briefed, including Boris!

I always enjoyed it when dh was at sea. I got to spend all Sunday in the bath if I felt like it, didn't have to cook, and the house got blitzed a week before he came home from patrol.

I have to tell you that the spread sheets don't go away post retirement from the RN if he plans to carry on working for another organisation, or do an RO's job!

thegcatsmother - indeed! The plan is that he won’t be working as we have other means. I cannot imagine him working in some City office! He is “chronically disenchanted” with service life, I think that’s the phrase they use.

Ahhhh a few months of peace and quiet whilst he is at sea would be nice right now.

Only 300 army personnel have done something different to usual. They seemed to he making a massive song and dance about it, how difficult the logistics are etc - if the bloody military can't handle a crisis what is the point of them.

My son and friends are bored to tears. They are sitting around at home waiting for orders and have been throughout.
It was political blustering. More propaganda.

Shame the NHS couldn't deal with the logisics themselves really ACertainSupermarket. If the NHS can't handle a bloody pandemic without the help, what's the point of all those managers and procurement specialists employed by the NHS?

birdiefriend It wasn't the City dh went to post RN retirement - it was a large HQ in Brussels as a civvy (not the EU). Spreadsheets abound there as well.

I thought the brieifig today was odd. Raab and the head of the armed forces were just making speeches saying what a great job they were doing. The only useful bit was Chris Whitty.
I also thought it odd the soldier was wearing camouflage.

@ACertainSupermarket would love to know where your ill informed information is from. Maybe not a great idea to make up 'facts' if you are sure of what you're talking about.

Nonnymum - the MTP is what the army wear every day. And the Royal Marines. They might be working in an office on a base but it’s what they wear. Nothing unusual.

DH isn’t army and his MTP is stored in a cupboard somewhere as he doesn’t require it in his current role.

Kelpies my 'facts' are from today's daily briefing.

thegcatsmother maybe if the government had shared their pandemic study with the NHS they would have been able to prepare?

What he said was between 3 and 4 THOUSAND people.. you wrote 300

Kelpies my mistake, that's what I heard. Still, not that many, out of nearly 200,000 UK military?

You're about 50k out. And then minus roughly that again for Reservists who have civilian jobs and minus those on operations and then the huge number who like so much of the rest of the country have their same job to do either in work or remotely. All that was said was in layman terms that the military are helping and that they are there to help out further if and when they are required. Not really sure how you can take offence to that..

What does MTP stand for please?

Not odd- he’s the Chief of Staff for the British Army. Britain’s top Army Officer. Him wearing fatigues would be his normal working uniform. They are a uniformed service. The MOD are a government department, who are involved in the current crisis.

Multi-Terrain Pattern - MTP

Kelpies thanks for your corrections, so that's 4k out of 150k? That's still only 6%.

@ACertainSupermarket do you think the armed forces should "take over" the NHS? Or social care? What would you have them doing? What's wrong with 6%?

@JediJim he's the top officer. Chief of Defence Staff. The professional head of the armed forces. Not just the army.

The military's job is to protect the homeland. Surely this is the greatest threat faced for some many years? I don't know what needs doing, I just work in a supermarket.

But whatever it is, they certainly should be pulling out all the stops. Drinking all ambulances, for example, so the paramedics are freed up. Organising deliveries of fabric to UK factories that have offered to make scrubs, instead of couriering from Turkey. I have no idea if they are or not. It just seemed to be a bit of a weird performance. And if 94% of the military are not doing anything towards the pandemic, I wonder what the point of them is.

*driving, not drinking!

There are many military jobs that still need doing. Procurement, project management, training, analytics, personnel management, finance, aircraft maintenance, engineering, health and safety, recruitment, defence intelligence, logistics etc. Probably loads more jobs that need doing.

People outside the military don’t understand how it works. And that’s fine - I don’t understand how supermarket management works. You don’t “just” work in a supermarket ACertainSupermarket, you are currently a key worker!

Great idea. Let's bring all the troops home of NATO deployments so they can drive ambulances... A job they aren't qualified for.... The biggest vehicle most can drive is a transit van.

There are troops on standby for when they are needed. Others being trained for specific jobs.