Mandatory National Service for 18 yr olds Sunak decrees

[Heavenssakes]

How do you feel about mandatory National Service for 18 year olds - Sunak says he will introduce it if he wins election.

This is so not what I want for my DC, nor something they want to do. 1 years military service, when they have worked hard towards getting into Uni, and developing a career?

It's like steppng back into the 1950s.

Only saving grace, I can't imagine the forces wanting or being able to deal with thousands of press-ganged kids.

I fear for Sunak's sanity.

https://news.sky.com/story/sunak-says-he-will-bring-back-national-service-if-tories-win-general-election-13143184

Cleverly said There’s going to be no criminal sanction.

What you're describing ultimately has a criminal sanction.

The things they said yesterday (mandatory) don't align with what they've said today (no criminal sanction).

Yes, there does need to be some ironing out and consistency in comms.

Because it's not a real policy. Just a gimmick.

I personally think some kind of mandatory volunteering for 18 year olds is not a bad idea, that can include armed services if they choose it. Weekend charitable volunteering can help young people develop people skills, empathy, a work ethic etc.

Not doing it should not result in any punishment financial or otherwise though.

Like any of these announcements, irrepective of which party it comes from, the MSM will only pull out the juicy bits for the headlines, the details are the important information. But in theory I think it could be useful.

Well, let’s see what happens.

Almost every noncriminal sanction leads to a criminal one if you refuse the noncriminal one. If you don’t have this, then it’s not mandatory. The only one I can think of that would not would be making student finance only for those who do the National service. And that would make it not mandatory, but apply economic duress to bright, poor young people.

My trust in what the Tories have said is that the mandatory part is true, and the no criminal sanction is not entirely true. As politicians, they are not held to same standards of truth as journalists and advertisers.

Yep, like a fixed number of hours of community service. Oh, hang on....

This whole thing is ridiculous.

If exclusions were applied it would in the context of refusing a business licence or making you ineligible student finance for Uni.

Brilliant, so rich families who don’t need student finance and can pay their kids’ fees directly for them can just not worry and let them avoid National Service that way.

An excellent use of ‘levelling up’ funding…

Governments have always forced or coerced the working class to be their cannon fodder. I have a feeling this is more of the same.

And in breaking news……rich people have a more comfortable life and more opportunity than the rest of us. Shocker.

SummerFeverVenice
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Governments have always forced or coerced the working class to be their cannon fodder. I have a feeling this is more of the same.

To be fair to the other classes, many of their young officers were slaughtered leading their men during WW1.

Yes, but the money is coming from levelling up funds. There's a certain irony...

Not as many…disproportionally lower

I think those who have truly benfited from what society has given them should be the focus here. They're the ones who should be conscripted/made to volunteer one w/e a month.

So many 18 year olds have had such short shrift from society, why should they do anything more for it. They are lost, uneducated, hardly sheltered, no future.

Like Mrs sunak would let her kids do it?!

nuts

at least it might galvanise more 18 year olds to vote this year

Why didn't he wait until after the election to implement it. Couldn't he wait to see if he won, and then when he won, announce it.

As someone just said to me here, "it's not exactly an election vote winner is it"

He said he does want his kids to do it

We already have National Citizens Service. My DD did it while at school.
Otherwise, it’s just ridiculous. What about all the 18-year-olds who are working? Are young soldiers going to have to do volunteer work as well?

I’m sure she would let them do a bit of (carefully chosen) voluntary work as long as it was nowhere too grubby. It’s not like they would be putting their Saturday job wages on the line!

Volunteering work is much easier to squeeze in when you haven’t already got to go to paid work to make ends meet.

I suspect that this is a tactical squirrel news story, just put anything out there that dominates the Sunday newspapers and tv news rather than pictures of Rishi looking like a drowned rat. As long as the attention is not on Labour then they are happy. Next week will be something about inheritance tax or another half baked headline grabber.

Yes perhaps a carefully chosen photo op role before they fly off to Harvard or something

kids can do d of e if it’s about volunteering

agree that it’s about grabbing headlines over the next few weeks - desperate

The Tories don't have the cash to fund the NHS properly but apparently they have the cash to pay loads of unskilled teenagers to do national service in the NHS??

That’s a good point actually - teens who are from wealthier homes will be able to afford to continue to study and do the volunteering, whereas students who need to work weekends to afford to study will not.

Bollocks isn’t it?

It’s a distraction from the trail of destruction that the tories have left in our basic services.