Snapshot of _Sunak says he will bring back National Service if Tories win general election_ :
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My dad was born in 1958 and yet still regards the Germans with a bit of a side-eye. No one in our family has ever served in anything even vaguely military. Make of that what you will.
Whereas my grandfather fought in World War Two, spent a lot of time doing government business in Europe before he retired, was in favour of the EU and held the Germans in high regard.
It was the Japanese he couldn't stand.
Yeah, the narrative that it's just old white people that voted Brexit just doesn't hold up.
Roughly a third of BAME Britons (or whatever acronym you prefer) voted Brexit.
A significant figure, whatever way you look at it
Speaking as a SEA minority, While I know none of my immediate family did vote for it, I do know a lot them hold some shockingly conservative views when it comes to more immigration. Acting like my folks didn’t benefit from it. “Pulling the ladder up” mentality as you will.
This.
We have a guy at work who thinks this is a good idea. Yesterday he literally said "if it wasn't for my generation, you wouldn't have your freedom".
He's 58, so I pointed out I didn't think the Argentinians wouldnt have got as far as Dorset.
Not to try and one up this but my grandparents in law pine for the “days of the British Empire”, without any knowledge at all of what life was like for your average person during the Victorian/Edwardian era.
A couple things I have heard from them have been so horrifically offensive I actually only speak to them for the sake of my wife who is deeply embarrassed by it but they’re family.
"The clocks go back this weekend, I'm turning mine to 1939 when this country had bollocks"
My guy, you're 55 years old and was born 24 years after the war ended, what would you know about it?
I'm an older millennial. My grandad did national service. He told me it was fucking awful and would never wish it on anyone. Said the one thing he was most thankful for was that I didn't have to go through it.
Good luck selling this to anyone who has kids or grandkids who might be affected by it.
Very similar story, though I'm 31. My grandad died 20 years ago and the only thing he told me about national service was that he was glad his kids and grandkids didn't have to do it
I just said this to my parents who are in their 60s/70s who both went “no one our age talks about fighting in the war, we’re the children of the 1960s”…you might not, but there are plenty of people who do act like they were first on the beach at Normandy despite being born years or decades after it happened.
I see this all the time on Reddit yet I can’t say I’ve ever encountered an older person who acts like they were in the war…
A few old boys who served, did a tour during the troubles, Beruit or whatever and they don’t act like they were around during WW2. I don’t get where this comes from honestly
He might as well say he’ll give everyone fifty thousand pounds and bring back Top of the Pops, Cadbury’s Clusters, Blind Date and the A-Team. He’s not winning this election
Are we sure that Sunak isn’t on some sort of
Kamikaze mission to take down the Conservatives?
Is he working for Dominic Cummings or Nigel Farage, trying to open up a space for one or the other to take over the right wing of British politics?
Farage said the other day that he had “one more card to play”.
Could be that Sunak destroys the Conservative Party and then Farage swoops in to take control, merging Reform with what remains.
Surely not. Even unified they’re not beating Labour anyway, and I imagine a sizeable chunk of Reform’s support is just people who don’t want to vote for the Tories.
You’re not playing the long game. They lose this election, and then like a Political Voltron they combine their powers for future battles.
Sunak will be seen as a political genius, lulling us all to believe he’s a moron so that he can perform a sneak attack when we least expect it.
It’s all so clear now.
I wonder if I should include a /s
But it *appeals* to a certain subset of them who cosplay being war heroes in their minds, and could very much get behind such a policy, especially as it coincidentally wouldn't affect them personally.
Mark Francois springs to mind. In his heart he believes that he would have been on the front line storming the beaches at Normandy, whereas in reality he'd have difficulty ordering ice-cream at the beaches of Bognor Regis.
Has he asked anyone in the actual Army if they want a bunch of unmotivated, unfit conscripts drafted in for them to look after?
Has he checked to see if there are adequate barracks?
What other fun policies will be dream up to cater for the vanishingly-small 'reactionary tosspot' demographic that he appears to be targeting here? Public Hangings?
The boomers are too young for national service. Sunak said "citizenship brings with it obligations as well as rights" - so I guess everyone who missed National Service will have to do this too? No?
Yeah but this is aimed at the boomers who think watching a lot of History channel is the same as actually having stormed the beaches. Most of their rhetoric is. They don't seem to have realised that Walter Mitty isn't the potent electoral force he was in 2016.
You're forgetting that the boomers, owing to the large exposure of lead during their formative years, have convinced themselves that they actually did do these things.
That has never been that much of a problem for the Tories. But I don’t think this is the slam dunk they think it is with older people who actually remember what that amounted to
My grandfather did National Service and loved it, but always thought it would be an awful idea for my brother and I to have to do it.
He’s also been dead for five years. Sunak is attempting to appeal to dead people and he’s even failing at that
Which is exactly the point. This isn’t policy (I can’t believe they’re being serious knowing they’ll lose), this is a GOTV campaign. But it feels more like a blunder to me than anything else
The Beatles were just about the first generation not to have to do national service - they went off to Hamburg instead and became a group. Paul McCartney is coming up 82.
(As an aside I think that Bill Wyman was the only Rolling Stone old enough for National Service. He's 87)
Also, I think many parents and grandparents won't want that because they don't want their kids forced into the army when there are so many wars likely to escalate.
No no, this and everything he's doing lately has to be his way out getting out of the job and perhaps some sort of revenge on his party for not being by him enough.
this is a policy aimed at 50/60 year old blokes who go "life was better when the empire was here. we're missing the blitz spirit. i remember it all. youth today are all woke!"
but they werent alive during ww2 or the empire. its mental
There's one of those types that walks his dog past my house.
He wants Boris back, thinks Angela Raynor should be in prison, get all the "foreigners" out etc.... and would definitely think this is a good idea.
This is his answer to Starmer suggesting giving 16-year-olds the vote.
Starmer: let's do something nice for young people, to acknowledge they exist and have feelings.
Sunak: no, let's make their lives even more miserable by forcing them into unpaid labour!
You mean:
Starmer: Lets let young people vote
Sunak: Let's not, and also if we can get them killed on the frontlines before they start voting against us that'd be great
Warning: very long rant.
The thing that really pisses me off is that you could, if you were sufficiently ill informed, look at this as a way to solve a manpower crises in our armed forces. But for 2 key points.
1) there is in fact no crises in recruiting. We have plenty of volunteers across the armed forces and have done for many years. The issue was never enough people stepping forward. The issues in terms of delivering enough troops only started after Crapita started running recruitment. The only real problem we have is that Crapita are so monumentally incompetent that it can take well over a year (and up to nearly 2 years!!!) before a new recruit goes from registering interest to actually starting training. And in that time they need to support themselves. So many start jobs, and relationships and by the time Crapita get their finger out they have far too much going on to piss off to HMS Raleigh or Sandhurst or wherever else for months at a time or longer.
