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??

Even Conservative Peer Ed Vaizey thinks it's a disastrous idea, have a listen on the link below:

My dsc would be affected if it were brought in in 2025. They said they just wouldn't do it. They already have a career path mapped out, and they already volunteer at a youth centre helping younger kids.

The children from homes with engaged parents will end up in fantastic schemes that will be beneficial to them and the children who don't, the leftovers, will be told to volunteer in charity shops. That's what will happen.

For me, the only way this would work even slightly is that if there was a lottery system for the places so that Sunak's daughter and mine had an equal chance of volunteering at the National Gallery and Age Concern.

I think there are definitely some young individuals who might benefit from military service. Still don't think it should be mandatory though, and also think it's an awfully strange thing to add to your election manifesto. Wouldn't have voted Tory regardless 🤷‍♀️

I work in higher education and don't think that traditional education suits everyone! Far better to teach everyone basic life skills, maths, English, whatever, and then if an individual isn't academically inclined let them pursue something that they are interested in. I don't care if my plumber can do algebra or has read Jane Austen, I care that he can do plumbing, basic maths and is literate.

The Nordic nations are all in Russia's back yard. Two of them even share land borders. Think we might have to control for that before thinking about the feasibility here!

Does anyone else remember when the Tories considered personal freedom a good thing? Now they are as authoritarian as 1970s Labour

This is the Oxford dictionary definition of slave labour. Sounds pretty much exactly the same as what they're proposing:

slave labour
noun
labour which is coerced and inadequately rewarded, or people that do it.
"most of production is carried out by slave labour"

Here's what I don't understand with this argument.

Why would we WANT those types of young adults being in the military? I'm a police officer and come across county lines and grooming gangs more than many, and encounter them more as well.

Trust me, at the moment, we do not want them anywhere near a war zone.

I don't think national service is a bad idea, but I won't leave it to this current iteration of the Tories to balls it up.

This is what I always wonder. Why would the military want them?

This topic is going to need its own section soon
Were the other 10 threads in Active not enough for you @Catchlock ?

Or are you another paid shill?

When I posted this thread first thing this morning I checked and didn't see any on "conscription" so I thought I'd post.
Thanks everyone so much for pointing out that it is obviously a topic people are willing to discuss.
If your not interested the go read about a cat stuck up a tree rather than resorting to name
Calling.

There are plenty of older people who lack discipline. Why are we only picking on teenagers?

So 650k 18 year olds and only 30k military places. Assuming the military are happy and have the resources to train 30k (possibly unwilling) 18 year olds, the third sector and public sector are going to have to pick up the remaining 620k. As a trustee of two charities and having coordinated willing volunteers for a third, the last thing my charities need are to train and manage a bunch of 18 year olds who don’t want to be there and don’t have the correct skills.

It’s just an attention grabbing headline and as soon as you scratch beneath the surface, the whole ‘policy’ falls apart.

Op I agree! It's pure madness and no I don't think older tory voters will want this for their gc!

It's madness and I think he's doing all he can to throw away the election.

Training needs a lot of resource. Charities cannot afford to do this for free, so it would need funding. Where is this money coming from?

Something like this would take years to plan in addition. It would also require a new Governmental department to be set up with new IT systems and staff.

Even if this may be popular with the "grey vote" surely some of these have grandchildren and don't want to see them forced into military service, especially with the world being so volatile right now.

My mind boggles at who would want this...

@SchoolQuestionnaire
Yes they should date it back to those who have never done National Service (which ended in 1963 in the UK). So it should be those in their early 60s, 50s, 40s etc too.
I guess I would fall into this bracket!
I wonder if those spouting for it would think it was a good idea then!

I commented this on another thread but I will also post it here.

I think the idea is to appeal to voters living in poor areas where the 'yoof' are rough around the edges and spend time drinking on parks, nicking stuff, riding mopeds, smoking weed and generally acting like little degenerates. There is a large group of older people who cannot afford to move away from their areas, and may be long term council tenants who are very afraid of these teenagers. These people may have voted labour in the past owing to more working class backgrounds.

As somebody who grew up in a very impoverished area, on a council estate, I used to hear the old boys suggest things like national service regularly. Along with other far fetched and not particularly plausible ideas around boats and immigrants and anything else that ruffled them the wrong way.

It's one of the stupidest plans I've ever heard and would likely result in being nothing more than a way for them to pass huge government contracts on to their Tory friends and siphon even more money away from places that need it. The amount it would cost to implement and enforce could fund the education children from deprived areas desperately need, but that is too sensible and won't make anybody they know any money.

All round ghastly idea.

I'll also add that there is some structure in place to via community service for people who have committed crimes. If they truly wanted to see improvements surely they could create work placements and service roles for young, repeat offenders, eg under 25s, who lack prospects and qualifications. I don't see how punishing all young people would improve anything for the country. If they decided everybody under the age of 65 had to do it opinions would be very different, but most members of the public has a huge lack of empathy and disregard for anybody who isn't themselves.

I think it's a ridiculous idea and won't work well and will be a waste of taxpayers money.

Most of the 18 year olds won't be joining the military because they won't be suitable.

The rest of decent 18 year olds will already be in paid work either full time or alongside university. They will do the voluntary work just fine. But these kids will be upstanding citizens anyway so the scheme will simply interrupt their paid work.

The ones who like need some direction in their lives won't be suitable for voluntary work and if they are forced will be a much use as a chocolate teapot. Or they will find loopholes to get out of doing it.

A large proportion will be exempt either through genuine illness/disability or some will find loopholes.

It will cost billions to implement and be no use to anyone 🤷‍♀️

But it's a great headline grabber for certain types of people who hark back to a 'golden era' that they probably didn't live in anyway.

If they're going to bring in national service then every single adult should have to do it including myself.

There are plenty of waste of space types of all ages.

I was reading about it out-of interest ,and they only brought it in after the second world war ,and by the end of 50,s greatly reduced the numbers of who was eligible and did away with it completely by 1963
So in the great scheme of things not that many people would have actually been forced to do.national.service
My Dad is 82 and he didn't do it.

Totally agree with this! I think they've sealed their fate now. And I'm actually beginning to think that they don't want to win, judging by the high number of Tory MPs who have said they will be standing down before the election.

I think that's more about acceptance of the inevitable. If they thought they were going to win, or at least had a fighting chance, many more would be willing to contest their seats.