[Rob P]

Cambridge University Students’ Union has said that having military personnel at freshers’ fair is “alarming” for attendees and could “detrimentally affect” their mental health.

Students voted to ban any societies from bringing firearms along to the fair after Stella Swain, the welfare and rights officer, argued that some people may find them “triggering”.

The motion said that the presence of firearms and military personnel at the fair shows “implicit approval of their use, despite the links between military and firearms and violence on an international scale”.

Ms Swain, who proposed the motion, pointed out that CUSU had previously committed to supporting efforts to “demilitarise” the university, and that freshers’ fair should not be a place for “military organisations to recruit”.

“The presence of firearms and military personnel at freshers’ fair is alarming and off-putting for some students, and has the potential to detrimentally affect students’ mental welfare,” the motion said.

What of the University Air Squadron I wonder?

Rob P

[Dave W]

...Stella Swain, the welfare and rights officer, argued that some people may find them “triggering”.

If only she had the wit to have been being witty.

[OCB]

Oscar foxtrot foxtrot sierra...

It’s not exactly a new phenomenon though. I clearly remember nearly 30 years ago being nearly physically assaulted by some (well meaning) tree hugger Uni Society - who were handing out paper flyers about deforestation at the Freshers Fayre.

I just happened to mention that their flyers were part of the problem, not part of the solution....apparently “pointing out the obvious” to over-motivated eco-warriors has never been a risk free exercise....obviously similar phenomena with “snowflakerist” community...

[Charles Hunt]

I suppose it would be futile to ask Ms (?) Swain how she thinks she comes to have the freedom to spout such drivel.

[TheFarmer]

Who’s going to stop these kinds of time wasting snowflakes? This kind of thing is getting exponentially worse, year after year.

[kanga]

..

What of the University Air Squadron I wonder?

Rob P

That's OK. AFAIK, the UAS Chippies, Bulldogs, Tutors, Prefects have never been armed

[romille]

Who’s going to stop these kinds of time wasting snowflakes? This kind of thing is getting exponentially worse, year after year.

No one is going to stop them, they are encouraged to come up with all this rubbish. A great many of today's teenagers are so soft and mentally weak, I just don't know how they are going to get through life's ups and downs.

[nallen]

At my freshers' fair someone had imaginatively put the hunt saboteurs' stall next to the stall of the university beagle pack (complete with beagles). Dark looks were exchanged (between the people, not the beagles), but no triggering was reported.

[johnm]

As i keep saying we pay a high price for political correctness, which is quite different from both pacifism and tolerance.

[Dusty_B]

I’m not sure that taking firearms (DP or otherwise) on to site is necessary for (I can only assume) OTC recruitment. They can be alarming for the meek. There are much more effective recruitment resources available to engage and inspire the freshers.
Always worth pointing out that the original aim of the UAS was not to be a recruitment tool, but to ensure that future politicians and business leaders were “air minded” ...Which is why they only started with units at Oxford and Cambridge!
Modern bean counters (and tabloid media) will only count the worth of such organisations based on their objective productivity (ie, throughput into the officer training system), when actually the experience and exposure an individual has during their time on the unit will stay with them and influence their approach to the military for the rest of their lives.

[riverrock]

"No Platforming" is now a pretty popular ploy by certain groups - blocking those who hold different views than them from communicating at all. Various groups are finding that they are being banned from places which they have been going to / using for many years, when access only being re-instated after considerable and public campaigning effort.

I wonder if we need to bring in a formal "right to free speech" in this country.

[Cowshed]

Despite my love of all things aviation I joined the University Royal Naval Unit (URNU). Loved it (including being/feeling sea sick whenever doing prolonged navigation). It was a right old mix of characters with only a few destined for careers in the RN, but it bought a huge amount of good will to the service. As I say it was a good mix, and I think we even had some borderline pacifists in the unit (we weren’t that militaristic). I got a lot of satisfaction doing things most students didn’t do, such as the pilotage when taking a training ship we often used (the ‘Northella’) out of Portsmouth Harbour on a Friday evening when other ‘normal’ students were in the pub (we, however, caught up on Saturday night on a run ashore somewhere). I have very fond memories of my time doing this and I even got paid!

[Sooty25]

We just have to hope none of them are studying politics and end up in a position where they have to make a decision regarding the deployment of forces.

[OCB]

@Dusty_B
A fair few years back (as in end of Maggie T as Pm) , I was at a national student/industry conference ran by HR reps of (at the time) the Big Six accountancy firms.

We got broken up into teams. Plenty of highly self-important, clearly “real privileged” kids destined to work in the City - as in maman and daddins had landed gentry estates all over the place etc, the sprogs were at Colleges that scumbag kids like me hadn’t even heard of.

One scenario was, we were dealt cards to say what profession we had to role-play, then it was “elimination game”. Folks got voted out the game based on how “useful”
they were perceived to the survival of the group, after some mid Pacific plane crash and rowing towards land in sinking life rafts thing.

Pretty much universally, the Pastor, the doctor, the farmer got to live - and universally the “soldier” got chucked off the life raft.

At the end, there was always the group “self assessment”. I always ripped into them, asking why they chucked the soldier overboard.

They all claimed there was no need for military (the assumption constantly being that “military” were the ones that started wars)

When I pointed out that the average soldier was the only professional who would be (out the lot of stereotypes) trained and current in survival techniques, and that the likes of military engineers or field medics were the ones most likely to have the skills and experience to keep people alive - the amount of back-pedalling would have been enough to have the Titanic turn on a ha’penny.

So yeah, +1 for the various branches of teen/student Services streams - and knowing fine well very few of those passing through them actually result in “recruits”

[Flyin'Dutch']

Maybe they have survival skills which are useful after a crash on an uninhabited island, sadly the survival skills in civvy street are not well honed.

That, and the abandonment by the state after leaving the services is causing lots of ex-service personal a life of misery or worse, after having served.

As a society we are proud of our services until it costs money and effort.