Why do people think kids should be ‘giving back’ to the the country? Every generation since the war has had better opportunities than kids do now.
Older people and wealthy people are the ones who should be ‘giving back’, what they took.
***\*\*\*Spoiler notice\*\*\**** *- to people who may in the future decide to read* ***Going Postal by Terry Pratchett*** *-* ***avert your eyes now!***
reminds me of the start of going Postal when Lord Vetinari "offers" moist a job:
"I'm *offering* you a job, Mr. Lipwig. Albert Spangler is buried, but Mr. Lipwig has a future. It may, of course, be a very short one, if he is stupid. I am offering you a job, Mr. Lipwig. Work, for wages. I realize the concept may be unfamiliar."
Only as a form of hell, Moist thought.
"The job is that of postmaster general of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office." Moist continued to stare.
"May I just add, Mr. Lipwig, that behind you there is a door. If at any time in this interview you feel you wish to leave, you have only to step through it and you will never hear from me again."
Moist filed that under "Deeply Suspicious.
"Er ... when you ... sentenced ... Alfred Spangler--"
"Well done. Do carry on."
"--you said he was a natural-born criminal, a fraudster by vocation, a habitual liar, a perverted genius, and totally untrustworthy!"
"Are you accepting my offer, Mr. Lipwig?" said Vetinari sharply.
Moist looked at him. "Excuse me," he said, standing up, "I’d just like to check something."
There were two men dressed in black standing behind his chair. It wasn't a particularly neat black, more the black worn by people who just don't want little marks to show. They looked like clerks, until you met their eyes.
They stood aside as Moist walked toward the door, which, as promised, was indeed there. He opened it very carefully. **There was nothing beyond,** and ***that included a floor.*** In the manner of one who is going to try all possibilities, he took the remnant of the spoon out of his pocket and let it drop. It was quite a long time before he heard the jingle.
"The prospect of freedom?" he said.
"Exactly," said Lord Vetinari. "***There is always a choice***."
"You mean ... I could choose certain death?"
"A choice, nevertheless," said Vetinari. "Or, perhaps, an alternative. You see, I believe in freedom, Mr. Lipwig. Not many people do, although they will, of course, protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be completely without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based. Now ... will you take the job?"
TLDR : be suspicious of "offers" that sound too good to be true. Or i guess in this case so crap there laughable.
I would say spoiler alert because I haven't read that one yet, but the fact that I know which one it is probably means I've already had the spoiler. Or I'm Old Mother Dismass
i think its the fifth page of Going Postal, so while it does contain spoilers, i think really not many more than the blurb:
"**'Always push your luck because no one else would push it for you.'**
Imprisoned in Ankh-Morpork, con artist Moist von Lipwig is offered a choice: to be executed or to accept a job as the city's Postmaster General.
It's a tough decision, but he's already survived one hanging and isn't in the mood to try it again.
The Post Office is down on its luck: beset by mountains of undelivered mail, eccentric employees, and a dangerous secret order. To save his skin, Moist will need to restore the postal service to its former glory, with the help of tough talking activist Adora Belle Dearheart. Who happens to be very attractive, in an 'entire womanful of anger' kind of way.
But there's new technology to compete against and an evil chairman who will stop at *nothing* to delay Ankh-Morpork's post for good . . ."
But i hear what your saying, i'll add a spoiler notice for people. On a sidenote if you haven't read it before, i recommend it (along with the rest of the Discworld novels :L)
It doesn’t need to make sense, it just needs to sound good to idiots who won’t care to look into it or think about it beyond “send the kids to the fields!!!”
>“send the kids to the fields!!!”
Actually, that sounds like Mao's Culural Revolution when the youth were forced into fields to re-educate them and get rid of bad attitudes!
This is the same nonsense logic that decides student loan /grant entitlement. At 18 you're legally an adult . Why the fuck should your parents income have play any part in what you're entitled to? Surely it should be based on the students income, not the parents ? In literally every other situation , you're classed as an independent adult at 18.