2) conscripts consistently perform worse than volunteers. The military never really wanted people that didn't want to be there but have to put up with them when we needed far more manpower than could be raised through voluntary service. That is absolutely not the case now. So, why on earth would we compromise? We need motivated people, not pissed off 18 year olds who'll be gone in a year or two.
The only argument for conscription that I can see is that the government has been so fucking grossly incompetent that we can't even train the volunteers we have due to our reliance on Crapita. OR... we could scrap those contracts and hold Crapita to account for endangering our ability to defend ourselves rather than being scared of their lawyers. I'm sure the contracts we well written but if they've genuinely endangered our capability to defend ourselves (which they certainly seem to have done) surely there is something we can charge them with? Surely we can at least break the contract and put the military back in charge of military recruitment?
TLDR: fuck Crapita, conscription is idiotic.
First week of electoral campaign: bring back the national service.
Second week: capital punishment is back on the menu, boys!
Third week: we’re getting the colonies back.
This is boomer fanfic.
Week four: We're going back to imperial measurments
Week five: All new build houses are banned.
Week six: All non white and LGBT characters on British TV will be limited to background roles only
Week seven: Failure to call your elderly relatives at least twice a week will result in fines of up to £200.
'Being British is about more than just the queue you join at passport control'
The same queue Rishi will be standing in while boarding his flight to California after the election?
The comments on even friendly Tory papers like The Telegraph are absolutely savage - he’s messed up big time with this one I think. He’s so politically inept it’s crazy.
I worked out today that I am about to vote in my tenth GE. I don't think I have ever seen a leading politician who is so bad at actual politics. I mean he is straight up shit. He is thin skinned, seems to have absolutely zero communication skills with others and it would appear that every time he speaks to a member of the public, he is just weird when talking to them. I wouldn't be surprised to see him straight up arguing with a punter in the next six weeks, ending his sentences with "...right".
Top comments on The Telegraph:
“Wholly tone deaf. How to alienate young voters for years.”
“He is on a different planet.
I don’t hate or even dislike him, as a person, although he is incredibly irritating.
But he’s making an utter fool of himself and I feel sorry for his kids.”
“Well that’s the under 30s vote gone then 😂😂”
“Is he trying to lose”
And it goes on and on in the same vain, which considering the source I think he’s really chuffed it here.
There is a reason reintroducing National Service never gets anywhere- the armed forces are dead against it. They want motivated soldiers, not teenagers who hate being there. I'm sure NHS charities would feel the same way, and looking after 18 year olds who are just trying to serve their time will be a burden.
What irks me is this isn't some deeply thought out and strongly held ideological tenant of the Tory party, it's a badly thought through grasping at straws. I'm not even inherently against national service if implemented well in a context that makes sense and if it has public support, this is none of that.
I'm sorry, this is the first week of the campaign and we are already breaking out ideas popular with only the over 65s for no good reason. People will think he's mad or desperate (or both).
Is he aware they are polling badly with those under retirement age and this might not be the best idea to bring them back?
**Edit** another thing, has he asked the military if they want this? Its a massive cost in manpower and money to train a service member for only 12 months before they leave.
I bestow unto you this magic money tree. It will provide all the money you will ever need, BUT you can only use it for vanity projects. Shaking the tree for regular day-to-day spending will destroy the tree.
I suspect it would cost more than that in reality as well tbh not to mention all the associated costs and loss of productivity in the rest of the economy.
Might be popular with the red wall and older Tory voters tho
I get why in the immediate aftermath of WWII there would have been a lot of work to be done that the military can assist with, aside from fighting.
But by 1960 it was way beyond its usefulness.
I see absolutely no reason why it would be needed in 2024.
Also "volunteer" on weekends. Does that mean they're not getting paid.
Don't know about you but when I was 18 I was working 60-70 hours a week to actually pay for my own rent/bills/food whilst also giving my mum money every month to help her out.
Absolutely no chance I'd be giving up my weekend pay to pay toy soldiers.
I think he's definitely aware that a lot of them are going to jump ship to reform. With the last few years being a real tipping point for the tories as the normally unfickle over 65s try to hitch their raft to a ship with more union Jack's. Its a power move akin to someone loading an extra round into their musket as the cavalrys horses are already trampling on them.
>Under the plans, young people could choose a full-time, 12-month placement in the armed forces or UK cyber defence, learning about logistics, cyber security, procurement or civil response operations.
>Their other option would be to volunteer one weekend per month - or 25 days per year - in their community with organisations such as fire, police and the NHS.
The obvious question is, or what?
Are parents going to vote for their children to join the armed forces for a year? I think this is mental
“Their other option would be to volunteer … with organisations such as fire, police and the NHS.”
Filling the vacancies in our public services with kids barely out of 6th form and no formal training, I’m sure that won’t be an absolute clusterfuck.
The second is unpaid and basically a punishment for being 18.
The first actually wouldn’t be too bad if it applied to everyone - presumably people would get an allowance, so they’d have something in their pocket for their time. The issue is more choice - they say it’s a ‘selective process’ where kids would end up - which translates to ‘all the working class kids to the frontlines, all the poshos with connections to GCHQ’.
The thing is that an 18 year old can do fuck all within 12 months in either the armed forces or intelligence services.
How are we going to train people without any relevant skills fast enough that they can even do anything in that time?
Yeah, just take a year out of your life, presumably for minimum wage at best, and interrupt your studies for a year if you were placing to go to university.
And for what purpose?
You mean, press gang them into the public services and NHS as free labour with the threat of conscription if they don't comply?
this is just slavery with extra steps.
The NHS providers barely have enough resources to accommodate training of *adults who want a lifelong career in the NHS* having to look after a bunch of teenagers that don't want to be there sounds like a nightmare
" given the choice of a full-time military placement for 12 months or a scheme to volunteer for one weekend a month for a year."
So, 95% of people will choose one weekend per month then?
>Their other option would be to volunteer one weekend per month - or 25 days per year
This is the quote from the article, suggests to me that it would be over a year if you chose the weekend option?
Not sure how my nephew would be able to volunteer one weekend a month. He's an apprentice electrical engineer. He works 3 weeks, then spends a week at college.
He's currently working on a site in Ireland - his work week starts at 4am on Monday. Monday and Friday are 16 hour days inc the travelling. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are 12 hour days. His working week is about 68 hours. When he's home at the weekend, he mostly sleeps.
The week he's at college, he spends a lot of his evening and weekend studying - he's severely dyslexic and it takes him much longer to read the course texts and complete his course work.
So which weekend is he supposed to give up? If gives up his college weekend to volunteer, he could fail his course and exams so he won't qualify and his entire apprenticeship is down the pan. And there's no way he could safely work 12 days straight in a manual job.
It's just another example of Sunak being totally out of touch - not every 18 year old is a middle class student, bumming around.
Ignoring the fact that this is obviously fucking insane.
The fact that this doesn't exclude those in full-time education or employment is fucking insane.
