The reaction to National Service on here

I've done a fair bit of volunteering locally. The hardest thing is getting more adult volunteers.

People don't have the time that they did years ago. Work commitments often stop people who would want to volunteer actually being able to do so. Same with caring commitments. Whether it's young family or looking after elderly relatives.

It stops being volunteering if mandated to do it. And if being forced to do it, is it worth doing? Would a charity prefer having one really keen volunteer or 20 only there as they have to be?

My eldest is 18. Between college, work and his hobby he has little free time. And he often volunteers his time at his hobby when he can.

All governments are crap at running companies. I remember pre privatisation what the railways, water and gas were like.
It was a sh*tshow.

This sounds like another expensive sh*tshow

I have got to the point where I look at all the parties and can’t see myself voting in a general election (first time ever) because I see problems with all parties.

Rishi is just out of touch with reality and

Keir is too weak and although he will more than likely win with a landslide I think a PM needs to have a vision and a cabinet behind them to make that vision a reality.

Unfortunately with Keir it is the other way round.

I think he needs to take on board the saying

You can please some of the people some of the time but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.

I predict he will flip flop trying to please everyone and end up pleasing no one

This totally!! I’ve done many years of voluntary work, my adult DC have done voluntary work also, at a time when it was feasible and we actually had some spare time to do it. Life is so hard for many people nowadays and so much unpaid/minimally paid effort and labour is already demanded from young people nowadays, it’s just insulting to ask for even more from them

There may have been a time when I thought some kind of national service was a good idea but now young people are being fleeced out of every penny and having to work nights, evenings and weekends on top of day study and placements just to get to the point of qualifying in most jobs. Asking them to do even more on top isn’t fair at all and the suggestion that parents should be ‘fined’ if a young person chooses to object to this is just morally bankrupt, unfair on the parents, bound to sew family division and how can it be right to emotionally blackmail young people like that. Can’t think of a more ludicrous and unpopular policy to come up with at current??

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow You 17 year-old needs to learn about context.
Not all organised events or civic duty is fucking hitler fucking youth.

What do you mean 'as usual...' regarding teens being punished? In what way?
Unpaid labour? Ridiculous

kids also benefit from doing work in the community. This is an unbelievably blinkered attitude.

The way this has been announced was to cause a reaction and get people talking.

I don't think it would happen even if they were successful and won the election.

Most 18-year-olds are doing something, very few are not and if they are not it's normally due to a medical reason rather than wanting to live on benefits.

I do have a child who will never work or volunteer due to his complex disability he requires 2 carers with him to be safe so he would be exempt they can't have blanket no exemptions.

If the government wanted this they'd need to fund the voluntary hours somehow as we are still in a cost-of-living crisis and young people are so negatively impacted it wouldn't be fair to add this on to them.

I voted yabu. Its not 1950 any more and you can't just make people sign up.its less to do with "giving back a
nd more to do with stupid schemes by Rishi to encourage elderly voters "back in my day " lot.

Exactly, the excuses are getting silly. They can walk, cycle, they don’t need to drive. Honestly these excuses are ridiculous, I’m sure there would be a selection of jobs that qualify, and you’d fit the young person’s circumstances. These excuses remind me of the list of people in my team who can’t possibly come to the office because of x,y,z. My daughter is 16 and I’m sure there’s plenty of jobs she could do, yes she’s got some health issues, possibly autistic (never diagnosed) but you know what, she’s not incapable and it’s great work experience. My son’s would have definitely benefited from it too.

My eldest did work experience via the job centre when he was looking for work, in a charity shop. He complained at first, like all young people do but he got so much out of it, not least a permanent job in the civil service as he was able to use examples from his charity work in the interview / application process.

But yeah, young people can’t possibly fit in any volunteer work, might interrupt their social media time

What has expecting benefits from the state got to do with what is being proposed

Unfortunately governments are usually made up of older people who at 18 had a plan for their lives and the concept of skiving off and avoiding work is something they hadn’t even contemplated. Or maybe they have and they know what is going to happen and this is just a gateway to something more

This idea is completely unworkable and would cost more than it gets back

Doing charitable work and being of service to your community is all very laudable if you don’t have to separately employ people to monitor those doing the work all day

Well you have to think about the history about the Tories competence in running Govt . companies here there is not good deal of confidence there .To making sure people are treated fairly , to making sure wealthy mates kids are not giving secret legs up .C'mon the Tories have got history ,if you don't think your kids will miss out by given a leg up by another tory you don't know them well enough yet . It's all about scratch my back mate ....

It wouldn't be volunteering, would it, given that it would be mandatory?

Putin was president then, and was very active before then. He has been threatening them for decades - I was in Finland on the Russian border myself several times around 12-15 years ago. Whereas their was friendship and comradery between Finnish and Russian border guards, many Finns told me of friendship and love between Finnish and Russian people and "cold terror" of Putin

I am completely against it. Volunteering is not volunteering if it’s compulsory.

I don’t wish my children to go into the army. Leave it for the professional soldiers who want to be there.

Both my kids are too old for this now and both did volunteering-type activities at this age anyway - by choice! BUT I feel strongly that the end of national service was a good thing in this country and I don’t want to go back to it.

It’s a red herring anyway - just there to keep the focus off the economy.

I am not sure that this particular plan is well thought out. I'm not really sure what I think Sunak is really trying to accomplish with it. The details obviously would have to be worked but that is doable, lots of countries have a workable system.

But I don't have a particular problem with the concept, I think it offers a lot of benefits for the young people in particular, and in places that have had it for a long time it ultimately benefits the population.

I do agree that the response of a lot of people "why should my kid have to give up her weekends" is basically a selfish entitlement. They are quite happy to expect benefits from the state, which is to say, benefits from other citizens. Every benefit the state can offer to its citizens ultimately comes from the work of other citizens.

Not really, there was a big uproar on here at the time of previous election about Labour’s proposal
of free Internet.
I also saw a thread sometime ago criticizing Labour’s idea of cleaning teeth at school. I think that it’s ridiculous myself and I’m voting Labour.

I think you'll find that they're already doing this.

volunteering-statistics

Where's your evidence for the many who never worked? Oh, your MIL.

And how is she sending out other people's children to be cannon fodder - a completer misreading of a fucking stupid "policy" statement?

Immediately

It is. But they've already benefited so much. I would rather see compulsory volunteering for pensioners than young people.

Lol at believing that, tbh. It's like believing Labour will stop at only rising VAT on private education, when the natural step will be to rise VAT on private health care.

The point is why on Earth should today's 18 year olds be conscripted into doing something that nobody has had to do since 1960, especially at a time when they are quite possibly busier than ever?

Look, dead cat.

But they aren't being sent out to be cannon fodder it's not mandated they will go into the military! They can choose to either a yr with the military ( if they are selected) or 25 days in public sector. At the very least understand what it is first before jumping to the wrong conclusions

Many of the older generation never worked. My MIL was briefly a nurse but became a SAHM when she had the first of her children....in 1972. She never worked again. I adore her but why should she be able to send other people's children out to be cannon fodder?