To wonder why people aren’t worried about this??

[Mummytotwonow]

https://news.sky.com/story/time-to-think-the-unthinkable-and-consider-uk-conscription-says-britains-former-top-nato-commander-13056148

Sorry if I’ve missed any threads on this.

It’s not just sky news reporting this but for days now in the media this is being raised.

AIBU - to be extremely worried and concerned about this?

Is anyone else not worried?? Are we being prepared ready as “the higher up” know more and the threat is bigger than we’re told.

what age would it be from and to??

l‘m so scared for the world our children are growing up in 😢

It’s shameful isn’t it?

It is. What does a person get out of shilling for an authoritarian regime and spreading such blatant, cynical misinformation? I wonder if its a school project or somethin ( I mean they are not very intelligent or sophisticated!) - to show how easy it is to disrupt an online conversation? I guess none of us are buying it, which is something.

What is shameful is the amount of scaremongering rubbish in the press.

I have just reported a multiple poster who is really whipping up fear

Love this!
crashing back down to reality here 🤣🤣

There seems to be some misunderstanding here. I'm certainly not "shilling" for anyone. I think Putin is a vile piece of work, Russia's implementation of democracy a farce, the invasion of Ukraine completely unjustified and the western powers correct in opposing it. I hope that helps clarify things.

There are two different issues being conflated here: what political and electoral system a country has, in theory and on paper, and how transparently the processes of that system are followed to honestly deliver what it claims to deliver.

Russia is a multi-party representative democracy. That is just a fact. They hold elections and people vote for a choice of different candidates from different parties. Are the processes surrounding this fair, transparent and honourable enough for it to deliver what democracy is supposed to deliver? Hell no. (Although it must be remembered that Putin appears to be very popular within Russia. Sometimes democracy actually destroys itself - as it looks like it may also soon do in the USA.)

The UK is also a multi-party representative democracy. We hold elections and people vote for a choice of diffeent candidates from different parties. Are the processes surrounding this fair, transparent and honourable enough for it to deliver what democracy is supposed to deliver? Hell no.

OK, for the avoidance of doubt: Russia is worse. It's further down the road of authoritarianism than we are. And the British have always been peculiarly good at dressing up the exercise of raw power in civilised enough garb to make it look like something else. But this honestly just looks like a matter of degree to me, and not a large enough one to inspire me to go and fight to defend "British values" as though they're something different in kind and thereby sacred.

In Russian, the same effect is achieved by using a different preposition (referring to Ukraine as a territory and not a country). "The Ukraine" stems from exactly the same ideology, and roughly from the same time.
Having said that, I can't be really bothered much about anglophones using "the" or not, if otherwise they express a pro-Ukrainian sentiment, as it is an obscure technicality. It has always been a litmus test for Russians though.

LBC are asking people to phone in and say whether they would comply with the conscription…

More scaremongering in the right wing media. The Telegraph is full of it in the last few days.

There is something very odd about people saying they'd just as soon be governed by Russia, because they can't stand the idea of the UK having conscription.

Gosh, this is silly. Of course Putin uses the veneer of democratic legitimacy to prop up his regime. Its absolutely essential to the way he holds onto power and controls dissent. But it is not 'worse' on a spectrum of more or less democracy that you can put alongside the UK. Here is just one example of a prisoner of conscience in Russia Russia: Fears of prisoner of conscience Aleksei Navalny forcibly disappeared - Amnesty International This just does not happen in the UK, even though we have and always have had miscarriages of justice. All democracies are imperfect, all governments try to overstep the mark in some way to achieve their ends, all citizens have to be alert to it, and democracy is not fixed - it is debated and reframed by every generation. I don't recall anyone talking about 'sacred' values. I certainly didn't mention it. I do think liberal democracies have values that are worth arguing about, holding onto, living and fighting for. They are contested every day, and that's the point. Just ask any of the refugees that risk their lives every day to come her. Just ask any of the Holocaust survivors and their descendants.

Perturbed that most of this thread assumes conscription would be directed at males. Lets bring up 'strong' women and promote equality for women and transsexuals? Only when it suits us it seems....

Well, it would be nice if you were bothered as the Ukrainian people have specifically expressed their preference for this.

Well, I am also "Ukrainian people", we are allowed to have different opinions on the topic, kinda spoiled by the democracy and stuff. There is indeed a preference, but it is not a hill anyone would die on - what people say in this case is much more important than how they say it.

Fair enough 🙂 it just seems to me to be an important way that non-Ukrainians can make the distinction. You will have seen earlier on in this post that not everyone grasps this.

@zendeveloper thanks for taking time to explain and for the nudge to do some research on the topic. I understand the issue is actually with in/on particles. In Ukraine «В Украине» sounds grammatically incorrect to me however I can now see how much to unpack here.

What conscription?

What about the daughters? Shouldn’t they be called up as well?

Gosh, this is silly. Of course Putin uses the veneer of democratic legitimacy to prop up his regime. Its absolutely essential to the way he holds onto power and controls dissent. But it is not 'worse' on a spectrum of more or less democracy that you can put alongside the UK. Here is just one example of a prisoner of conscience in Russia. This just does not happen in the UK, even though we have and always have had miscarriages of justice.

True (as far as I know). On the other hand, Russia has a mixed electoral system including party list candidates elected by proportional representation, so fewer people whose votes will never count for anything by virtue of where they live. And an elected upper house, unlike our antidemocratic relic of feudal privilege.

So it depends what you're looking for. As with so many aspects of culture and politics, it's easy to overlook the massive democratic deficits in our own country because we've grown up used to them.

I do hope that one day you meet a dissident Russian. They'll put you straight.

The big story that this conscription "dead cat" panicfest is distracting us all from is the latest Horizon leaks.

The Post Office decided to secretly sack the forensic accountants who found the Horizon bugs as part of the cover-up.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68079300

And the Coalition Govt of David Cameron knew.

Yes of course they’ve been on the front line in a combatant role for quite some time now.

We only have 'equal rights' on paper. We've come along way but not far enough. We're still the overwhelming majority of main carers to the disabled, be that our children, relatives, paid care of parents. We usually do the bulk of the slog when it comes to raising DC

I am not necessarily speaking for myself but as a whole. Who are all these men taking our place to care and raise children? Didn't think so

^Who are all these men taking our place to care and raise children?

Who are all these men taking our place to gestate and birth children? Oh wait, they can't.

No government in its right mind sends the uterus bearers off to war en masse. That trumps any notion of sex equality when conscripting soldiers.