National Service if Tories are re-elected

[MaryMaryVeryContrary]

Thoughts? 🍿

Also this shows that the Tories give young people absolutely ZERO credit for anything …

… because every young person knows full well with something like this, that the last thing you want is to be seen to be doing well as you’ll be the first person who is asked to come back!

So the objective of the year will be to do as badly as possible so you never get asked again. Not least because you’ll be earning utter peanuts whilst you’re there!

I think he really doesn't want to be re-elected. It's like he's wanting to be voted out so is picking the most disliked policies he can

I agree that in normal times the military is hugely trained and professional and don’t want fresh faced young people.

However these are different times. Latvia, Sweden, Estonia have bought in and extended conscription. Germany is debating it. France has already reintroduced national service via Macron. Europe is having a conscription panic at present. France is contemplating trialling a mandatory national service.

He took a day off campaigning to consider his options and plan for the election (that he called, seemingly without a plan), and this is the best he could come up with.

Ridiculous little man.

Copied from The Independent

“Aimed for the first teenagers to take part in September 2025, Rishi Sunak is said to believe compulsory service would help foster the “national spirit” that emerged during the pandemic.”

That’s the same “national spirit” that saw the tories partying while the country was in lockdown?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/national-service-conservative-party-general-election-b2551605.html

What exactly are the police, fire service and NHS supposed to do with untrained and probably uninterested 18 year olds for one weekend a month?

I wonder if they plan to do what some countries do and allow you to buy out, that way the government makes plenty money from wealthy parents and the working class kids once again get shafted after all if there was a war they would be the first to be called up

Why would todays pensioners (who never fought in any war) want this for their grandchildren?

Is this the national spirit that destroyed the mental health and school experience of… checks notes… todays teenagers who you’ll be sending off to national service?

What an utter joker, these kids did nothing other than to be born at the wrong time.

Honestly it’s everyone or no one in my book.

This is a voting tactic to appeal to an age group who never did it themselves but think it would be great for the youth.
I can’t imagine how expensive this would be to implement. I’d rather they rebuilt schools rather than accommodation for this.
my dad did NS but can see it’s a different time. Can you imagine controlling behaviour in these places now?

They are hardly going to say ‘oh dear there might be a war!’

Im seeing it in the context of Sweden and Finland joining NATO last year

The 2022 Russia China pact

The ongoing Chinese atoll building in the Pacific

Increased NATO exercises and joint training with allies etc

Eh? Do explain what you mean.

I’m in favour of it - I’m from a country where this is mandatory.

Whilst I agree with you on principle get over the boomers bullshit.

Let's look at me and my pier group shall we 242 kids sat in my school hall in 1980 aged 11. One of the. That's one, less than 0.5% went to university at 18...how many of your school year went.

When we left school it was a yts. A youth training scheme at £25 per week or nothing if you couldn't find a job. It was 1985, the factory/docks/industrial jobs my Labour controlled education trained us for had gone. There were warehouse jobs, shops and if you were lucky to have got the rather harder than today's a levels (and was told that in 2002 by the head of my 6th form unsolicited, that a levels were a lot easier than when I sat them) an office job.

Whilst grants were available for uni, they didn't meet everything for most people so the working class didn't go to uni. The traditional universities didn't pick state schools so you had to go to.a poly..
There was no acknowledgment of most kids who needed special needs education. They sat at the back of the class to avoid the cane.

If your face didn't fit with the union, you didn't work many industries. The unions shut down British industry at times during the 1970s, so thousands went unpaid. Strikes were common so you often were not working and not being paid. On one day British Leyland had 300 separate industrial disputes.

My first mortgage was part subsidised because my wife worked for a bank...that was at 8% the rest was at 15%.

So please don't think it was fucking easy being a boomer

Volunteering should be voluntary. That's the definition.

18 year olds have lives. They study, some have jobs at the weekend, some may have full time jobs. We need people in employment.

Can you imagine being at school / uni and then being told you have to do 1 weekend a month "volunteering"?

It sounds rushed and poorly thought out, Just an attempt to grab the headlines. I can see the Express headlines already

Not keen. I wouldn't want my children to do this unless they chose to take part. I can see what his intention is but I don't agree with what I have read so far.

Anyone who suggests bringing back National service needs to do it themselves. It was abolished in 1963 so anyone under 79 didn’t do it so maybe let’s start with the first generation to miss out given they didn’t serve for the longest period of time. When are pensioners going to be doing their volunteering days?

Errr - that's a no from me

I don't understand why they think this is a vote winner. Those parents tempted to vote Conservative to avoid VAT on school fees are not going to be lining up to send Tarquin off to the army for a year.

We are having the largest NATO exercise since the Cold War - running through until June. Maybe just maybe it might have something to do with it .

Recent call out against China re state affiliated malice in cyber space 25/3

In fact - it is the lead story in the Tory supporting papers.

To restore civic pride.

All the people who fart on about national service never did it themselves. As said upthread you’d have to be well into your 80s now to have done it. My father didn’t and he’s 75. My father in law did but he would be 90 if he was still alive.

I think it might be an idea to have it as an option. Like enlisting but just for a year to see if you like it, but even then I doubt the army would welcome it.

This is straw grasping by a desperate man.

Lol - this is what I thought too!

just what young people need, another year of not earning real money! Don’t forget either that once ‘trained’, all the swifter to get ‘em off to the front line.

Seems odd that it's a huge idea and hasn't really been discussed at all. Just popped in to see my 16 year old to run it past him and had to convince him I wasn't joking....