Page 4 | National Service if Tories are re-elected

HebburnPokemon · 25/05/2024 23:01

Arafina · 25/05/2024 22:51

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

Sickening

Hopebridge · 25/05/2024 23:02

GiantTagliatelle · 25/05/2024 22:36

The conservatives are utterly fucking dead to me now.

What did the 18 year olds do to deserve this?? And if an option is a weekend a month doing voluntary service then the whole fucking adult population should do it.

Including the boomers this is supposed to appeal to. Hell - why not send them to do a year in the armed forces? They’ve had a good life already?

I actually think Rishi is trying as desperately hard as he possibly can to lose this election. What an utter cnt.

Ive name changed for this.

The issue is some 18 year old also have jobs.... he's not accounting for this? I completely agree with you. I'm unsure how he thinks this would gain votes. It doesn't make sense at all. When I did my A levels I worked every weekend so I wouldn't have had time for this.

Looking at the secondary school attendance rates I don't know how he thinks he can get the commitments for this scheme....

Notreat · 25/05/2024 23:02

Its a terrible idea and also extremely unfair as it would be imposing something on a group of people who have absolutely no say. The people it would impact are not old enough to vote now.
Also it would be a complete nightmare to administer. The armed forces don't want to have to train a bunch of young people with no interest in being in the armed forces. And for those who chose the voluntary work who will organise it all? And make sure people are matched suitably and safely.
That is without considering those who work at weekends or do sports including elite sports, educational courses at the weekend etc. It would also of course be very expensive.
It's all a nonsense

NerdWhoEatsMedlar · 25/05/2024 23:03

Do we assume the 18 year olds will have to take out a loan to cover costs?
Will the training be handed over to a company like Babcock?
Who will profit from this? Because someone will.

BlackEyesLikeADollsEyes · 25/05/2024 23:04

If it's such a great idea and such a 'benefit to today's teens' why don't we all do it?

One of the options is giving a weekend a month for your community. Why wouldn't we all want in on that if it's such a great benefit to us?

Or maybe it's the kind of thing that sounds great so long as it is someone else doing the hard work

PickAChew · 25/05/2024 23:05

G123456789 · 25/05/2024 22:57

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

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Well that's bollocks. I was 11 and at state school in 1980 and I and plenty of my peers went to university, including redbrick unis, as they were, then, on top of those heading to poly.

BartlebyArcher · 25/05/2024 23:06

G123456789 · 25/05/2024 22:57

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

Show quote history

If you were sat in a school hall in 1980 age 11 you were not a boomer, you are gen X.

coffeandteav · 25/05/2024 23:06

So the young suffered protecting the old from covid. Now this. The mos should do it. Why our kids?

Original poster

MaryMaryVeryContrary · 25/05/2024 23:06

Noras · 25/05/2024 22:49

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.

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This is interesting to be fair. Here we are boo-hissing National Service like it’s some kind of penal colony, when actually some of our much more ‘enlightened’ neighbours are already doing it.

I definitely think (at least on here) the notion of anyone doing anything for the good of society rather than just the individual is massively scoffed at, and probably a part of why the country is shit now - a crap government and a selfish public who seem to think it’s their right to simply take, take, take.

If it was a practical form of National Service, well implemented, I would be all for it - who cares if some teens ‘wouldn’t want to’, doing things you don’t want to do jus good for you (before anyone starts when I was that age I was literally cleaning toilets and working split shifts on NMW - full time. I wasn’t a student and never went to university).

But we can’t seem to implement anything properly so it seems faintly ridiculous

OP posts:

HebburnPokemon · 25/05/2024 23:06

G123456789 · 25/05/2024 22:57

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

Show quote history

What does any of this have to do with national service?

Noras · 25/05/2024 23:07

I really am beyond understanding people on MN. You are obviously not reading the same news. Our PM said in April that he was putting the country’s defence spending on a war footing as well as seeing 500 million pounds worth of arms to the Ukraine.

We are facing the biggest threat since the Bay of Pigs etc

Im the age when we were terrified by the what to do when the nuclear bomb sounds.

PickAChew · 25/05/2024 23:07

OutOfTheHouse · 25/05/2024 23:00

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.

Yeah. My dad is 76 and joined the army after national service was abolished.

ichundich · 25/05/2024 23:07

Electoral suicide.