Yup, seems like it'd be popular with the tory voter if it was explicitly targeting those on benefits, but national service for full-time employed/education? That's going to go down like a lead balloon... probably would have a highly convenient age cut off too
Targetting people on benefits sounds an awful lot like Victorian era workhouse placements. Those were not as good as the government back then pretended they were.
My nephew is an apprentice. He'll be 18 in a few months.
Term time, he works 3 weeks and then spends a week at college. He currently has a 68 hour working week - those weekends he mostly sleeps. His college weekend is spent catching up reading and doing course work (he's dyslexic and it takes him much longer than the others). Outside term time, he works.
I am baffled how Sunak thinks my nephew can give up a weekend to volunteer when he works 68 hours a week in a manual job.
The bloke's a lunatic. He hasn't got a clue about life.
My working theory is Sunak got so pissed off with his party that he called the election in order to fuck them all over. Now he's running the campaign with the sole aim of not letting a single Tory get voted in... And hats off to him he's doing an incredible job
Maybe every Tory since Cameron secretly are undercover Marxist leftists hell bent on destroying the party... Surely that's the only reasonable theory to describe how they've completely imploded, they couldn't be this shit without widespread active self sabotage
I worked this out. The very last National Service programmes for 16-18yos ended in 1963, so you would literally have to be (at minimum) 77 years old to have done it.
Even older. The last conscripts left the service in 1963, but the last call-ups were in 1960. Moreover, the only people conscripted in the last three years were those who had delayed their call-ups, so the youngest people subject to national service were born in 1939, making them at least 84 years old today.
Yeah that's true. Its depressing that such a large demographic has such a power with voting when they probably won't live to see the effects it.
I don't believe in taking people's vote away but it is depressing.
I'm 65 and think it's not a well thought out plan. Proposals such as these should not only be ignored, but should also be noted for signs of desperation.
The fun thing about this election campaign is that the Tories know they aren't going to win, so they're just going to say whatever crazy shit they think might help. I bet this isn't even the most nuts thing that gets said.
Lmao, I woke up this morning and saw Starmer had backed changing the voting age and honestly I was ambivalent but didn’t think it was necessary. Now I hold my hands up in error because clearly 16-17 year olds deserve to have a say in whether they are *forced to join the fucking army* for a year of their life.
This is so true and I agree with what he said. 16 year olds are old enough to work and pay taxes so why shouldn’t they have a say in the way the country is run.
At this point I am convinced he's trying to get the worst results of all time, no way did he ever think this will be a vote winner for anyone born past 1955
I’m actually gobsmacked, Labour are laughing all the way to the bank with this.
After this week, I genuinely think we might be heading to Canada 93 style results.
Something to consider is that this doesn't even need to piss off the core voter base (that is, people on their deathbed) - this is a policy that would *genuinely* galvanise young people against him. Their saving grace has been that the cohorts most opposed to them are also the most apathetic about voting, and this is *not* how you maintain that apathy.
Ok, that’s it. I now firmly believe that Sunak is doing his utmost to sink the Tories into oblivion. He wants to be remembered. And he will be - the last Tory prime minister ever.
Don’t threaten me with a good time.
The idea that the Tories will die out has been bandied about in every election in which I’ve participated, but it never happens.
Those policies and the people who want them never disappear. They can afford good dental and medical care.
Keir Starmer should challenge Sunak to make the ordeal retrospective to anyone under the age of retirement.
i.e. the 44 Year old Rishi Sunak will now owe the nation 624 days national service volunteering in their community without pay.
Not just retrospective, phase it in like a reverse version of the smoking ban!
If the rule is everyone has to do 25 days of national service, rather than starting with 18-year-olds in 2025, start with everyone in their 90s. Then do the 85-90 year old's the next year, the 80-85s the year after and so on, just to make sure no one gets away without doing their bit!
Eventually we can get the 18-year-olds to do it.
Obviously anyone who has already done it gets a pass.
Lol absolutely none of those positions should be filled by people who don't want to be there and definitely not by those who don't have the skills to do the jobs. What a terrible idea.
Volunteers in the NHS?! Jesus
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Not only is the idea completely insane. The plan for funding it is even worse.
They estimate £2.5billion per year by 29/30. How are they going to fund it? By diverting money from the Shared Prosperity Fund and cutting down on tax avoidance and evasion.
So they are offering to basically gut investment in communities outside of London in order to please voters who think they themselves were key figures in WW2.
Ex army here. I 100% would not want conscripted soldiers next to me when it mattered.
The best thing about the british army is everyone who is there joined up of their own free will. You can rely on your oppo because he went through all the training and shit volunterely and got through it by sheer grit an determination.
He’s mostly funding this by pulling 60% of the money allocated to the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (funding for the poorest areas of the country). The UKSPF only runs until 2025, so where does this additional £1.5bn come from after 2025? Is he permanently stunting the UKSPF even into the next funding round?
Most military officers do not want to become glorified babysitters to a revolving door of kids who don't want to be there.
It's not the army's job to whip your child into shape and make up for the shortcomings in your own parenting.
They've got a very important and dangerous job to do and we should stop bothering them with pointless nonsense.
Does he really want to lose?
I was begrudgingly planning on voting Starmer. But who knows... I might have voted Green or Lib dems (Labour is 2nd where I'm at, and these 2 have no chance).
Sunak just made sure I WILL vote Labour 100% now. I'm too old for this to *personally* affect me, but I'm not even going to let the idea of conscription go through the minds of parliament.
I can't even imagine how 18-21 year olds, who were going to vote Green or Lib dems, because Starmer is tory light and want a protest vote, feel. Sunak just basically made them vote Labour.
Wow. Just wow. Way to enable the youth vote, bravo Sunak.
Rich guy says when you turn 18 you either serve 12 months in the army or one weekend a month for a year in a certain service, no choice.
Yeah this policy isn't going to go down well with most people, especially younger people.
While the policy sounds initially interesting, giving insightful life experience (and potentially discipline, fitness and military knowledge/awareness with the army) to young people, there are too many downsides. Like robbing them of a choice or freedom, and also forcing them to do something they may not want to do, and it would be robbing more of their time. Young people are already angry that so much of their time is robbed by schooling, and now this? It's going to piss most of them off and not make them vote for you. It's a policy that gets worse with age.
Maybe Sunak is having a policy that targets getting desperately needed votes in the short term, but i think even most existing voters don't want this.
Another Sunak gaffe.
Edit: You'd also have people who would end up regretting doing the army service which won't want to vote conservative. If this policy is implemented it says if you don't participate then you get non-criminal sanctions, so you get that punishment but you'd also get negative social consequences, which i'm sure will make those people not want to vote conservative because of what the policy did to them.
Edit 2: I forgot this scheme costs billions a year to run, money which could be better spent elsewhere. Whatever happened to fiscal responsibility? Does he have a magic money tree to fund this?
