The Second Worst Anarchist Website in the UK

The Cadet Review

At a first glance it is a boring glossy promo mag. On second glance that’s exactly what it is: as its intro explains how you can take it to your local businesses to try and get some sponsorship.

Amongst the pictures, of cadets getting awards, one thing stands out and that is the royal connection. From Lady Wotsit handing out awards; to the wonderful honour of standing outside a cold church while Mr and Mrs Windsor walk past; to yet more awards from Lord Lieutenants (for more on these parasites from the landed gentry who act as HRH’s representatives on earth see Now or Never issue2). I suppose this is not that surprising: the oath you have to swear on joining up is to defend the royal family, not the rest of us. That might seem pretty irrelevant if it was not for the info now coming out about generals and Rio Tinto Zinc looking at overthrowing the labour govt in the 70’s and installing Prince Phillip as President.

Back to the mag: the oddest thing is no reference to being trained up to die and kill as your career, and no major reference to any war past World War One. As the main point is to get people into the cadets to join the army this is peculiar. Also there are no guns, it’s a gun free army. As one of the main reasons two of my friends joined the cadets was to shoot guns (that and to ‘get a good job’ at the end of it) I think they’re missing a trick here. Actually, there are two guns in the mag: one is a paintball gun in an add dressed up as SAS training and the other is from World War One. Perhaps after four years in Iraq fighting for American Oil Companies that is all they have left.

The only people interested in this magasine would be the people in the photos getting their awards, or their mums. This is confirmed as I sent the mag to one of my friends who joined the army after being in the cadets to see if it brought back any memories. When I rang him he said he wasn’t in it, so he hadn’t read it and had binned it.