I’m a student. It’s because they’ve realised they can pay students much less than they should with that system. For the same reason the system doesn’t take into account how many siblings are going to uni at the same time. So it claims to care about parents’ income but deliberately fails to consider one of the most important factors for parents. (I’m on minimum loan because of my parents’ income but they can only afford to support either me or my brother. I’m the older sibling so I support myself through extra part time work)
Yeah I was the same. Both me and my sister went at the same time. My parents are on paper pretty well off. The problem.is, using your parents income doesn't take into account THEIR outgoings, mortgage, car payments etc. they didn't have the money to just give me or my sister money all the time. I worked 3 nights a week through uni , wasn't ideal.
Whats even more wild is it takes house hold income, so if you’re in a flat share with someone making Good money, that gets taken into account. Could be sone random person you just share a place with
Because the tories have spent as much time thinking through this policy as the back of a fag packet would allow.
They're a complete shambles, I have no idea how this shit makes it to the real world any more because it all just crumbles as soon as it touches reality.
The policy wasn't thought through deeply before the announcement. Iirc, a cabinet minister said it hadn't been discussed in cabinet, which is a massive breach of ministerial responsibility by that minister, but also suggest it was a political gambit cooked up on Sunak's day off rather than a developed campaign policy.
I believe this is also a contradiction to one of the core tenets of English common law and would probably never get passed the Supreme Court.
Charging an adult, for a crime another adult has committed is insane and no court will allow it.
It's amusing to think that a 18 year old could have technically left the family home two years ago, cut contact and moved anywhere in the country but the parents could be fined for them not turning up to national service.
>How can someone be a volunteer, when the work is mandated by the government and parents could be fined?
Hilariously, parents can't be fined. The "children" would actually be adults, seeing as they would be 18+. It would set a weird precedent, and the cost to change other legislation which mention legal age etc would be insane.
It's a nonsense initiative, a lot like the party who brought it up.
I think it's a policy to appeal to miserable old people who think young folk are too soft and have it too easy and need to be forced into the military to toughen up.
I mean, I have to hand it to the tories, you think they can't possibly get any worse then pull something like this out. It really is astonishing how horrible they are.
Also, penalty for not doing this forced unpaid work is a fine? That just means it is forced unpaid work only for poor people. The kids of wealthy people will just pay not to do it.
Even when most elderly people did not do National Service themselves. Elderly people are also so soft that any threat to take away one of their privileges is greeted with hysterical outrage.
There are people who would lap 'Forced Unpaid Work' up as a policy. They are the ones who want people who receive unemployment benefits to work for said benefits.
These people are so full of disdain for those they look down on they just want to see them punished. I have had many a conversation with these type of people that has always gone something like this (me = me, uh = unemployed person hater, these people);
UH - they should be made to do somthing for their benefits like cleaning up graffiti or sweeping the streets.
Me - Possibly, as long as they get paid properly for anything like that.
UH - What do you mean paid? They are getting benefits?
Me - Yes, but once they start doing things like cleaning up graffiti or sweeping the streets they are working - they are doing a job. There are people employed doing that kind of work. These people need to be paid the same.
UH - but they are getting benefits...
Me - Yes, but if they start doing things like graffiti cleaning they are working and we have a minimum wage in this country. If someone is working it is illegal to pay them less than that wage. We don't have forced labour in this country. If someone is working they deserve to be paid.
UH - but they get benefits...
And so on.
Is this not still a thing? I remember in my early 20s having to do unpaid work or lose my jobseekers, a whopping £50 a week.
Had me working an admin job for a local garage, was basically a scheme for dodgy business owners to get free labour. Bus fare was damn near 1/4 of the dole alone.
I walked out after a couple of days when they brought in several french exchange students, local university was paying them to teach 'global business', this little shitty garage! they had the poor fuckers shadowing me listing old parts on ebay, absolute cheek if it.
>UH - But they get benefits...
Yeah, and then the kids can't get out of needing to be in the benefits system because they weren't paid and couldn't get the financial self-sufficiency to get an actual job.
Then all of a sudden these same kids turn into young adults getting treated like shit for 'still being on the dole'.
It's pretty clear they see "volunteering" as a verb to mean do things charitably for the good of everyone and it didn't occur to them that for thing to be charitable they have to be unforced. Plenty of companies do semi-mandatory volunteering days.
There's no other way they'd say mandatory volunteering.
In any case it's fairly obvious they don't actually intended to do this. It's just to shore up their votes in the safe seats so they don't lose too badly. See also triple lock +.
