The reaction to National Service on here

[MaryMaryVeryContrary]

Many European countries (including Scandinavian countries) have NS. Are they ‘ridiculous’? Or are their much-coveted-by-Mumsnet-users communities better because of their sense of individual responsibility and contribution?

If 24 days (that’s how long it would be in total) of delivering prescriptions or volunteering as a hospital guide has you talking about human rights violations and Nazi Germany, then it’s very clear that you’re so pampered a bit of NS would do you good.

Everyone on here expects the world in terms of a ’village’, generous benefits, a caring society, but wants to do fuck all to contribute to it and think the notion of them having to do ANYTHING for anyone else is insane.

It’s nuts!

@Persimonne72 Honestly, everything depends on perspective. After second world war people had food rationed, beans on toast was a luxury food and apart from few in their 20ties and 30ties even dreamt about owning a house. The mortgage rates in 60-70-ties and 80-ties were huge, much larger than now.

Council houses, mate,

Would you though? Easy enough to say about somebody else.

Persimmone you are obsessed with fictional national emergencies. This is absolutely nothing to do with national emergencies. Nowhere has it said anything about national emergencies.

care homes have been mentioned because of the mention of working with the elderly. I quote

“Weekend placements could be within the NHS, fire or police service, or with charities supporting older people or tackling loneliness.”

Haven't read all the thread, too many pages. But has anyone considered how unprepared the forces would be for all these 18 year olds to descend on them. The military are struggling already with a lack of equipment, accommodation etc, and to then have to do something with the sudden influx of teenagers who quite frankly would be getting in the way and what for, to leave after one year so hardly worth training them up. The military is not a baby sitting service or an outward bound centre where teenagers can learn life skills.
Whole thing is ridiculous, though I don't think it would ever happen anyway. its just unworkable.

No issue with kids doing community-based service. Great idea. But I have an issue with military service right now, given that we are where we are in terms of international politics. Seems a sly way to prepare the country for conscription a couple of years down the line. And if you believe this isn't possible or probable, you need to step away from Cloud Cookooland and the belief that life can't change in an instant. We don't go to war out of nowhere. It takes years of preparation and is usually quite a gradual slide. Don't be caught out.

My two who worked part time in care homes weren’t undertaking actual care duties as such, they were making cups of tea, playing board games, taking the residents for walks around the garden etc and generally providing company. My daughter did this every weekend and most of her holidays throughout uni.

That’s lovely. My children do paid work to pay their way through uni too, and they volunteer. My older children that is. My younger ones won’t be able to get a job in a care home, or anywhere else for that matter “every weekend” because they will have to do conscripted work one in four, and the lack of flexibility because of that, renders them virtually unemployable. Do you think Rishi will bump the student loan up so they can afford their rent without their wages?
DofE volunteering has ALWAYS been organised by the participant and has allowed them to take on roles that they can actually attend without losing their jobs. It’s not the same at all. You don’t even have to tell an employer that you are doing it but every employer in the country will know that employing an 18 yo means having no staff one in four weekends .

No, if you read carefully the announcement you will find out that National Service doesn't mean mostly military service at all but a community service. Only a fraction of those 18 years old would be involved in military training and this still wouldn't mean digging trenches or crawling in helmet with rifle but working in cyber security and engineering and similar.

I am not a Tories voter neither I think it is a well thought service but I cannot gather why people comment without actually reading what Sunak proposed.🤦🏼‍♀️

@Comefromaway
...and a fictional war with Russia, which is hanging by a thread. Many European countries are announcing various forms of national service, but not in the UK for sure, nooo.🤣
My recommendation: read news from European countries . It won't hurt

Ten years have passed since the specter of conscription once again loomed over Europe. Right after the outbreak of the conflict over Donbas, Ukraine, attacked by Russia, reinstated universal military service, followed by Lithuania. In 2017, Sweden did the same, and most recently Latvia. Previously, conscription was only in effect in Denmark, Norway (where the military conducts a two-stage process among conscripts, selecting only the top 30 percent of candidates), as well as in Austria, Switzerland, and Greece.

In several other countries, questions about the sense of returning to universal military service have been replaced by considerations of how to implement it. In France, President Macron periodically revisits the idea of a universal "national service" program, which would entail mandatory citizen contributions to the state, possibly in the form of military service. Italy, Spain, Romania, and Serbia are contemplating reinstating conscription or at least mandatory military exercises. German Defense Minister Pistorius outright recently that the country cannot avoid this decision.

It's not for everyone in most Scandinavian countries.

