National Service if Tories are re-elected

[MaryMaryVeryContrary]

Thoughts? 🍿

My very elderly Dad completed National Service in the RAF. This was during the Suez crisis. He still has nightmares about some of the things he was involved in and saw, as a naive 18 year old. He is still bound by the Official Secrets Act and has never been able to talk to anyone or even get mental health support to process it. Do we really want to do this to another generation?

Don't get me started on the practicalities of taking the generation that you're assuming will pay into the system to pay current pensions, and making them unemployable (because they can't be available 24/7 as most employers now require), can't work weekends to sub their college costs etc. One of my kids will be just starting his A levels the year he turns 18 as his birthday is in September....will there be special dispensations if he has to volunteer one weekend a month and can't study? Etc.

Some 18 year olds will be deemed medically unfit (my son has tried to join active duty in both of his citizenship countries and neither will take him), so presume they will be forced to volunteer in a role they have zero interest in, then? How will all these organisations manage having thousands of volunteers who don't want to be there, have no skills yet, need to be fully trained on everything in one weekend a month? How will these organisations be able to afford to implement and run this scheme?

Will be interesting to see how they plan to manage dual citizens who have a national service-type commitment to their other country at the same age (as one of mine has).

Sorry you are correct but I was just pointing out that someone did try to invade us and thankfully our armed forces were alot bigger and better trained back then so we were able to defend ourselves. It really was not that long ago that we had to defend ourselves.

I have been a Tory party member for most of my adult life. I was already wavering towards not voting at this election because they’ve been so awful but now I’m voting Labour.

In almost all cases I don’t think forcing people to do military or community service when they’ve done nothing wrong is acceptable.

It’s also just appallingly thought out. Those that don’t do military have to give up a weekend a month - what about Saturday jobs that pretty much all people that age who aren’t lucky enough to have parents who can back them financially? They are talking about the service being in the fire, police and NHS. I want those services properly funded not propped up by unwilling, forced, untrained labour. I also don’t want the actually trained staff having to babysit all these people. And are we also delaying university for a year and cancelling all options of gap years? And what kind of massive, expensive bureaucracy is going to be needed to administer this?

And don’t get me started on calling the non-military service “volunteering”. It’s not volunteering if it’s compulsory.

I have young kids, if this policy gets through we’ll be leaving the country before they are 18 - thankfully it won’t because the tories are going to crash and burn.

Hanging you say? 🍿

Yes really. The poster was referring specifically to situations with land invasions of the relevant countries, not their allies. The obligations under Article 5 if a NATO ally is attacked are not the same thing as the general population of the UK being subjected to the violence of invaders as the Ukrainians currently are and the Israelis were on 7th October.

In addition, this stupid proposal from the Tories doesn't relate solely to the military anyway. People doing national service as NHS responders aren't going to affect our Article 5 response.

It’s so outrageously stupid that I can’t even summon further words.

It's just another 'dead cat'.

Deliberately making outrageous announcements to divert discussion away from the abject failure of this Tory government. Fuck them!

Being able to vote at 16 suddenly sounds quite important if at 18 you can be essentially conscripted. Would be nice for young people to have a bit of political influence rather than just pawn/electoral punching bag.

Are you going to do it?

It wasn’t just the armed forces as we were massively outnumbered by the Nazis, more that we are an island and German blitzkreig tactics wouldn’t work. We also had radar - but that’s for a different thread

They are whipping up a whole scenario about a world war and national security to instil fear and compliance in us. The Daily Mail has been on it for months . Grant Shapps and his 'be prepared' advice last week is part of it- the timing and the advice. This is part of the same thing. It all plays into the conservative 1950s Britain world of authority, discipline, empire, control, fear after the 2WWar.
When people are scared they trust authority and comply - remember how we all did in Covid. They don't rock the boat by doing something different and taking risks.
It's all gimmick to win back traditional Tory voters who have slipped away from them or are wavering. In their heartlands particularly they really need to win back those votes. They don't care about the northern red-wall seats where they are lost causes, they are targeting suburbia and Tory heartlands in the hope of avoiding a wipe-out.
The truth is:
Hoarding bottled water and crisps won't be any use in the event of nuclear war.
There is no infrastructure to run National Service- it will never happen, at least not in the notion we all have of what it is. It would end up as them being asked to go along to a community group one night a week to pick litter. None of them would go.
We have no military force left- it has been systematically dismantled over the years, de-funded, de-skilled, we have very few ships, planes, subs or armed forces left and no real air defence system.
We are not a world power- we are a tiny island with few resources other than land and property owned by the very wealthy, and money that is laundered as it passes through our country and makes the very wealthy wealthier and a some successful large businesses that exploit the poorest to make money for the richest. Our public services have been ground down to appalling standards. We allow businesses to do whatever they like to make money at the expense of the poorest in the country, polluting the environment, treatment if animals, and the destruction of thousands acres of countryside every year.
As a nation we have slipped a huge distance in terms of taking personal responsibility, expecting to contribute to a wider society, parenting standards, caring about the environment, animal welfare , doing the right thing because it's the right thing, manners, honesty, kindness, morality.
I hate almost everything about living in the UK now. If DH would leave I'd emigrate tomorrow.
I don't think voting Labour is a magic wand but 14 years of this Conservative government have grossly exacerbated every single issue we face as a country.

