National Service if Tories are re-elected

[MaryMaryVeryContrary]

Thoughts? 🍿

Brilliant 🤣

before anyone starts when I was that age I was literally cleaning toilets and working split shifts on NMW - full time

Nice for you. Now imagine your old boss wanting to recruit someone to work full time split shifts. Does she pick an 18yo who can’t work certain weekends because they are doing their compulsory volunteering, or a 19yr or older who is more flexible.
When I was 18 I went to university. I didn’t have much financial support, although it was grants back then I didn’t get much. I worked around 25 hours a week, but with a science degree I had a lot of contact hours too - around 30 usually. I worked in hospitality like most people because it’s evening and weekend work. A few people worked in retail, but again, mostly weekends. How is a student supposed to support themselves with a retail or hospitality job when they can’t work weekends? They can’t, but people like Rishi think young people only work for the experience or because it’s character building. The idea that an 18yo is working to put food in their belly is absolutely alien.

With respect you’re teaching your grandmother to suck eggs here. DS1 has been in the army for 10yrs. DH served 35yrs in the RAF, retiring 2 years ago.

This National Service they are proposing is utterly ridiculous and useless. It’s a 12 month placement in the military. DH’s trade training was longer than that, and DS1’s was just short of 11mths.

So please tell me what exactly are they meant to do with these kids? They won’t be able to do the same jobs as the people who are mentoring them. They will be sitting there, watching them do their day to day jobs, bored out of their heads, while people like DS1 have to do their jobs, keep an eye on their juniors and look after kids who are going to be in the way. It’s ridiculous.

Would just end up like a teenagers version of Dads Army. Ridiculous idea.

That's the kind of question I hope Sunak gets asked on this.

What about the 18 year old who is at University?
Do they have to do it?
What if they have a job to pay for it?
Will it affect their studies?
What if they go home in May / June? Then what?

It's all in the detail.

18-year-olds can already work in the NHS by getting a job in it and paid a decent wage! I know one that does.

One of the biggest problems with volunteering is all the security checks and DBS clearance, it's worse for places like the police, cyber security and the military, our students haven't been able to volunteer to work in prisons for ages as it takes too long for the clearance to come through and it's not that desirable for them to be taken on for only a short amount of time.

IF there was something brewing, RS wouldn't have called a GE and be announcing it as an idea in the unlikely event they are reelected. It would have been introduced with cross part support if it was necessary. KS would also know something was brewing.

Stop trying to scare people.

Precisely. It's almost laughable.

If done right I think it can do wonders. If he in support, if enough finances were invested to make sure it's well run and sufficient support and structure is provided.

Outdated for the UK perhaps but you do realise many countries have national service still?

And just when I thought the Tories had done everything possible to ensure I don't vote for them, they give me a further extremely good reason. What an utterly awful idea. I would not want my child to be forced into doing this.

Some of our children learn to cook at home, so don’t need National Service to do it. Plenty do not suit it and are not interested or do not align with the values, therefore it becomes pretty pointless. It infringes on personal freedoms. It’s being brought up purely to gain votes (though that’s an irony in itself) and therefore, even with the current political situations, it can’t be taken on a really serious level as it addresses none of the issues the Tories have created and worsened in the last decade. Those who do want to be there will be negatively impacted by those who don’t and probably vice versa. It can promote Nationalism. (Apparently, this happened to some extent when Macron brought it in in France.)

At the same time, a huge number of our children are stuck waiting to get help with physical health problems, mental health problems and support for neurodiversity. A large majority of those children may not be at a point where they can or should be involved in the military or doing community service at 18yo. If they choose to pursue it, that’s different. The generation targeted will have had education interrupted by COVID, huge university fees, Brexit, an underfunded NHS and connected services, underfunded schools among many other things to deal with. Why target them? Maybe they’d prefer to make some choices for themselves, I’m sure they’d be a darn sight better at it than Rishi.

This is a policy which will be popular with the old, and laughed at by the young. Sunak is trying to stop pensioners defecting to Reform en masse.

Will this be for both male and female young people ?

Well that could be fun, watching MN all of a sudden being all for transitioning young people.

As a PP pointed out, we are not boomers. We are generation X. My full grant covered my accommodation, food, books and equipment and even a few pints through the week. A part time summer holiday job provided further fun money.

Just caught a couple of Sky News segments on YouTube focusing on China and Taiwan. We have Ukraine. We have Gaza. Iran are boasting about their nuclear capability.

I'm beginning to think someone's mistaken 1984 for a fucking handbook .... "We have always been at war.... etc" (sic).

And while this plan, which PPs have pointed out us unworkable for a myriad of reasons, it might just start seeping into people's heads that we do seem to be heading for involvement in global conflicts. Start by marketing it as career enhancing opportunities in 2025, and then if it does all kick off bring it forward. Nothing would surprise me these days.

We're way past strange and interesting times... there's either too much coke going round Downing Street or the lizard overlords are tightening the thumbscrews. (Obvs the lizard thing is a joke).

Think I'll crack out a Tom Lehrer track. "We'll All Go Together When We Go" perhaps?

We're way beyond parody now.

I think ds would quite enjoy it, and he'd be the first year to do it
The girls would have hated it, so glad they're older.

There were comments made by the army - General Patrick Saunders speech in January 2024 who said that the UK public must be prepared to take up arms in a war against Putin because todays professional military is too small. Sunak then said there would be no national service.

Russia has become increasingly aggressive and this conscription debate or action is becoming. European wide.

Clearly something has happened.

The army now wants it when all along I had been told that the army is too elitist and professional to want a bunch of kids.

I think he doesn't want to get back in.

And there it hits a brick wall.

The armed forces criteria would rule many people out, a lot of people that apply to join already don't make it past the selection process or through basic training for a whole host of reasons.

Medically it would rule anyone with mh conditions, epilepsy, asthma etc that's thousands already off the list for any of the armed forces and police/fire volunteers.

Personally I think teenagers need to do some form of volunteering. They're all so rude these days it would do them god

@Noras That's a ridiculous suggestion, though. Another example of uk thinking it's a huge country. 66 million and broke, versus 145 million in Russia and not broke.

Yep, it's an absolutely genius idea. Create the most disenfranchised generation ever by taking away even the semblance of hope of prosperity away from them, then give them firearms and combat training.

I'm sure it'll work out brilliantly.