Those countries give their young a much better start in life. So there is a fair social contract. They get more opportunities so they can fairly give back . The future is not bright for the young generation largely due to the generation proposing this who never did national service and got cheap housing and free higher education

In Scandinavia It can be postponed until after education unlike what is proposed here

It's not the same proposal at all. Stop seeing things in black and white

Remember when we were told to leave the EU so our kids didn't get signed up to the fictitious EU army. By the same people proposing this!!!???!!!!

Charlatans

Maybe they should compel all of the pensioners with lots of free time on their hands - the cohort who on average are taking hundreds of thousands of pounds each more from the state in services than they ever paid in tax - to give up some free time to "serve their communities" rather than 18 year olds, the vast majority of whom have exams to do, part time jobs trying to save for university and housing costs the like of which current pensioners never had to pay, and have already endured Covid and Brexit and stand to inherit a trashed economy and climate from their wonderful elders. Perhaps those elders who have stripped the country bare like piranhas should "give something back to society".

The pensioners I know fall into 2 categories.
Those that wouldn’t have time to do NS because they are still working either because they have to as the few hundred they get in pension isn’t enough to afford to live or afford some extra perks or just because they don’t want their brain to turn to mush

Or those that NS would interfere with their daytime tv schedule and if anything a NS would have done them a lot of good in keeping their brain active

Overall for many pensioners the few hundred they get for the few more years they are alive is a drop in the ocean compared to the 50 years of tax and NI they have paid

Are you really so dim that you can't imagine a time when you or your precious DD might need help from someone? I've never encountered anyone quite so selfish in my life - thank goodness. Crawl away under your own little stone then, just don't be surprised if when the chips are down no-one bothers with you.

Is it a full moon? Must be, all the idiots have come out to play.

There is a lot of talk about paying back into the community and doing something for your country

How does that work if the “community” and “country” infer you are not one of them

Tbh I wouldn’t ask or expect the “community” to help as I know none would be forth coming.

I've definitely had times in my life when there would have been no community to help me. It's hardly unusual these days.

Tell you what OP why don't you get to the front of the queue and show these lazy youngsters how it's done? What's that? You don't want to be forced to? Ok then.
It's not "volunteering" it's forced labour. And you banging on about all the selfless volunteering you did in your life is irrelevant really. Because you CHOSE to do it. You chose when and what to do. That's the difference.

How will this be administered? Who is supervising this volunteering? How do rural 18 year olds access opportunities (we have very few, if any weekend busses)? Is there any exemption for young adults who already work a full time job or who have full time heavy course workloads (e.g. med students)? Are there tailored opportunities for the disabled or those with mental health conditions or things like ASD / ADHD? Who gets punished if a young adult doesn’t show up or doesn’t contribute? Are there exceptions for those with children / babies (there’s no nursery on weekends!)? Where are all these volunteering opportunities coming from? What is it - litter picking and prescription delivery?? Who’s going to supervise litter picking crews? They’ll need paying!!

The whole thing sounds badly thought out and unworkable. It’s just a stupid Tory distraction ploy. Everyone’s now discussing it as if it had any actual chance of happening which it clearly does not!

To be fair nobody goes through the minutiae when they announce a policy

maybe they dont go through it publicly, but in general they would have worked it out privately, so they even know if it is possible or not.

This is not possible⌛⏲

I would love to see how this would be enforced. Young adults will have just gotten to an age where they can make their own choices, don't have to be in education etc. and who would police this? It's never going to happen, just a ploy to keep all the boomers on side.

We used to have peoole who delivered prescriptions many years ago. They were called post women.

For me I just think why would anyone expect young people in this country to be enthusiastic about this?

What do we do for them as a country that we feel they should now "give back"?

The NHS is falling apart, most jobs they will be able to get will likely only just cover the extortionate rent they have to pay, getting on the housing ladder is a pipe dream for most younger generations now and hell a lot of the time they can't even afford to go to university to better themselves to get any higher paying jobs (that half the time don't even exist to successful university candidates anyway). Oh and if they do manage to get to uni, they'll likely have to get a job anyway just to fund it.

So what is it again sorry that they should be enthusiastic about in terms of contributing to their country?

It's very easy for me, as a 30+ woman, sat in my owned home, with a decent job and salary to look down on a younger generation who have it tougher than I did and still do, to get the start in life we had, and say how ridiculous they all are for not wanting to contribute to their wonderful country.

If it was anything to do with "preparing" to go to war they would be asking the military for advice on what to do. They certainly wouldn't be using military resources and money in this way. The uk is at threat from nuclear weapons rather than invasion.