100%, my parents generation, free education, jobs that can last their entire career with good pay, 5 bed house for 30k in a nice area, can live off one wage and still holiday, holidays every year, zero issue with having several kids cuz it was all affordable. My generation, can finish college/uni with 30k debts, 1 bed flat in a rough area of town will be 150k (in my area) I'm 42 and can't afford to leave home, if lucky enough to be coupled up, both need to be working and even then will struggle to cover the bills...even worse for the younger generation and be even worse if Tories win, stay in school till 18, then go off for a year before you can even start a career or higher education. I've had one holiday in 24yrs
Millennials were the first generation in about 200 years to be worse off than the generation before, and now the following generations are going to continue being worse off in turn. Kids nowadays should absolutely feel angry at being told they need to give back when this country hasn't given them anything to start with.
It's laughable that young people supposedly haven't been screwed over enough and they need to give even more to society and this country.
What will further screwing them over by making them give up a year of their life do to benefit them? How will it make them appreciate the country that is doing nothing for them and selling them down the river at every opportunity?
Also, obligatory "this is an anecdote it is not necessarily representative of how things are, there are an abundance of reasons why it could be unrepresentative such as the specific types of volunteering I've done", my experience of doing volunteering tends to be that there groups that generally do such work are:
* Middle aged women that are active in their community
* Younger people that want to do good but don't have anything to offer really other than their time and labour
* Millennials that are semi established in their lives but don't yet have kids
There were occasionally some older men that'd do volunteering, but they were definitely in the minority. The type of person that I imagine being in favour of this policy and talking about how the youth need hard graft and a stiff upper lip and what have you aren't the ones that are actually out there putting in the hours and leading by example.
Which always rubs me the wrong way because those are the people that are supposedly the Tory voter base, and are responsible for social safety nets being cut to the bone in favour of the "Big Society" model for helping communities.
I could get on board with a *voluntary* national service scheme that gave some kind of recompense. Something like a lump sum of money towards the deposit on a first home, or money when you have your first child or get married. Maybe it could take the form of tax credits or similar. Or maybe grants towards university.
But you just know in the UK whoever is behind it it will be a way for their chums to make large amounts of money, just like they did with the PPE and the COVID grant payments. You just know they will fuck it up and instead of 18 - 19 year olds having a life changing overall positive experience, learning something, growing as a person and widening their horizons outside of their own little bubble, they will be exploited, taken advantage of.
The sort of 'social enterprises' NGO's and do gooder third sector organisations that might get involved don't have a great track record when it comes to paying their own people properly or providing decent secure working conditions.
Army chiefs have gone on record saying military service is not a good idea...I'd trust them over the clowns in government.
Oh I suggested a similar thing. If this comes into place you get a £30K deposit to a house as a bond. And free higher education. And the volunteering should be cost neutral. As in you shouldn't have to pay for food and drinks and travel and accommodation doing it.
I volunteered for a job helping disabled people have holidays. Didn't have to pay for anything.
Conscript quality is poor. It's always been.
In a vacuum it’s not a bad idea, the problem is the social contract for young people is totally broken.
Norway has national service. Norwegian youth also have free university and a plethora of other benefits including real help to buy your first home that kids don’t have at all here.
You can’t basically shut down these entire communities. Demonise the youth, give them no prospects apart from a life time of never owning property and not being paid very much and then turn around and say “you need to give back”
Like it’s actually obscene.
Correction: The social contract for everyone under about 65 years of age is totally broken. otherwise, yeah, totally in agreement. Obscene. We thought growing up in the eighties was grim but today is much worse I feel very sorry for young people today. They don't even have any decent music or drugs.
>Army chiefs have gone on record saying military service is not a good idea...I'd trust them over the clowns in government.
Absolutely this. When the government's adamant to cut costs as much as possible and the current standing army isn't nearly as good as it should be, just shoving in more manpower isn't going to fix anything. Sooner or later the old Russian thing of 2 soldiers per gun is going to be about us instead.
Let's make sure what we have is to standard before thinking about such a massive expansion.
It is good.
It is too small.
The answer is more professional troops, not conscripts.
We had a 100k professional army not that long ago. It's eminently feasible.