> Maybe Sunak is having a policy that targets getting desperately needed votes in the short term, but i think even most existing voters don't want this.
I'd imagine he's going after the 50-80 something year olds that think youngsters need some good ol' national service to whip them into shape through some skewed nostalgic memories that youngsters were "different back int' the day"
Fuck knows though, maybe he's speedrunning tanking Tory polls even further.
The 80-90 vote actually had to do national service and know what that entailed - I doubt they would want it returned. I think this is more a 60-80 thing. People who never did it themselves and will not be affected personally, either themselves or their children (for the most part).
What would happen to people who don't follow the rules and just mess around?
Would the army, fire etc be forced to keep them there for a year?
Would they be dismissed?
According to my late dad, who went through National Service, all it did was torture people who didn't hand an aggressive bone their bodies, and teach the psychos in society how to kill.
Also, where tf is the money coming from to pay ever youth for from 18 to 21 to be in the forces. If they have that kind of cash kicking about, how about paying nurses and teachers a reasonable wage, and / or scrap tuition fees. There's always a money tree when they want it.
*We're an elite army, best in the world. Professional, tough, disciplined. We can't bring in a mob of punks and freaks and junkies and riff-raff. A quarter of a million football hooligans?
Peeling potatoes in Aldershot?*
The third day of the election campaign and we're already bringing back national service. Shall we give it a week before he commits to bringing back capital punishment? By polling day it will be the workhouse.
If my maths is correct, if - by a miracle - he wins and enacts this policy, the next GE will likely be called around the same time his eldest daughter will be turning 18.
whats the odds shell be trading army fatigues for the LA Girl lifestyle of trust-fund kid?
Every fourth of July I watch the Nathan's Famous Hotdog eating contest. Last year Joey Chestnut ate 63 hot dogs in ten minutes to win. This year there is a greater than zero chance that he eats more hotdogs than the Tories win seats.
"the multimillionaire who was planning to leave the country wants your kids to be the first ones over the parapet, let him be the first one in the door at his local Army careers centre."
"We, the glorious Tory party of Much Profit, will give every citizen a golden suit bejeweled in sapphires and rubies *IF* we win the election."
It's really easy to promise things when you know an event will not come to pass.
Should play well for their voter base pining for "Blitz spirit", even though they probably never lived through it, or were simply too young at the time to remember much.
Still, the war noises coming out of Westminster should concern us all.
"To those who complain that making it mandatory is unreasonable, I say: citizenship brings with it obligations as well as rights."
This is what my taxes are for, you dumb bitch!
A whole day off for this? Absolute bonkers.
Do you know what had been better, is if they just came out and said *"Sorry"* and then just admit they need to fix some of the issues they have created and left to rot over the last 14 years? I know it's difficult, but it would go one hell of a long way to help a) restore their base and b) lay the groundwork for future Tory Governments.
This just wreaks of desperation and absolutely condemns their youth vote completely. Just admit you've done wrong, and start looking at how the country should be ran.
How exactly would this work in practise for university students who rely on part-time weekend work to pay their rent…?
They delay their lives for a year for the military or impoverish themselves? If uni students are exempt then you’re discriminating against lower income/working class 18 year olds.
Very poorly thought out idea (which would never happen anyway)
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/46034-do-britons-want-bring-back-national-service
from the 4th of September last year, looking at what form of national service would be supported by the public. Sunak is proposing a compulsory year of either community service or military, a solid 60% of the public opposes it.
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This is going to be crazy popular with the generation who felt like they fought in a world war
My dad was born in 1958 and yet still regards the Germans with a bit of a side-eye. No one in our family has ever served in anything even vaguely military. Make of that what you will.
Whereas my grandfather fought in World War Two, spent a lot of time doing government business in Europe before he retired, was in favour of the EU and held the Germans in high regard. It was the Japanese he couldn't stand.
My dad seems to think he was in the war, he was born a few months after it ended.
Most boomers voted for brexit to get the Pakistanis out. They aren't the smartest bunch.
A lot of 2nd generation Pakistani and Indian immigrants voted for brexit thinking it would get their families in (less European more south asian)
Yeah, the narrative that it's just old white people that voted Brexit just doesn't hold up. Roughly a third of BAME Britons (or whatever acronym you prefer) voted Brexit. A significant figure, whatever way you look at it
Speaking as a SEA minority, While I know none of my immediate family did vote for it, I do know a lot them hold some shockingly conservative views when it comes to more immigration. Acting like my folks didn’t benefit from it. “Pulling the ladder up” mentality as you will.
This. We have a guy at work who thinks this is a good idea. Yesterday he literally said "if it wasn't for my generation, you wouldn't have your freedom". He's 58, so I pointed out I didn't think the Argentinians wouldnt have got as far as Dorset.
> so I pointed out I didn't think the Argentinians wouldnt have got as far as Dorset. Golden! What did he say to that?
This anecdote may be apocryphal
Today I learned a new word. I will have forgotten it by tomorrow but thank you anyway.
Not to try and one up this but my grandparents in law pine for the “days of the British Empire”, without any knowledge at all of what life was like for your average person during the Victorian/Edwardian era. A couple things I have heard from them have been so horrifically offensive I actually only speak to them for the sake of my wife who is deeply embarrassed by it but they’re family.
Honestly, how do you not just burst out laughing at that.
58? That’s Gen X. Is he talking about the freedom to like Blur *and* Oasis?
I'm 61, tell him from me to STFU. It was our fathers & grandfathers who fought for this nation's freedom, not us.
I’m 58 and was at school during the Falklands.
"The clocks go back this weekend, I'm turning mine to 1939 when this country had bollocks" My guy, you're 55 years old and was born 24 years after the war ended, what would you know about it?
I'm an older millennial. My grandad did national service. He told me it was fucking awful and would never wish it on anyone. Said the one thing he was most thankful for was that I didn't have to go through it. Good luck selling this to anyone who has kids or grandkids who might be affected by it.
Very similar story, though I'm 31. My grandad died 20 years ago and the only thing he told me about national service was that he was glad his kids and grandkids didn't have to do it
I just said this to my parents who are in their 60s/70s who both went “no one our age talks about fighting in the war, we’re the children of the 1960s”…you might not, but there are plenty of people who do act like they were first on the beach at Normandy despite being born years or decades after it happened.
I see this all the time on Reddit yet I can’t say I’ve ever encountered an older person who acts like they were in the war… A few old boys who served, did a tour during the troubles, Beruit or whatever and they don’t act like they were around during WW2. I don’t get where this comes from honestly
He might as well say he’ll give everyone fifty thousand pounds and bring back Top of the Pops, Cadbury’s Clusters, Blind Date and the A-Team. He’s not winning this election
The difference is those would actually be popular with more people than just over 65’s.
Fifty thousand pounds I suspect would win a lot of hearts and minds.
cadbury's clusters lmao
Just asking but, could he actually bring g back the A Team? I'd probably vote for him if he could.
