New British Army recruits 'should be paid a £10,000 bonus' to help solve the forces' manpower problems and make UK 'war ready'
Britain should pay new recruits a one-off £10,000 bonus as a way of stopping the British Army haemorrhaging manpower, the Liberal Democrats have suggested.
Leader Ed Davey suggested the cash be paid out to new recruits who complete their training and serve for at least two years.
Additionally, re-joining bonuses for veterans should be increased to £20,000 to help retain talent, under a scheme that would cost the taxpayer up to £45million.
The British Army has struggled to recruit and retain soldiers for years, with the trained personnel strength hitting 70,752 in January this year.
Sir Ed, who last week visited British soldiers in Estonia, said the bonuses could be paid to help the force reach 73,000, the level desired in the Government's Strategic Defence Review earlier this week.
Sir Ed said that UK troops were doing 'incredible work' amid a growing threat from Russia.
But he added: 'It is clear that given the threat of a barbaric Putin and the challenge of an erratic Trump, we need to do more to make Britain war-ready.
'A new bonus scheme is needed to urgently attract new recruits, encourage experienced ex-soldiers back into the Armed Forces and reverse years of short-sighted troop cuts under the Conservatives.
'War readiness also starts at home. That's why I'm calling for a public awareness campaign aimed at every home in Britain – to make sure we're all prepared for the possibility of a conflict or hostile acts such as major cyber attacks.
'We need to also step up cooperation with our European friends, including through the Joint Expeditionary Force, to protect our interests in the Arctic and High North against Putin's imperialism.'
Ministers have acknowledged the British Army - and other UK forces - are struggling with numbers.
At the start of June Defence Secretary John Healey suggested it might be the 2030s before the 73,000 target was met.
Asked when the Army would reach the target he told the BBC: 'We've narrowed the gap, but we've still got more people leaving than joining.
'The first job is to reverse that trend and then I want to see in the next parliament our ability to start to increase the number.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
34 minutes ago
- BBC News
Diplomatic tightrope on Iran just got more precarious for Starmer
Sir Keir Starmer has been treading a delicate diplomatic tightrope all week on the issue of night's airstrikes by the US mean the challenges facing the prime minister could now continue for Keir's repeated calls for de-escalation have clearly not been heeded by the White he has avoided direct UK involvement in military action and has sought to maintain what British diplomats claim is a solid and valuable relationship with US president Donald Trump. The response from ministers appears to be it was not the means they wanted, but they supported the UK has not explicitly endorsed the method, but the result - a delay in Iran getting nuclear weapons - is, they argue, in the UK's national Keir's position has shifted since Tuesday, when he seemed confident Trump would not intervene, after sitting next to him at a G7 dinner in Canada."I was sitting right next to President Trump, so I've no doubt, in my mind, the level of agreement there was," he four days later the president intervened. Did the prime minister misread Trump? Or did the president - whose unpredictability is central to his foreign policy approach - just change his mind? No 10 has told us it was given advanced warning of the US action, but the UK was not asked to take part. We do not know had been speculation that US B-2 stealth bombers could have used the UK's Diego Garcia airbase in the Indian Ocean as a waypoint en route to "Operation Midnight Hammer" involved B-2s flying non-stop for 18 hours to reach their targets, according to the latest on US strikes on IranIran's secretive nuclear site that only a US bomb could hitWhat we know about US strikes on IranIt is possible the UK was not asked for assistance because it would have been a difficult request to have been debates at the top of government in recent days about the legality of any UK involvement, with the attorney general, Lord Hermer, providing advice on a range of the next steps in the conflict unclear, the US could end up requesting military support from the UK in the coming weeks - prompting further difficult decisions for the prime minister. So, what next? US defence secretary Pete Hegseth has responded to concerns the US attacks could prompt the start of a long conflict by insisting: "This is most certainly not open-ended".Yet the actions of both the The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) suggest they fear retaliation from is why British diplomats have been planning a flight early next week to help "vulnerable British nationals and their dependents wanting to leave Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories".Defence sources have told me measures to protect British armed forces in the Middle East have been strengthened in the past few hours, with additional fighter jets already in the region and at "high readiness".One UK diplomat told me UK-US relations remain strong, as demonstrated by Foreign Secretary David Lammy's long meeting with secretary of state Marco Rubio and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on we do not know if - or how - Iran might respond, or whether the UK or its military could be targeted. Starmer's high-wire act has just become even more dangerous.