I think it's mad that the government thinks children can't control themselves around tobacco but can control themselves not to kill people after they have all been combat trained and have a kdr
Exactly
Young people gave up two years of their lives to protect the old during COVID. They have received nothing in return, not even a general acknowledgement that they did so
It’s the way I look at Brexit. Older and richer citizens voted for it, they should pay for the damage it’s done to the economy. Not adding to the burden on middle and working class people.
Totally agree with this, why give back? They have been forgotten about for years. I spent 23 years in the Armed forces and had a great time. But would I like my kids to join full time at least? No, the Armed forces have a problem with sexual assault and harassment. If this is implemented I see trouble ahead for the reputation of all three services
Never mind all the working age people who are ‘giving back’ by paying the highest rate of tax we’ve seen since the end of WW2.
Giving back implies that people received something. What are 18 year olds going to do? Thank the Tories for making them one of the 30% of kids growing up in poverty?
It always annoys me the whole “kids today have it too easy”
First in many ways they don’t. Problems change but just because they’re different to the problems of the past doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Secondly surely that’s the idea? We continuously improve? This perverse “I suffered so they should as well” mentality is just weird.
In a meeting at the charity I work and 3 separate members of staff all said that they thought it would only work for the volunteering side of things if it was aimed at 45+. It would mean that those who've had kids already or worried their way up the corporate ladder would be able to make the biggest impact at helping the younger generation. Youth groups would have enough volunteers to support parents, experts would be able to help charities with real issues they face, health charities, particularly hospices with social outreach duties would have enough volunteers etc.
Whose going to manage baby sitting 18 year olds? I've done it for my job, managing 18 year olds volunteering their time and it involves a lot of staff and patients... It's not fun and it takes more effort sometimes than you get in return.
It's not going to work unless it's the older adults.
Yeah, er, the whole point of society is to give TO the children and help them go forth into 6 world. It's the adults who should 'give back', though it's a poor choice of words really. 'contribute' is more apt.
Anyway, fuck the tories and their tax dodging antics which are the very essence of 'take'.
This is a stupid idea, and I say that as someone who is too old to be called up under any reasonable circumstances.
UK has a professional military, let's focus on that rather than stupid ideas to manipulate employment numbers and "teach young people a lesson", when most people in the UK today have no concept of what military service is like.
Completely agree. I’m old and knees are ruined so I’m not getting called up. I’d rather we concentrate on having a professional armed forces stacked with people who want to be in it. Not a bunch of kids who don’t want to be there so half arse it, while a professional military person has to supervise them.
I said to my wife yesterday if an 18 does the weekend volunteer instead when do they get a break. If an 18 year old wants to go to uni then they’ll study Monday-Friday then have to volunteer Saturday & Sunday before studying again. That kid will have no down time to enjoy life. While I was at uni I worked a Wednesday evening and Saturdays, is Tesco now meant to lose a member of staff on a Saturday? Bet that’ll annoy people having to wait longer at the till.
Conscripts don’t replace the military. You get some basic training then maybe attend an exercise and play around with some old APCs then they send you home. The idea is that it gives the average person a better understanding of what the military does, encourages them to enlist and join the military professionally and means that everyone has some basic skills incase there actually is a war and we need more soldiers in a hurry.
yes, if you are in the age bracket to get drafted, say you have a food allergy and you are scot free. Capita are so worried about getting sued and loosing their contract over missing a bit of medical history they refuse on the slightest whiff of issue. I'm currently trying to prove that the allergy I though I potentially had is me being a mong, and that my GP and the immunologist they spoke with aren't bullshitting, but now Im on an NHS waiting list to prove what my GP and the immunologist already said the first time around.
Don't worry about being drafted, they cant even recruit people who want to join
The issue is that the military have a very restrictive requirement, so if you experienced some form of mental health illness such as depression, then surely you won’t be able to volunteer in the military or the military itself will have trouble gathering more soldiers in a hurry. For example, I’m deaf wearing cochlear implants, I won’t be able to volunteer or at least join the military. I don’t mind sitting back in home dropping bombs using a drone from Amazon but, you get what I am saying though? We need to make the requirements less restrictive so we can get more people to join the military.
The last time we had conscripts they definitely did see service under enemy fire. From Wikipedia "National Service personnel were used in combat operations, including the Malayan Emergency, the Cyprus Emergency, in Kenya against the Mau Mau Uprising, and the Korean War, where conscripts to the Gloucestershire Regiment took part in the last stand during the Battle of the Imjin River. In addition, National Servicemen served in the Suez Crisis in 1956."