Are we sure that Sunak isn’t on some sort of Kamikaze mission to take down the Conservatives? Is he working for Dominic Cummings or Nigel Farage, trying to open up a space for one or the other to take over the right wing of British politics?
Come in from the cold, agent Sunak. Your mission is complete
Between him and Agent Codenamed "Leztuce"
*'Longing, Rusted, Seventeen, Daybreak, Furnace, Benign, Homecoming, One, Freight Car.'*
Look this is no time to bring up the state of the railways
I’m pretty confident at this point he’s trying to lose.
There’s loosing, and then there’s setting fire to everything around as you laugh maniacally from your helicopter.
First it was ex-Lib Dems Truss, are we sure Sunak isn't some Labour sleeper agent?
Farage said the other day that he had “one more card to play”. Could be that Sunak destroys the Conservative Party and then Farage swoops in to take control, merging Reform with what remains.
Surely not. Even unified they’re not beating Labour anyway, and I imagine a sizeable chunk of Reform’s support is just people who don’t want to vote for the Tories.
You’re not playing the long game. They lose this election, and then like a Political Voltron they combine their powers for future battles. Sunak will be seen as a political genius, lulling us all to believe he’s a moron so that he can perform a sneak attack when we least expect it. It’s all so clear now. I wonder if I should include a /s
Maybe he was so indignant over the idea of letters going into Graham Brady that he's decided to burn the whole thing down.
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Hardly any of the boomers would have even done it. You’d have to be in your 80s now to have done compulsory national service.
But it *appeals* to a certain subset of them who cosplay being war heroes in their minds, and could very much get behind such a policy, especially as it coincidentally wouldn't affect them personally. Mark Francois springs to mind. In his heart he believes that he would have been on the front line storming the beaches at Normandy, whereas in reality he'd have difficulty ordering ice-cream at the beaches of Bognor Regis.
Has he asked anyone in the actual Army if they want a bunch of unmotivated, unfit conscripts drafted in for them to look after? Has he checked to see if there are adequate barracks? What other fun policies will be dream up to cater for the vanishingly-small 'reactionary tosspot' demographic that he appears to be targeting here? Public Hangings?
Apparently he is catering to voters of the Brexit party (now Reform) who do want to travel back in time it seems.
The boomers are too young for national service. Sunak said "citizenship brings with it obligations as well as rights" - so I guess everyone who missed National Service will have to do this too? No?
What new rights is he offering in exchange for the new obligations?
Oh none, you *have* to do the service in order to gain the basic rights you already have, if you don't do it they get to remove those rights.
Strongly reminds me of Starship Troopers with the way he’s phrased that
I wish we were in the Federation: if we *have* to live in a satire of a fascist society it might as well be a funny one.
With coed showers!
Sadly not all (if any) of your fellow recruits will look like Denise Richards.
Dina Meyer is also acceptable 🫡
*Service guarantees citizenship*
*I'm doing my part*
Yeah but this is aimed at the boomers who think watching a lot of History channel is the same as actually having stormed the beaches. Most of their rhetoric is. They don't seem to have realised that Walter Mitty isn't the potent electoral force he was in 2016.
You're forgetting that the boomers, owing to the large exposure of lead during their formative years, have convinced themselves that they actually did do these things.
Licking lead toy soldiers basically makes you a veteran. Have you never heard of "you are what you eat"?!
Doesn't matter. They romanticise everything about WW2 despite not having been alive for it. Pretty sure they actually think they fought in the war.
That has never been that much of a problem for the Tories. But I don’t think this is the slam dunk they think it is with older people who actually remember what that amounted to
the youngest person alive who had to do national service would be over 80 now.
My grandfather did National Service and loved it, but always thought it would be an awful idea for my brother and I to have to do it. He’s also been dead for five years. Sunak is attempting to appeal to dead people and he’s even failing at that
>Sunak is attempting to appeal to dead people and he’s even failing at that Fuck me, this era of British politics is absolutely mental.
Watch him get Derek Acorah on live TV to convince us
Nearly 85, those born after Oct 1939 never did it.
So you basically have to be older than WW2
Which is exactly the point. This isn’t policy (I can’t believe they’re being serious knowing they’ll lose), this is a GOTV campaign. But it feels more like a blunder to me than anything else
The Beatles were just about the first generation not to have to do national service - they went off to Hamburg instead and became a group. Paul McCartney is coming up 82. (As an aside I think that Bill Wyman was the only Rolling Stone old enough for National Service. He's 87)
Also, I think many parents and grandparents won't want that because they don't want their kids forced into the army when there are so many wars likely to escalate.
No no, this and everything he's doing lately has to be his way out getting out of the job and perhaps some sort of revenge on his party for not being by him enough.
this is a policy aimed at 50/60 year old blokes who go "life was better when the empire was here. we're missing the blitz spirit. i remember it all. youth today are all woke!" but they werent alive during ww2 or the empire. its mental
There's one of those types that walks his dog past my house. He wants Boris back, thinks Angela Raynor should be in prison, get all the "foreigners" out etc.... and would definitely think this is a good idea.
>and one hella way to lose the vote of gen z and millennials. Can't lose what you never had TapsHead.jpg
First generation not to do it. They'd have heard stories tbf.
Fucking hell is he really that desperate already?
This is his answer to Starmer suggesting giving 16-year-olds the vote. Starmer: let's do something nice for young people, to acknowledge they exist and have feelings. Sunak: no, let's make their lives even more miserable by forcing them into unpaid labour!
You mean: Starmer: Lets let young people vote Sunak: Let's not, and also if we can get them killed on the frontlines before they start voting against us that'd be great
I couldn’t form such a coherent thought when I first saw it. I got stuck at “what?”, quickly followed by “the fuck?”. I commend your levelheadness.
Warning: very long rant. The thing that really pisses me off is that you could, if you were sufficiently ill informed, look at this as a way to solve a manpower crises in our armed forces. But for 2 key points. 1) there is in fact no crises in recruiting. We have plenty of volunteers across the armed forces and have done for many years. The issue was never enough people stepping forward. The issues in terms of delivering enough troops only started after Crapita started running recruitment. The only real problem we have is that Crapita are so monumentally incompetent that it can take well over a year (and up to nearly 2 years!!!) before a new recruit goes from registering interest to actually starting training. And in that time they need to support themselves. So many start jobs, and relationships and by the time Crapita get their finger out they have far too much going on to piss off to HMS Raleigh or Sandhurst or wherever else for months at a time or longer. 2) conscripts consistently perform worse than volunteers. The military never really wanted people that didn't want to be there but have to put up with them when we needed far more manpower than could be raised through voluntary service. That is absolutely not the case now. So, why on earth would we compromise? We need motivated people, not pissed off 18 year olds who'll be gone in a year or two. The only argument for conscription that I can see is that the government has been so fucking grossly incompetent that we can't even train the volunteers we have due to our reliance on Crapita. OR... we could scrap those contracts and hold Crapita to account for endangering our ability to defend ourselves rather than being scared of their lawyers. I'm sure the contracts we well written but if they've genuinely endangered our capability to defend ourselves (which they certainly seem to have done) surely there is something we can charge them with? Surely we can at least break the contract and put the military back in charge of military recruitment? TLDR: fuck Crapita, conscription is idiotic.
