AIBU to think if the government want to leak absurd ideas to test them, then we should give our opinions...

[SomeOldFogey]

On the idea that volunteers could guard some UK borders. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42527750

I had to check that it wasn't April 1st. Or is there a new tradition of stupidities for New Years Eve? There are just so many things wrong with this idea - starting with the more minor issue of the continued destruction of the paid economy with no alternative in place, leading to the concomitant rise in inequality and hardship for the poorest, and heading to the small question of who is going to volunteer for what purpose. The ultimate duty of a state is to protect its people, at its borders. If we have to rely on volunteers for that now, we might as well just start waving a white flag.

Or am I missing something?

Is it only me who worries about such things on NYE?

Not just you. And who do they think will give up their free time to 'maintain our borders'? It'll be thugs with chips on their shoulders, brilliant.

Or people forced into what was once a stable, paid job for their benefit entitlements presumably?

... and what are these unpaid volunteers doing to do when a boat full of armed drug smugglers, people smugglers or terrorists turns up?

Nice to see that May's Brexit on the cheap is taking border security so seriously

Well, there's been a lot of talk about a "citizens income" paid to everyone, to compensate for the huge loss of jobs being predicted. They're presumably getting ready for it - everything that we used to expect the State to pay for, because it was a natural part of living in a safe and civilised society, will in future be carried out by "volunteers" on the "citizens' income".

Or, more likely, it will become a condition of benefits - show you are "preparing for work" by 37 hours a week of "voluntary work" that one of your fellow "voluntary workers" was made redundant from 12 months ago.

meredint, gosh you have a lot of faith. I can't quite find it in me to presume that the British government will do anything of the sort: the only thing they've (whatever colour tie) been interested in doing for 50 years is making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Finland and the Netherlands were said to be experimenting with citizens income.

Rest, yes that was my thought. I wonder if some of these volunteers will have names like 'Hengist' or 'Horsa'.

I thought it must be a piss take when I first heard about it. Really, allow a bunch of foreign people hating daily mail reading volunteers to police our borders? That'll go well.

Here's a novel idea, pay for qualified and experienced staff to do the bloody job.

If there is work to be done, what's wrong with creating proper jobs, Prime Minster, and paying people to do them?

YNBU to worry about this, no matter what day it is. OP. I must admit to be being gobsmacked when I heard the proposal.