Telegraph
41 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Assisted dying, abortion, grooming gangs...Britain is morally deformed
I've a friend in a nursing home with very bad cancer. Physically, he feels OK, but there are hints of mental confusion. One afternoon we watched a quiz show on a blank television that wasn't turned on. It was proof, he said, that his mind couldn't be going because he got all the answers right. With the passage of Kim Leadbeater's Bill – save a stay of execution in the Lords – he suddenly looks like a candidate for assisted dying, and yet his suffering strengthens the case against. My friend, at this stage, is miserable less because of the tumour than because he's poor – can't afford a home care – and anxious because he wakes up in a strange place and imagines he's been kidnapped. He tells me he is at the centre of a plot by the state to kill the old by driving them mad. Though I assure him that no government is competent enough to pull such a thing off, I'm beginning to wonder if he has a point. Last week, the Commons voted to decriminalise abortion and legalise state-assisted suicide, the latest twist on 'cradle to grave'. Supporters spoke of humanising the law, of continuing the 'progressive' effort begun in the 1960s when abortion was first permitted. But there's a big contextual difference. Social liberalism in a time of economic growth was about increasing choice; today, in a period of austerity, it suggests narrowing options. Can't afford a baby? Terminate it. Worry you might burden the grandkids? Take a seat in the suicide pod. Of course this isn't what MPs meant by voting this way – but when you cut benefits for the elderly and cap them for children, and then make it easier to destroy yourself or your baby, it's hard not to infer a link. People keep saying to me, with a dash of British humour, that the state intends to kill us all to save money. Let's assume this is wrong. Let's call the speculation tasteless. Nevertheless, we have to account for why so many people feel this way, for the historic loss of trust. This is not some opioid-induced fantasy; human beings respond to cues. The third story in the grimmest week of Starmer's premiership was the publication of the Casey report, which confirmed that Asian men raped girls, and that officials declined to act because it might appear racist. This is mind-blowing stuff and shows how morally deformed our establishment now is. It has no coherent understanding of good and evil – in the difference between innocence and guilt – and in its yearning to look good by its own bizarre standard, it permits evil to flourish. In 2025, a person who prays outside an abortion clinic faces arrest. Meanwhile, a foreign-born, convicted rapist might avoid deportation by invoking their human rights. Religion, in fact, barely featured in the assisted dying debate, except to suggest that opponents might be acting under orders from the Pope. This fantasy pays a backhanded compliment to a faith that has been losing its influence for a very long time. As far back as 1937, Cosmo Gordon Lang, the archbishop of Canterbury, abstained in a Lords vote on divorce because he judged it 'no longer possible to impose the full Christian standard by law on a largely non-Christian population'. Christianity defined the West for so many centuries that its loss is experienced as the death of a fixed order, but we mustn't forget that Jesus was a revolutionary who overturned an even older system of ethics. Pagans, who largely felt life was meant to be enjoyed, thought the martyrdom-chasing Christians were nuts. One can see why. They taught that death is not the end, life is a test, and suffering is an opportunity to imitate the crucifixion. For example: the 7th century saint Cuthbert had a best friend, Herbert, and the two men dreamt of spending eternity together. But Cuthbert was a famously holy man, so would pass through purgatory to Heaven fast, whereas Herbert was just a very good man, so, they feared, might take longer – delaying their reunion. How did God fix the problem? He generously gave Herbert a long, painful illness, so that when he died on the same day as Cuthbert, his soul was so cleansed by suffering that they entered paradise at the same time. Weird, isn't it? Yes, but it also seeded into the West the idea that our life belongs to God, that He made us in his image, and this is a foundation for the principle that you can't take away another's life at will. This gradually flowered into rights for women or slaves, the peace movement and