National Service if Tories are re-elected

[MaryMaryVeryContrary]

Thoughts? 🍿

It's a bit like they think they an writing an episode like Mr Ben or something like the other common kids TV s.

Just waiting for the fine print/loop hole that allows the wealthy ones to do the service during their overseas gap year!

Really unthought-out.

OK, UK students can delay university/college a year, but what about the funding crisis that universities are in - do they just fill their places entirely with international students for one year? Actually LSE/KCL/UCL/Oxbridge would much prefer that as a permanent situation anyway. Maybe international students taking a UK university place and a graduate job should also do a year of national service for us (just joking, the government only wants their Yuans and Rupees).

What about academic exams that 18-year olds should be focusing on, including retakes.

Also a non-military non-mandatory version of this already exists - National Citizen Service. Just expand that and widen the social groups that it targets. My DC would have loved it but it really isn't aimed at them at all.

Plus, Tory minister on TV this morning saying there is no punishment for not doing it - well, it's not mandatory then, is it?

The fitness and health assessments to join the military now are quite stringent, so why would you enlist a load of teenagers with variable fitness and health to join in with those who have had to undertake fitness and health assessments? You wouldn't, it's just canon fodder if you are unfit and unhealthy, perhaps with undiagnosed health conditions, including cardiac defects.

And if Sunak really expects me to believe that his 2 lovely girls are going to be risking their lives on the front line in Ukraine and Gaza, I am not that stupid. USA, UK etc are full of rich young foreigners dodging the national service in their own countries, including Israel, Ukraine etc.

Lastly, 2.5billion cost. With a university funding crisis, schools underfunded, NHS underfunded, roads full of potholes, not enough teachers, relying on overseas staffing for our doctors and nurses, I can think of a lot more useful and beneficial projects for this spending.

Polishedshoesalways
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”I am assuming some reform voters are also parents and grandparents too, they are not headless zombies with no regard for life. I assume they will feel much the same as we do”

Only two people we know intending to vote reform are nasty, thick arseholes who advocate national service to “sort” their own grandsons out! Of course, neither served themselves ….

This plan would be unworkable ... and hated by the UK military ... though let us not forget that countries like Italy Germany and France all had military service or Zivilldienst / full-time community or social work during, and after the Cold War

A 'New Model'?

A New Model Army?

Well, I don't think anyone thinks it isn't possible for humans full stop. But the existence of it in other countries very different to ours doesn't prove that it would be viable in the UK. Of course national service is going to be more popular and accepted in a society with a Russian land border and invasion from them within living memory. Whereas we simply don't have the fundamentals. If Putin occupied, say, Ireland, it might be different.

It was January 1916 before we enacted conscription in first world war - war having started August 1914 - we preferred to rely on volunteers and nationalism.

We were almost immediate with second world war but we were standing pretty much alone by then and faced serious prospect of invasion of mainland - and channel islands were occupied.

We've been to war many times since 60s and never come close to having conscription - suggesting this has been a realistic horror hanging over males in UK shows a shocking lack of knowledge about UK history.

Last time we face any kind of invasion threat was second world war - - Russian will just nuke us or fuck with computer infrastructure.

Can't remember the date but last invasion was William of Orange, rebranded as the "Glorious Revolution". He landed at Brixham Devon.

@Natsku is the Finnish NS just military or is there a social/community option, and is it just for males?

My thoughts are that it seems rather a lot to ask that we should forget that only a few months ago Downing St seemed rather unimpressed with Gen Sanders for suggesting something similar. This is not a debate which should be commenced in response to the Tories believing they are haemorrhaging support to the more extreme end of their segment of the political spectrum. Sure, let's have a debate on National Service, but let's have it at a time when it can be given serious consideration by serious people and not as a reactive, knee-jerk policy to get some headlines during a hasty general election campaign.

It's the folk who want that shit for other people's kids he's aiming at.

Not that I want to get into any discussion of WW2 military capability/comparisons with now, but just the pedant in me wants to say that the Channel Islands were deliberately NOT defended when they were invaded - it was a strategic decision around resources. So although they were occupied and part of the British Isles, the German forces just landed and did no fighting. They’re no example of successful military victory. They are very, very close to France.

I agree

He looks like a broken man going through the motions, dead behind those eyes yearning to get back to his £200 keep your coffee warm usb cup.

Joking or not, is it possible to have a vision for the future which doesn’t involve hating a group in society? It’s no better to hate and resent the elderly, using sweeping generalisations, than it is to hate and resent the young, using sweeping generalisations. We’ve all been fucked by this government. Let’s not fight amongst each other in a desperate race to the bottom, eh?

Saying that some teenagers would be too busy with their County Lines activities to do this is the worst argument against it ever. 😂

They aren't in NATO either and were neutral like the Swiss during WW2.

Basically, it will be interesting to see whether this naked bid for Reform votes shifts the polls in that way, whether it makes no difference, or even goes in the wrong way for Sunak.

Spot on.

The Tories know that Reform are a massive threat to their older right-wing voters so this is an attempt to pander to the prejudices of pensioners. It shows how utterly desperate they are to prevent not just a heavy defeat at the election, but a catastrophic wipe-out.

There's a civilian option too, basic training for a month in things like violence preventing and community protection, then working for the rest of time. Is the same length as the longest military option (for officers) but the shortest military option is only 6 months (so unfair really)
Only compulsory for males at the moment (they're considering making it compulsory for women too, or at the very least calling up women at the same time as men, doing their health checks and whatnot, and giving them the opportunity of volunteering) but women can volunteer (but if they volunteer, after a certain period during which they can drop out, it becomes compulsory and if they drop out after that they face the same sanctions as men).

What? Finland is in NATO and very much wasn't neutral during WW2 because Russia invaded (just as they have many many times over the course of history)

It's interesting that in societies where it's compulsory for men but only optional for women, the women are mostly not volunteering.

I don't agree with national service, however volunteering for an hour a week is something that would benefit young people, and should be made compulsory as a part of school life. Even if it's volunteering somewhere in the school, helping out with a younger class, whatever. Young people today need to learn what it means to give back instead of just taking.

On the basis that it includes voluntary service, and is not restricted to military service, I think this is a great idea. Most 18-21 yo leave school or uni with little to no work experience (no jobs or health & Safety restrictions mean kids under 16 don’t get a look in) - this means many have no idea how to work in a team, or understand the implications of not turning up because they don’t feel like it. It could mean better uni/degree choices, better chances of PT employment when at uni etc.

In many countries the notion of national service is a civic thing. In Mexico, graduates that work for the state for two years (army, in hospitals, schools etc) have their student debt written off. I think this could produce more a civic minded, less introspective generation that what we have just now.