Original poster

MaryMaryVeryContrary · 25/05/2024 23:07

Strikes were common so you often were not working and not being paid. On one day British Leyland had 300 separate industrial disputes.

I can’t be the only bemused one?

OP posts:

BlackEyesLikeADollsEyes · 25/05/2024 23:08

ichundich · 25/05/2024 23:07

Electoral suicide.

Has to be the plan, I think.

CelesteCunningham · 25/05/2024 23:08

Is he actually just trawling MN unpopular opinions threads for campaign ideas now?

Anyway, as I said to the nutjob who suggested it on here the other day - I'd like to watch him come over to NI and tell everyone they will have to serve the UK. I'll watch from a safe distance though.

Noras · 25/05/2024 23:09

Here’s some more news - the UK and US plus Japan will be holding regular trilateral exercises on the indo pacific - published 11/4/2024

chocorangeaddict77 · 25/05/2024 23:10

They can absolutely fuck right off with this.

Flandango · 25/05/2024 23:10

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GOTBrienne · 25/05/2024 23:10

I think they underestimate how many probably could get excused. DD is coeliac and isn’t eligible to join the army even if she wanted to, DH has a hereditary form of diabetics. Neither of these would have been diagnosed when they did it in the past.

TheFairyCaravan · 25/05/2024 23:11

Noras · 25/05/2024 22:59

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

We always have huge NATO exercises. They happen all the time. It’s not new. If this was anything to do with any sort of threat, the National Service being proposed would be a complete waste of time.

My dad is 81 next month. He didn’t do National Service. It absolutely pisses me off when people harp on about bringing it back because the youth of today are feral. My Nan used to say that about me and my mates. I’m 53. If people want to join the forces, police, fire service or have a career in the NHS, good for them. If not, leave them alone.

Noras · 25/05/2024 23:15

I come from a family where my uncle and dad served as did my brother. In normal circumstances they don’t want national service so I am worried that there is more to this.

It would be hugely unpopular to anyone under aged 70 so why?

However then I read about a Russia China and Iran launching joint naval drills 15/3/ 2024. There is a new axis of steel. There is ever deepening cooperation between these three. It’s the format for the last 2 world wars with these axis of steel.

cakeorwine · 25/05/2024 23:16

What was National Service? | National Army Museum (nam.ac.uk)

National Service conscripts died on service.

Meanwhile. back in January

"“Before Sanders gave his speech, the MoD issued a clarification, saying it had no plans to advocate a return to national service. The British military has a proud tradition of being a voluntary force and there is absolutely no suggestion of a return to conscription,” the MoD said, adding that £50bn was being invested in the military during the current year."

Army chief says people of UK are ‘prewar generation’ who must be ready to fight Russia | Military | The Guardian

Boarding the troopship ‘Nevasa’ on route to Malaya, 1957

What was National Service? | National Army Museum

In the aftermath of the Second World War (1939-45) the young men of Britain were called up to meet new challenges faced by the nation in a rapidly changing world. National Service, peacetime conscription, was introduced in 1947 for all able-bodied men...

https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/what-was-national-service#:~:text=National%20Service%20was%20a%20standardised%20form%20of%20peacetime,War%20%281950-53%29%2C%20this%20was%20increased%20to%20two%20years.

DonnaBanana · 25/05/2024 23:16

Well I have gone from not really caring if the Tories got back in again to actively wanting to prevent it. Well done Rishi

Beezknees · 25/05/2024 23:16

MaryMaryVeryContrary · 25/05/2024 23:06

This is interesting to be fair. Here we are boo-hissing National Service like it’s some kind of penal colony, when actually some of our much more ‘enlightened’ neighbours are already doing it.

I definitely think (at least on here) the notion of anyone doing anything for the good of society rather than just the individual is massively scoffed at, and probably a part of why the country is shit now - a crap government and a selfish public who seem to think it’s their right to simply take, take, take.

If it was a practical form of National Service, well implemented, I would be all for it - who cares if some teens ‘wouldn’t want to’, doing things you don’t want to do jus good for you (before anyone starts when I was that age I was literally cleaning toilets and working split shifts on NMW - full time. I wasn’t a student and never went to university).

But we can’t seem to implement anything properly so it seems faintly ridiculous

Show quote history

Young people have been completely shafted by the government and this country so why would they want to do them a favour?