abolition of the death penalty. The problem with a commandment, of course, is that it's inflexible: it extends to unwanted foetuses and relatives in pain. Around the 19th century, we detached God from ethics, getting around the 'Thou Shalt Nots' and opening morality up to negotiation. Add individualism, toss in consumerism, and moral action today is contingent upon personality, economics, circumstance. Back when I was a socialist, before religion came into it, I wasn't comfortable with the idea that one unborn baby gets to live because its parents happen to be married and rich, whereas another is aborted because its mother is single and poor. Humanistic morality seemed surprisingly naive about the reality of the human condition, its appetites and deprivations. Looking at my friend in the nursing home, to what possible extent can one say he has 'agency'? I'm not sure he understands his diagnosis. The notion that he might have a chat with Kim Leadbeater, she with a smile and a clipboard in her hand, and make a rational choice to die next Wednesday afternoon is preposterous. The opportunity for error or manipulation is self-evident, yet many cannot, or will not, see it. For anyone who does choose assisted dying, I hope Christians respond with mercy. We are not in charge of Britain, haven't been for a long time, and I'm not sure I'd want to be. The best options left are to witness and accompany, to do the sometimes depressing, occasionally rewarding work of being with people when they go. I enjoy holding my friend's hand. I'd never have done that when he was healthy.
Telegraph
41 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Martine Croxall has just struck a dazzling blow for common sense
A rebellion can take many forms. Sometimes it's an uprising in the streets. Sometimes it's a ballot-box revolt against the status quo. And sometimes – as BBC newsreader Martine Croxall has brilliantly shown – it's just a droll, one-word aside. Croxall struck a dazzling blow for common sense this week by daring to say the unsayable, by giving voice to a word that's become bizarrely verboten in certain circles. What blasphemous term did she utter? Women. It was during an item on the heatwave. Croxall was talking about new research on the number of heat-related deaths Britain might see as the temperature rises. She read the following from her autocue: 'Malcolm Mistry, who was involved in the research, said the aged, pregnant people…'. Then she stopped. Pregnant people? What in the politically correct hell is this? She mutinied against her teleprompter and told the truth. 'WOMEN', she said, with excellent exasperation. Then she carried on. The elderly, pregnant women and people with pre-existing health conditions 'need to take precautions' in the heat, she said. Post-truth baloney put in its place by a woman who's clearly had enough – you love to see it. 'Pregnant people' is one of those Newspeak phrases that is said to be 'trans-inclusive' but which in truth just erases women. The idea is that if we say 'pregnant people', we won't offend that infinitesimally small chunk of womankind that identifies as male. That 'pregnant people' is offensive to many women – not to mention to science and reason – seems not to matter. Let's be honest – 'pregnant people' is a lunatic term. Every single human being who has ever fallen pregnant has been a woman. They can call themselves Tom, Dick or Harry if they like and ask their woke pals to refer to them as 'he'. But they're women, and it isn't offensive to say so. Other 'trans-inclusive' terms include 'chest-feeding' (what we used to call breastfeeding) and 'birthing bodies' – or 'WOMEN!', as Croxall might say, with that righteous irritation shared by many of us. The memory-holing of the word 'woman' to appease the trans lobby is an outrage. It adds up to a sexist scrubbing from the public record of half of humankind. This is why Croxall's quiet vexation and gentle eye-roll as she said the W-word has chimed with so many: because we are sick of seeing the rights of women and the very language of womanhood be sacrificed at the altar of a dumb and dangerous fad. 'I have a new favourite BBC presenter', said JK Rowling. Same, Joanne. Croxall's rage against the autocue, her one-woman, one-word insurrection against correct-think, was as refreshing as a breeze in this heatwave. Some are now worried the BBC might haul her in for a telling-off. They wouldn't dare. Millions of decent folk will seethe if the public broadcaster even thinks about rapping a woman's knuckles for telling the truth.