I imagine they’ll save bring back hanging for the week before the election. Must admit, even as a massive politics geek I didn’t have national service by day 3 on my election bingo card…

One day's rations for one person in ww2.Guns and armies don't grow on trees !

If you were.11 in 1980, you would have been born in 1969. Do you class yourself as a baby boomer?

Another wildly stupid Tory dog-whistle designed to trigger older voters who may be turning to Reform - to be filed with work capability assessment, deportations to Rwanda, support for Brexit, Boris Johnson as leader, hostile environment policy and so on.

What next? Bring back hanging and flogging?

A far better way to create communal pride would be to just sort out proper public services such as health, housing, education, waterways, affordable rail transport.

The Tories have completely trashed the county - they run a kleptocracy - and this latest bright idea shows that they've completely run out of viable ideas.

BTW, has anyone mentioned implementing this in Northern Ireland yet? Let's start with West Belfast and the Bogside, for maximum japes.

More fuckery

I don't think I've ever seen a definition of boomer that goes as late as 1969. That's the start of Gen X isn't it?

The truth is, though, that the geopolitical scenario IS worrying. And the public DO need to get behind increased defence spending and the sacrifices that will mean. No point having nice things if we're at war and they mean nothing anyway.

My point is, it will be shit to endure the cuts we will have to endure to build up our deterrence (if you want peace, prepare for war.) But that's what we need to get behind so that our young people never have to fight

It’s utter cowardice that he has picked on implementing this among the one age group which cannot vote.

This is a group of youngsters in barely a decade who, by virtue of other people’s votes and actions NOT THEIR OWN, would have:

• Been stripped of their European citizenship and opportunities to live and work on the continent
• Had their schooling and social lives ruined by almost two years of pandemic… whilst not entirely the fault of govt it has hit them hard
• Have suffered through utter decimation of schooling and education standards
• Have watched their families struggle through the greatest cost of living crisis in recent history
• Will now be told they have to “serve” the country which effectively voted to take away a big chunk of their childhood and to restrict a huge part of their future.

A Masterclass in how to lose an entire generation of young people, brought to you by the Conservative Party.

And I completely agree - ANYONE WHO VOTES FOR THIS SHOULD HAVE TO DO IT. And: ANYONE IT WILL AFFECT SHOULD BE GIVEN A VOTE.

This generation of youngsters has born the brunt of older people voting for their right wing wet dreams safe in the knowledge that it won’t actually them as much as it will the workers, families and young people trying to build a future here.

From now on it should be put your money where your mouth is.

Do you think Israel and Ukraine are unusual specific cases in history? And that the UK couldn't be invaded? By Russia or even by China as they are looking a bit punchy at the moment? And only a country that borders your own would invade? Im not sure history bears that out. I also thought that our nuclear sub test didn't go that well....

If Article 5 was invoked we are all in the firing line as we are all the enemy of any attacker of a NATO country and fair game.

It’s almost 9am. Cut and Paste Clav, Eastern Standard and their down lines will just be finishing their coffees and logging in to repeat Tory lines as to why this is a great idea.

or the huge pro-Palestine marches that take place every week , some on them may welcome military training.

I want to know what they're going to cut to pay for it.

Not that any of this will happen. If the aim was just 'have people talking about Tory policy instead of Labour' then job done I guess.

It's a good point, isn't it, that Labour has lowering the voting age as a thought, and the Tories are promising NS. There's something about these two ideas being floated but I can't quite put my finger on it. They're both likely to get voters out to the polls for sure but both kind of guarantee doom for the Tories. Ever since "NuLabour" I've thought that the "right/left" middle of politics has actually devolved into something rather meaningless from the principles point of view. Maybe the it's just time to hand the baton over in a relay race with one team while pretending to appease the electorate?