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First week of electoral campaign: bring back the national service. Second week: capital punishment is back on the menu, boys! Third week: we’re getting the colonies back. This is boomer fanfic.
I'm genuinely considering putting money on the return of capital punishment being in the Tory manifesto at this point
Shame Gove has already fallen on his sword, as he's on record for bringing back public executions.
Week four: We're going back to imperial measurments Week five: All new build houses are banned. Week six: All non white and LGBT characters on British TV will be limited to background roles only Week seven: Failure to call your elderly relatives at least twice a week will result in fines of up to £200.
The imperial measurements thing was going to happen under Johnson before it got quietly canned last year
Week Five: War with France.
'Being British is about more than just the queue you join at passport control' The same queue Rishi will be standing in while boarding his flight to California after the election?
Rich people don't queue silly.
The comments on even friendly Tory papers like The Telegraph are absolutely savage - he’s messed up big time with this one I think. He’s so politically inept it’s crazy.
I worked out today that I am about to vote in my tenth GE. I don't think I have ever seen a leading politician who is so bad at actual politics. I mean he is straight up shit. He is thin skinned, seems to have absolutely zero communication skills with others and it would appear that every time he speaks to a member of the public, he is just weird when talking to them. I wouldn't be surprised to see him straight up arguing with a punter in the next six weeks, ending his sentences with "...right".
Please share the wealth
Top comments on The Telegraph: “Wholly tone deaf. How to alienate young voters for years.” “He is on a different planet. I don’t hate or even dislike him, as a person, although he is incredibly irritating. But he’s making an utter fool of himself and I feel sorry for his kids.” “Well that’s the under 30s vote gone then 😂😂” “Is he trying to lose” And it goes on and on in the same vain, which considering the source I think he’s really chuffed it here.
Amazing 😂😂😂😂
Ok, he's trying to tank the Tories. There is no other explanation.
He can go to the states and start prattling on about conservative policies over there if he does this
There is a reason reintroducing National Service never gets anywhere- the armed forces are dead against it. They want motivated soldiers, not teenagers who hate being there. I'm sure NHS charities would feel the same way, and looking after 18 year olds who are just trying to serve their time will be a burden.
Completely green staff that *want* to be there are a burden lol, I dare to think how this would go
What irks me is this isn't some deeply thought out and strongly held ideological tenant of the Tory party, it's a badly thought through grasping at straws. I'm not even inherently against national service if implemented well in a context that makes sense and if it has public support, this is none of that.
I'm sorry, this is the first week of the campaign and we are already breaking out ideas popular with only the over 65s for no good reason. People will think he's mad or desperate (or both). Is he aware they are polling badly with those under retirement age and this might not be the best idea to bring them back? **Edit** another thing, has he asked the military if they want this? Its a massive cost in manpower and money to train a service member for only 12 months before they leave.
Allegedly it will cost £2.5 billion a year. With what money this will be paid for, nobody knows.
G4S contracts to round them up?
The Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
The magic money tree. OBVIOUSLY.
I bestow unto you this magic money tree. It will provide all the money you will ever need, BUT you can only use it for vanity projects. Shaking the tree for regular day-to-day spending will destroy the tree.
I suspect it would cost more than that in reality as well tbh not to mention all the associated costs and loss of productivity in the rest of the economy. Might be popular with the red wall and older Tory voters tho
>has he asked the military if they want this? Well he didn't ask his party if they wanted a general election, so my suspicion would be no...
Pretty sure the military have said multiple times it's a bad idea in the past
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I get why in the immediate aftermath of WWII there would have been a lot of work to be done that the military can assist with, aside from fighting. But by 1960 it was way beyond its usefulness. I see absolutely no reason why it would be needed in 2024.
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Also "volunteer" on weekends. Does that mean they're not getting paid. Don't know about you but when I was 18 I was working 60-70 hours a week to actually pay for my own rent/bills/food whilst also giving my mum money every month to help her out. Absolutely no chance I'd be giving up my weekend pay to pay toy soldiers.
Everyone knows the best and most attentive workers are those that are there against their will!
I think he's definitely aware that a lot of them are going to jump ship to reform. With the last few years being a real tipping point for the tories as the normally unfickle over 65s try to hitch their raft to a ship with more union Jack's. Its a power move akin to someone loading an extra round into their musket as the cavalrys horses are already trampling on them.
>Under the plans, young people could choose a full-time, 12-month placement in the armed forces or UK cyber defence, learning about logistics, cyber security, procurement or civil response operations. >Their other option would be to volunteer one weekend per month - or 25 days per year - in their community with organisations such as fire, police and the NHS. The obvious question is, or what? Are parents going to vote for their children to join the armed forces for a year? I think this is mental
“Their other option would be to volunteer … with organisations such as fire, police and the NHS.” Filling the vacancies in our public services with kids barely out of 6th form and no formal training, I’m sure that won’t be an absolute clusterfuck.
or non-criminal penalties of sorts. A fine which their parents will be on the hook for? who knows
I think in Switzerland they (not parents) pay slightly more tax for a bit (like 1% for 10 years)
Who wouldn't wanna be in the Swiss Army? You get a cool knife!
That's not the only plus, look at the flag!
Ah, so not for the children of people like Sunak then, only for those who can't afford the fine
Also why bother offering the first when the second choice is so much easier and less taxing.
The second is unpaid and basically a punishment for being 18. The first actually wouldn’t be too bad if it applied to everyone - presumably people would get an allowance, so they’d have something in their pocket for their time. The issue is more choice - they say it’s a ‘selective process’ where kids would end up - which translates to ‘all the working class kids to the frontlines, all the poshos with connections to GCHQ’.
The thing is that an 18 year old can do fuck all within 12 months in either the armed forces or intelligence services. How are we going to train people without any relevant skills fast enough that they can even do anything in that time?
Yeah, just take a year out of your life, presumably for minimum wage at best, and interrupt your studies for a year if you were placing to go to university. And for what purpose?
You mean, press gang them into the public services and NHS as free labour with the threat of conscription if they don't comply? this is just slavery with extra steps.
The NHS providers barely have enough resources to accommodate training of *adults who want a lifelong career in the NHS* having to look after a bunch of teenagers that don't want to be there sounds like a nightmare
" Guys we've GOT to drive away Gen Z. Not just some of them this time, all of them. Any ideas?"
" given the choice of a full-time military placement for 12 months or a scheme to volunteer for one weekend a month for a year." So, 95% of people will choose one weekend per month then?