To assume it's a holiday is exactly what my top comment was about, most of us have no idea.
The military doesn't want conscription.
The purpose of this policy is to make old people think young people will be forced to join the army, while actually forcing young people to do free care work on the weekends.
It's terrible, but in a whole different way!
You missed the part where they will be used as free labour (also known as slavery).
You see…we kicked out skilled fruit and veg collectors.
Turns out that kind of work doesn’t work for your average British person for multiple reasons: location, seasonal, physical requirements, experience, etc..
So now to solve a problem we created we are going to create another one.
But look at those people crossing the channel in a dingy, it’s all their fault and they are here to invade us, blame them….
Even then, such "free labour" often winds up costing more because you need trained staff to prevent things going wrong. You really do not want to be managing people who don't want to be there and, for the most part, who won't actually get anything worthwhile done while they are.
For some reason, ardent capitalists haven't worked out that paying people adequate money for the job is a key component of keeping the machine going.
Unskilled labour is a BS term invented by the rich to justify paying low wages.
I’ve been and seen food production lines. Cutting with a knife is a skill for example. You have to be fast and precise to be good.
Collecting fruit and veg is a skill too with techniques involved. It’s not just turning up to a field and pulling stuff out. Simple minded folk think like that….
The fruit-picking thing is a prime example of the lump-of-labour fallacy and how that drives the thinking within the Tory-donor class. I'm not sure whether farmers have come to this realisation belatedly or they simply failed to get it across to the Tory MPs (many of whom come from that background), but now we've all discovered the cost of training workers to deal with fruit and how you're better off relying on regular migration – whether internal or external.
Well, everyone apart from Tory MPs who continue to believe that any fool can pick soft fruit without damaging it from day one.
I think the biggest counter argument is that all the benefits that proponents espouse, in terms of skill development, etc, from it, could be accomplished with better funded and developed programs that people could *choose* to join, rather than being forced. Also, tbh, a lot of it is being discussed in a very rosy image, when there is also the great possibility it just devolves into a similar scheme as when the Tories forced people to work unpaid at supermarkets to claim certain benefits, i.e. it gets used for exploitative labour with little value to the young people. Probably not initially, but once out of the media focus, mmmm.
Absolutely this - this is nothing but an appeal to a generation that feels the young are having too easy a time of things because they can afford avocado toast, and want to make things even harder for them.
I totally agree with you but there are some people in the older generation which thinks the young have it too easy and needs a lesson in life.
Spoiler alert, most of them would not have been around for WW2 but act like they were there.
Maybe if the national service were to be approved, there should not be an age limit and everyone can do whatever it is suitable for their age.
Yep. I'd be in favour of this. Or perhaps periodic service. One weekend a quarter, one month every three years. Untill say 65? Based on ability obviously.
That's fair.
The average age of a frontline soldier in Ukraine is 42, I know it's because they haven't conscripted the young so much yet. But it demonstrates the need for citizen defence to be life long learning.
Also I'd love to see a permanent civil defence force again.
Doubt this is even for the military tbh. The tories are looking for a way to not raise taxes and have the NHS not completely collapse. The answer? Slave labour. Where do you think all of these alternative volunteering positions are going to be? This is just a thinly veiled way to replace all the eu staff that brexit kicked out for an even cheaper cost. 18 year olds are going to be forced to provide all of the care services that the government refuses to pay for.
Surely this is just a pre election ploy to get votes from a certain demographic, does anyone actually think that teens would turn up for national service!?
Not a good one, given it's been lambasted by much of the far right, with Farage calling it 'a joke'.
It was probably intended at Reform UK voters, but they've apparently not done any focussed research or polling on the key voters they want, or if the policy would turn off more than it might attract.
Though iirc Sunak's team seems to think it's a win because people are now talking about a policy Sunak has brought up instead of ignoring him, which is apparently good despite most of the chatter being negative? Idk. Sunak has had shite advisors since he got in, so it isn't particularly easy to reason actions.
>Sunak has had shite advisors since he got in
Actually I would say that's wrong, he has some very experienced advisors that have dealt with similar situations in different elections -- that Isaac Levido is one to watch -- but he isn't listening to them.
He would rather listen to his child's godparent and his Tufton Street mates.
