More importantly, all British military doctors are officers so would outrank a senior NCO anyway. Army doctors attend the Professionally Qualified Officer course at Sandhurst along with chaplains, lawyers and others who will hold officer rank but not be expected to command- this is a shortened course which covers things like military discipline and basic field and weapons training but has much less leadership and tactics than the main Commissioning Course. AFAIK the situation is similar in the other two services.
Usually (from friends who have done it) military doctors join the forces quite early in their career- some will actually sign up before they qualify in order to receive a salary through clinical training.
]]>Dans dix ans, nous aurons de quoi tuer 80 millions de Russes. Eh bien je crois qu'on n'attaque pas volontiers des gens qui ont de quoi tuer 80 millions de Russes, même si on a soi-même de quoi tuer 800 millions de Français, à supposer qu'il y eût 800 millions de Français.
-"In ten years, we will have the means to kill 80 million Russians. I believe that one does not light-heartedly attack people who have the means to kill 80 million Russians, even if one has oneself the means to kill 800 million French people- that is, if there were 800 million French people"
]]>Britain did also maintain (and improve) the Polaris missiles itself for a while, after the US Navy had switched from Polaris to Poseidon. I wonder how long it would take to develop a similar capability for Trident.
]]>AFAIK everyone eligible to vote in a general election was also eligible to vote in the referendum. The people disenfranchised for living outside the UK were those who have lived abroad for at least 15 years and therefore cannot vote in Parliamentary elections either (this has been the case since 2000).
The law authorising the referendum defined the electorate for it as
the persons who, on the date of the referendum, would be entitled to vote as electors at a parliamentary election in any constituency
plus some others (peers and Gibraltar residents).
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