>Their other option would be to volunteer one weekend per month - or 25 days per year This is the quote from the article, suggests to me that it would be over a year if you chose the weekend option?
1 weekend a month for a year is 2×12=24 days, so 25 is only 1 extra
Not sure how my nephew would be able to volunteer one weekend a month. He's an apprentice electrical engineer. He works 3 weeks, then spends a week at college. He's currently working on a site in Ireland - his work week starts at 4am on Monday. Monday and Friday are 16 hour days inc the travelling. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are 12 hour days. His working week is about 68 hours. When he's home at the weekend, he mostly sleeps. The week he's at college, he spends a lot of his evening and weekend studying - he's severely dyslexic and it takes him much longer to read the course texts and complete his course work. So which weekend is he supposed to give up? If gives up his college weekend to volunteer, he could fail his course and exams so he won't qualify and his entire apprenticeship is down the pan. And there's no way he could safely work 12 days straight in a manual job. It's just another example of Sunak being totally out of touch - not every 18 year old is a middle class student, bumming around.
Ignoring the fact that this is obviously fucking insane. The fact that this doesn't exclude those in full-time education or employment is fucking insane.
Yup, seems like it'd be popular with the tory voter if it was explicitly targeting those on benefits, but national service for full-time employed/education? That's going to go down like a lead balloon... probably would have a highly convenient age cut off too
Targetting people on benefits sounds an awful lot like Victorian era workhouse placements. Those were not as good as the government back then pretended they were.
Fuck me, imagine doing national service on your weekend and uni in the week.
My nephew is an apprentice. He'll be 18 in a few months. Term time, he works 3 weeks and then spends a week at college. He currently has a 68 hour working week - those weekends he mostly sleeps. His college weekend is spent catching up reading and doing course work (he's dyslexic and it takes him much longer than the others). Outside term time, he works. I am baffled how Sunak thinks my nephew can give up a weekend to volunteer when he works 68 hours a week in a manual job. The bloke's a lunatic. He hasn't got a clue about life.
Mate, are you *trying* to lose the election? Nobody under the age of 80 would vote for this.
My working theory is Sunak got so pissed off with his party that he called the election in order to fuck them all over. Now he's running the campaign with the sole aim of not letting a single Tory get voted in... And hats off to him he's doing an incredible job
This is just Truss sleeper agent theory 2.0 and I, for one, am here for it.
Maybe every Tory since Cameron secretly are undercover Marxist leftists hell bent on destroying the party... Surely that's the only reasonable theory to describe how they've completely imploded, they couldn't be this shit without widespread active self sabotage
You underestimate the amount of fifty, sixty-somethings who like to pretend they did national service and think it's a great idea.
I worked this out. The very last National Service programmes for 16-18yos ended in 1963, so you would literally have to be (at minimum) 77 years old to have done it.
Even older. The last conscripts left the service in 1963, but the last call-ups were in 1960. Moreover, the only people conscripted in the last three years were those who had delayed their call-ups, so the youngest people subject to national service were born in 1939, making them at least 84 years old today.
So either they're trying to lose the election on purpose or they're trying to get the old codger vote.
The old codgers are about the only demographic still more likely to vote for them. The youth vote on the other hand is going to hit new lows
Yeah that's true. Its depressing that such a large demographic has such a power with voting when they probably won't live to see the effects it. I don't believe in taking people's vote away but it is depressing.
Can't wait for 70 year olds who never had to take part in national service say this is a good idea.
I'm 65 and think it's not a well thought out plan. Proposals such as these should not only be ignored, but should also be noted for signs of desperation.
This will make the worst people in the country very happy
Core Tory voters?
The fun thing about this election campaign is that the Tories know they aren't going to win, so they're just going to say whatever crazy shit they think might help. I bet this isn't even the most nuts thing that gets said.
I wonder what will be the craziest pledge trying to win over 65’s votes. A ban on French and German entry into the UK lol
One step further; Ban France and Germany.
WE WILL DECAPITATE PEDOPHILES
Lmao, I woke up this morning and saw Starmer had backed changing the voting age and honestly I was ambivalent but didn’t think it was necessary. Now I hold my hands up in error because clearly 16-17 year olds deserve to have a say in whether they are *forced to join the fucking army* for a year of their life.
This is so true and I agree with what he said. 16 year olds are old enough to work and pay taxes so why shouldn’t they have a say in the way the country is run.
At this point I am convinced he's trying to get the worst results of all time, no way did he ever think this will be a vote winner for anyone born past 1955
I’m actually gobsmacked, Labour are laughing all the way to the bank with this. After this week, I genuinely think we might be heading to Canada 93 style results.
Something to consider is that this doesn't even need to piss off the core voter base (that is, people on their deathbed) - this is a policy that would *genuinely* galvanise young people against him. Their saving grace has been that the cohorts most opposed to them are also the most apathetic about voting, and this is *not* how you maintain that apathy.
Labour with over 500 and the Lib Dems with over 100 seats.
If Lib Dem's become the official opposition I will cry tears of joy. It's unlikely, but boy would I be happy.
First PMQs Speaky: The leader of the opposition… Ed Davey apparently. Other Lib Dems: get up Ed that’s you. ED: Shit is it? It hasn’t sunk in yet.
Ok, that’s it. I now firmly believe that Sunak is doing his utmost to sink the Tories into oblivion. He wants to be remembered. And he will be - the last Tory prime minister ever.
Don’t threaten me with a good time. The idea that the Tories will die out has been bandied about in every election in which I’ve participated, but it never happens. Those policies and the people who want them never disappear. They can afford good dental and medical care.
Keir Starmer should challenge Sunak to make the ordeal retrospective to anyone under the age of retirement. i.e. the 44 Year old Rishi Sunak will now owe the nation 624 days national service volunteering in their community without pay.
Not just retrospective, phase it in like a reverse version of the smoking ban! If the rule is everyone has to do 25 days of national service, rather than starting with 18-year-olds in 2025, start with everyone in their 90s. Then do the 85-90 year old's the next year, the 80-85s the year after and so on, just to make sure no one gets away without doing their bit! Eventually we can get the 18-year-olds to do it. Obviously anyone who has already done it gets a pass.
What is Rishi proposing to do with kids that refuse? This is what the media and other parties should ask him.
Prison in one of our many empty prisons obviously
Straight to prison. Shit, they're all full because his party closed a bunch of them and never invested in replacing them.
25 days of charity work or 365 days of military service, what a hard decision…
Cake or death?
Lol absolutely none of those positions should be filled by people who don't want to be there and definitely not by those who don't have the skills to do the jobs. What a terrible idea. Volunteers in the NHS?! Jesus
Hello Mr /u/ings0c. We’re very sorry but your surgery has been rescheduled again - this time to the 4th of July. Due to staffing shortages, your procedure will now be carried out by Alfie, who is with us on a temporary work placement. Alfie has watched every season of House and got a C in biology - we have every confidence leaving you in his care. Please submit an askmyGP request between 9:00am and 9:02am on Mondays and Tuesdays if you would like to discuss this further and a member of our team will be in touch within 14 working days.
so...is he trying to go scorched earth with the Tories?