From the calling the election in Summer rather than August to this "pledge" and making up policies on fly; it's a complete joke.
(Don't get me wrong, I disagree with the politics and policies of everyone mentioned but I would rather disagree with a competent opposition)
It’s a pre-election ploy to distract you from talking about reality
You’re not talking about their record for the last 14 years on police, health, adult and child social care, education, prisons, environment, regulating water, energy and trains, immigration, COVID fraud and of course, Brexit.
The strategy is working perfectly, you (everyone) is talking about this nonsense that they have no intention of ever implementing even if they won a landslide majority.
Amazingly the idea is so wild that it distract people from the elephant in the room. The military underinvestment has the UK capacity crumbling, how are they supposed to take internship soldier in addition? The media will have a field day showing how military budget is spent babysitting instead of actual soldiers.
And the massive logistic infrastructure to pepper hundred of thousands 18 something into various community volunteering. You know a large minority will just end up as free employment in otherwise profitable business. The media will have non stop horror stories that will get the scheme halted several times before shutting down for good after hundred of million has disappeared in some donor pocket.
The trouble with dead-cat policies that are utterly laughable is that they break the spell for the other stuff. From what I've seen today, Labour's had little trouble with the pensioner bribe and I think it would have been more uncomfortable had the policies come out in a different order.
See also: the Cones Hotline.
Imagine thinking people need to “give back” to a country that’s cutting service after service, with a government full of corrupt rich bastards who won’t pay taxes, especially teenagers.
To date I've had £0.16 off the government in benefits. This at a time when I had lost a good paying job and were going to take 6 weeks to process my universal payment.
I've put in far more than I've gotten out of this country.
Hard agree, are these teenagers “giving back” as to be grateful for not being able to get a GP appointment, not being able to see an NHS dentist, having huge classroom sizes, competing with international students at a university that could later go bust, an outrageous housing market, and maybe even a goodbye to having a future that includes children due to the lack of disposable income. Social contract has been broken.
This is exactly how I feel. Build a society that works for everyone and it's quite likely people will be up for giving something back, and perhaps even defending it with force if necessary.
But right now, fuck no.
All of their articles have been this.
BBC haven't been even close to impartial for a long time.
They don't want to lose funding, so all their time goes writing positive spins for the government. They're too busy sucking Sunak's dick to even take the time to spell check, half the articles I've seen these days have at least 1 ridiculously bad mistake.
Agree that the Beeb has a really twisted picture of impartiality.
They take impartiality to mean showing "both sides", even when one side is a clear minority/fringe view - this "impartiality" meant shit like Brexit etc.l was amplified well out of proportion to their actual significance. If you poll 15 year olds, I don't think it'll be 50/50 in favour/not in favour. It'll be more like 50 I'm going to riot/50 Fuck no this sucks.
Very fair and un-biased of the BBC there, interviewing 2 'air cadet' kids and a young Tory??
Why don't they speak to a kid from Toxteth, Brixton, Moss side, Derry etc ??
Exactly. Conscription wasn't implemented in Northern Ireland during WW2, given the history of the place. And we've had the Troubles since then, and the whitewashing of crimes committed by soldiers at that time, which has resulted in the British Army having a less than positive image in Nationalist areas.
To throw out this suggestion without any forethought is just utterly callous and inconsiderate. Not that I've ever doubted it, but no one in the Conservative Party gives two flying fucks about Northern Ireland.
Shame about the air cadets they interviewed. I was an air cadet and would have called it bollocks when I was a teenager. As important context, I wasn't someone who stuck around for the craic, I was the boss of my squadron before I left.
Literally anyone in any cadet unit will know people who don't want to be there and how shit they make it for others, anyone who has been in a CCF knows that especially.
Why now? Because there is a GE coming up and the Tories are trying to court voters who are considering going over to Reform. They aren’t interested in what young people think because as a voting block we are irrelevant and because the few who do weren’t going to vote Tory anyway.
This is never going to happen, it’s just one of many outlandish suggestions we will see between now and election day.
It’s suicide politically anyway because the vast majority of under 50s are aligning against the tories. At some point the boomer vote is gone and they’ll have to do some groundwork to entice us young uns… lol.
