AIBU to think no one agrees with conscription. Does Rushi want to loose the election? This feels like a threat not and election promise?

[Catchlock]

This has been popping up on my SM overnight. I feel like Rushinis doing his best to throw this election.

Who exactly thinks Conscription is a good idea and how would it work??

In terms of why Sunak announced it, it’s called a “blinder”. It’s become all people can talk about. Obscuring discussion of other policies than Labour wanted to have on the table. It obviously won’t win over many voters from other parties. That’s not what it is intended to do. But it is likely to bring out to the polls voters who are natural Tory voters but who might not have bothered to vote given it all seemed a lost cause. This is something they can really get behind and will bring them out to vote. It’s a very clever; albeit cynical ploy. I don’t think it will turn the Tory chances around entirely. But I do think it will likely save a few seats.

I’m so confused by the fuss.
There are approx 750,000 18 yr olds on average every year of which 4% would do military service that’s 30,000 students. They won’t be on the front line and being bombed and shot at either as some people seem to think.

The rest would volunteer for one day every other week for approx a year.

Do people so hate the idea of volunteering.
My son has been volunteering two days a week for nearly a year now.
8am - 6pm and it takes him two hours to get there each way using a bus and a train. I asked him what he thought about the proposals and he also doesn’t understand why people are so anti volunteering, but then he volunteered during his Alevels so maybe he’s just used to the concept of giving.

This policy is very similar to the one Macron introduced in 2021.

I do have children in their 20s and they think the idea is nuts. Easy for your son to say that he would have enjoyed it but actions speak louder than words and the fact that he has made no attempt to join the reserves tells a different story.

Well at least I won’t have many votes to count then 🤣🤣

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
As the article says it’s all too little too late. Once you have moved over to the dark side ( private) no amount of promises would entice you back. It’s so not about the money, so much about the work environment and job satisfaction.

Those are people who’ve joined up and generally seen action, not ones that have done National service, obviously.

People don't hate the idea of volunteering but if you are forced to do something, by definition you are not volunteering. Being forced to do unpaid work is more akin to slavery than volunteering.

@LakeTiticaca
Do you honestly think feral teenagers will obligingly turn up and do as asked?

The question is why are they feral in the first place?
Lack of hope that education will get them a better life. Lack of real jobs that will get them of benefits. Lack of hope they'll ever have a decent life.

How do you give them all hope?

That’s interesting.
Do Singapore and Israel have a voluntary option or is it all military based ?

Not at all. A year in the army was not on offer to him so he hasn't had a chance to try it. He now has a full time job which often involves staying away so the TA is not an option, even if he wanted to join. He has no desire to devote his time to military activities or make a career of it BUT if he had been offered the chance of it for a year after leaving school, he would have jumped at it. Then got on with the rest of his life plans.
I never said he was itching to play soldiers in any form just that he wouldn't have been averse to a year of it, if it had been available.
Again, the point of my post was to point out that not all YP would say no to this idea.

The point was to do it for free - as National Service. If 18 y.o. are expected to do jobs for free why not others ( dentists) give back to the community.
And my comment was not serious and absolutely sarcastic to illustrate the stupidity of this National service idea. However can I remind you that the we have had Conservatives in government for 14 years and exactly during these years the NHS dental service has come to a complete decline. I had no problem finding NHS dentist and using while it was Labour. And the actual service was actually better.
It’s not about names in the Government: Labour, Conservatives or someone else. I’d be happy with Conservatives in the Government if they were good - but they are not.

I’m the same as you re GC mother so have issues there too re the party’s

Can I ask why you feel volunteering for 2 days a month at the weekends ( it seems ) for approx a year would ‘massively impact your children’ .

@Sluj I'm sure employers have a legal obligation to release employees for TA activities.

It sounds like he thinks the army would be a bit of fun, the reality would be much different

Maybe - but he doesn't want to join the army or the reserves but wouldnt have minded doing it for a year. There's a difference.

How does he know what the difference is? He wants to do the thing he can't do and doesn't know anything about but doesn't want to do the things he is eligible to do.

@x2boys Thank you for your post. I found it interesting. I didn't know that they eventually reduced the numbers of who was eligible. I wonder why they did that; maybe because it was no longer working? I don't know. My Dad would be 86 if he was still with us. He did National Service. He enjoyed some of it and always said that he learned to cook and keep his things tidy, but he was also bullied for his nationality and religion (Irish Catholic) and was greatly traumatised by seeing his friend blown up and killed in front of him whilst conscripted to Cyprus. He was also told at the age of eighteen to hide behind a bush in Cyprus and shoot any "terrorists" that went past. He was terririfed and didn't want to be there. I can't help but think of this when I hear the wail of "bring back National Service". It's very rarely from anyone who actually did it. I would love to know exactly why it was stopped in the 1960s and what my Dad would think of all this. I also wonder how the Tories think it can be forced onto people. I know for my Dad it was conscription or prison.

Exactly, by its very definition, National Service is ‘not’ volunteering! What is about other people but lets face it other generations that have never had to do NS, that are so endlessly generous with other peoples’ time!

Bah. There would be funding for this rubbish but not schooling, care, and other policies for children and young people? I think it is just rubbish to salve the votes of the older right; who will claim that their own efforts in the local bird sanctuary or charity shop makes them very worthy people. It’s more division, designed to appeal to those who like feeling morally superior.

Of course if it were serious, what it would admit is that we will need to have conscription at some point in which case we need to spend to expand the facilities to train individuals in the armed services. People are right to suspicious; Britain would struggle to introduce conscription without some of these basic structures in place.

The idea that the Armed Services are a place of moral improvement is a joke. It is a place where punching others is considered a leisure activity. It is often violent and brutal, and all the officer class in the world can’t obscure that reality.

Given how hard it is increasingly becoming to get children to attend school, I'm amused at wondering how they intend to police attendance. And even more amused at considering, should they succeed, how those managing the unwilling will 'enjoy' trying to manage them.

The logistics and costs of this, of course,.would be simply handed over at great public expense to some Tory mates.

Because why would it benefit them to give up 24 days of their life to “volunteer” for something that they don’t want to do. If they want to spend time in the police or NHS or fire brigade then they can genuinely volunteer. (I did actually volunteer for the NHS as a teenager - it was useful and valuable. Because I had a genuine reason for wanting to do it.)

Otherwise it is just a waste of their (very valuable) time.

@happybluefern Me too! Just like you, it made me think of "Yes, Minister" or "The Thick of It". Some half arsed idea that a couple of wallies talking over a desk at Westminster came up with late at night after a few whiskies and now they don't know how to get out of it.

Thank you, it’s behind the paywall unfortunately.

Can I reiterate that my comment was sarcastic to illustrate the stupidity of this Tories idea about National service.

Because that is when my son works in order to fund his studies and pay for things like food. A lot of the countries that do this give a range of years you can do it like 18-25, and do free tuition and even have grants still.

I'll be all for it once I see evidence of Rishi Sunak in his army uniform, being yelled at to get out of his army issue bed at 5 am every day for a year and sent out marching up and down a yard. Then I might vote for him and his lovely idea.

Have you done it in your birth country?