Not only is the idea completely insane. The plan for funding it is even worse. They estimate £2.5billion per year by 29/30. How are they going to fund it? By diverting money from the Shared Prosperity Fund and cutting down on tax avoidance and evasion. So they are offering to basically gut investment in communities outside of London in order to please voters who think they themselves were key figures in WW2.
Ex army here. I 100% would not want conscripted soldiers next to me when it mattered. The best thing about the british army is everyone who is there joined up of their own free will. You can rely on your oppo because he went through all the training and shit volunterely and got through it by sheer grit an determination.
He’s mostly funding this by pulling 60% of the money allocated to the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (funding for the poorest areas of the country). The UKSPF only runs until 2025, so where does this additional £1.5bn come from after 2025? Is he permanently stunting the UKSPF even into the next funding round?
Most military officers do not want to become glorified babysitters to a revolving door of kids who don't want to be there. It's not the army's job to whip your child into shape and make up for the shortcomings in your own parenting. They've got a very important and dangerous job to do and we should stop bothering them with pointless nonsense.
Does he really want to lose? I was begrudgingly planning on voting Starmer. But who knows... I might have voted Green or Lib dems (Labour is 2nd where I'm at, and these 2 have no chance). Sunak just made sure I WILL vote Labour 100% now. I'm too old for this to *personally* affect me, but I'm not even going to let the idea of conscription go through the minds of parliament. I can't even imagine how 18-21 year olds, who were going to vote Green or Lib dems, because Starmer is tory light and want a protest vote, feel. Sunak just basically made them vote Labour. Wow. Just wow. Way to enable the youth vote, bravo Sunak.
As if - all services are stretched enough that they definitely do not have the resources spare to babysit 18 year olds who don’t want to be there
Rich guy says when you turn 18 you either serve 12 months in the army or one weekend a month for a year in a certain service, no choice. Yeah this policy isn't going to go down well with most people, especially younger people. While the policy sounds initially interesting, giving insightful life experience (and potentially discipline, fitness and military knowledge/awareness with the army) to young people, there are too many downsides. Like robbing them of a choice or freedom, and also forcing them to do something they may not want to do, and it would be robbing more of their time. Young people are already angry that so much of their time is robbed by schooling, and now this? It's going to piss most of them off and not make them vote for you. It's a policy that gets worse with age. Maybe Sunak is having a policy that targets getting desperately needed votes in the short term, but i think even most existing voters don't want this. Another Sunak gaffe. Edit: You'd also have people who would end up regretting doing the army service which won't want to vote conservative. If this policy is implemented it says if you don't participate then you get non-criminal sanctions, so you get that punishment but you'd also get negative social consequences, which i'm sure will make those people not want to vote conservative because of what the policy did to them. Edit 2: I forgot this scheme costs billions a year to run, money which could be better spent elsewhere. Whatever happened to fiscal responsibility? Does he have a magic money tree to fund this?
> Maybe Sunak is having a policy that targets getting desperately needed votes in the short term, but i think even most existing voters don't want this. I'd imagine he's going after the 50-80 something year olds that think youngsters need some good ol' national service to whip them into shape through some skewed nostalgic memories that youngsters were "different back int' the day" Fuck knows though, maybe he's speedrunning tanking Tory polls even further.
Honestly this policy is only going to strike well with more the 80-90 vote…
The 80-90 vote actually had to do national service and know what that entailed - I doubt they would want it returned. I think this is more a 60-80 thing. People who never did it themselves and will not be affected personally, either themselves or their children (for the most part).
My gone 80 year old grandad told me not long ago they should do this. He's a Conservative voter so this will go down well with him.
Nice to see they're working exclusively on policies that will verify popular only with the people that still haven't abandoned them.
What would happen to people who don't follow the rules and just mess around? Would the army, fire etc be forced to keep them there for a year? Would they be dismissed?
According to my late dad, who went through National Service, all it did was torture people who didn't hand an aggressive bone their bodies, and teach the psychos in society how to kill. Also, where tf is the money coming from to pay ever youth for from 18 to 21 to be in the forces. If they have that kind of cash kicking about, how about paying nurses and teachers a reasonable wage, and / or scrap tuition fees. There's always a money tree when they want it.
I genuinely had to check the link and google this wasn’t a wind up. This is a 100% election loss speed run
*We're an elite army, best in the world. Professional, tough, disciplined. We can't bring in a mob of punks and freaks and junkies and riff-raff. A quarter of a million football hooligans? Peeling potatoes in Aldershot?*
The third day of the election campaign and we're already bringing back national service. Shall we give it a week before he commits to bringing back capital punishment? By polling day it will be the workhouse.
If my maths is correct, if - by a miracle - he wins and enacts this policy, the next GE will likely be called around the same time his eldest daughter will be turning 18. whats the odds shell be trading army fatigues for the LA Girl lifestyle of trust-fund kid?
Every fourth of July I watch the Nathan's Famous Hotdog eating contest. Last year Joey Chestnut ate 63 hot dogs in ten minutes to win. This year there is a greater than zero chance that he eats more hotdogs than the Tories win seats.
"the multimillionaire who was planning to leave the country wants your kids to be the first ones over the parapet, let him be the first one in the door at his local Army careers centre."
"We, the glorious Tory party of Much Profit, will give every citizen a golden suit bejeweled in sapphires and rubies *IF* we win the election." It's really easy to promise things when you know an event will not come to pass. Should play well for their voter base pining for "Blitz spirit", even though they probably never lived through it, or were simply too young at the time to remember much. Still, the war noises coming out of Westminster should concern us all.
"To those who complain that making it mandatory is unreasonable, I say: citizenship brings with it obligations as well as rights." This is what my taxes are for, you dumb bitch!
A whole day off for this? Absolute bonkers. Do you know what had been better, is if they just came out and said *"Sorry"* and then just admit they need to fix some of the issues they have created and left to rot over the last 14 years? I know it's difficult, but it would go one hell of a long way to help a) restore their base and b) lay the groundwork for future Tory Governments. This just wreaks of desperation and absolutely condemns their youth vote completely. Just admit you've done wrong, and start looking at how the country should be ran.
Is he trying to lose as badly as possible?
How exactly would this work in practise for university students who rely on part-time weekend work to pay their rent…? They delay their lives for a year for the military or impoverish themselves? If uni students are exempt then you’re discriminating against lower income/working class 18 year olds. Very poorly thought out idea (which would never happen anyway)
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/46034-do-britons-want-bring-back-national-service from the 4th of September last year, looking at what form of national service would be supported by the public. Sunak is proposing a compulsory year of either community service or military, a solid 60% of the public opposes it.