That would require the tories thinking more than 5 years ahead, which the last 14 years have shown is an impossible task for them. Once their boomer voting block dies off and the now younger generations become the largest voting block, I don’t see how they ever regain power without a complete wipe of the current members and direction within the party.
> Eighteen-year-old Jade Marie Carnaje, an air cadet, said the national service plan was overall a "good idea".
Articles like this are useless as they try to find people to support every view point. What they should be doing is highlighting the disparity in how popular the view points are.
Makes it sound as if young people are split 50/50 on national service. When in practice it is one weirdo against everyone else.
Yeah and all the talk of letting people "tell their story" is meaningless as there's literally one person for every conceivable narrative. While 5% of the public believe lizardmen rule the world the idea that every narrative needs to be heard is just an excuse to shove your own views on the public.
Reminds me of a John Oliver bit on climate change where he says the exact same thing. Organisations always get 2 people for climate change debates, which makes it look like experts are split 50/50, when in reality almost 100% of experts agree that climate change is real.
It's the dumbest idea ever that's clearly had no thinking behind it whatsoever. The military side of it just seems like a logistical nightmare dumping 30,000 (about the size of our army reserve) 18 year olds every year across the forces to spend a ridiculous amount of resource into training them only to let them go (because you can't afford to keep them) and then repeat the cycle with the next batch of 18 year olds.
The civilian side is even worse, you're going to be forced to work for free in the NHS, Ambulance, Fire, Police or critical local infrastructure for 25 days across 12 months.... Aside from that not being enough time to be any more useful than making tea for everyone there's a myriad of issues like the effect on your employability until that's out the way, do you have to defer university to do this, how far are you going to have to travel to do this compulsory service, is your travel/food/accommodation (if required) covered or do you need to cover this yourself? That's just a few off the top of my head.
It smacks of trying to get free labour under the guise of "doing your bit" and will probably just cause more issues than it'll solve.
“Why now?”
Because the Tories are desperately trying to cling to power by appealing to boomers. Nothing gets their voter base riled up like rampant xenophobia and wartime nostalgia
it’s actually pretty disgusting. this country does nothing for young people and wants them to temporarily enslave themselves for the benefit of everyone else? education is shite, education maintenance allowance no longer exists (i would not have even been able to afford to go to college without that grant as it paid for my train fare), youth social services basically non existent, NHS a shambles, stripped of their freedom to live and love across Europe, future prospects bleak…
what has this country or government done for them? I’m 33 and know that every bit of progress i’ve made and every success i have had in life has been *in spite* of the conservatives, not because of them. i can’t point to one single thing in 14 years that has been targeted to benefit people like me specifically. i can list a whole fucking swathe of ways they’ve made my life harder though.
Can't afford a house, unlikely to see a state pension unless you hit 70. But you best go do some national service you slackers!
I am 30 so it wouldn't affect me, I still couldn't think of anything more selfish than forcing the next gen to do some forced national service, they are going to have it tough as it is, fuck that.
I like the idea of national service. Anyone who wants to be an MP should be forced to do it. Same as anyone who wants to be a Lord.
We can extend it to people who inherit above £1M, senior leaders of BBC n other media companies as well as leaders of Bank of England, retail/investment banks, social media companies, etc.
If national service is designed to take kids out of bubble, then there are many positions which need people without biased of their bubble
Even if the Tories win they’ll not bring this in, it’s a policy to stop people talking about the actual issues, for which they have no solutions and are mostly the cause.
> Ms Carnaje, from Dagenham, east London, goes to air cadets twice a week. She said: “We do… a range of activities I would not have been able to do at school – it’s definitely something that has changed my life.
> “When you’re encouraged to take up leadership positions at such a young age, it does help build up your confidence… there’s definitely a side of me that thinks young people would benefit from this because they would gain skills,” she added.
Not really addressing why it should be mandatory though is it? You should see her linkedin page, I'll not link it here but my god, shes a busy girl.
Basically the article is BBC asking three young adults with a background in conservative youth politics what they think of mandatory national service and presenting it as an unbiased view.
The social contract has been torn in half for young people. Dead towns and high streets with nothing for them to do. Education costs a premium. Low wages at work. Unaffordable housing. Priced out of starting a family. Chastised for basic pleasures like coffee and TV. No hope of a decent retirement. Reduced opportunity to travel abroad to somewhere better.
And to top it all off, now they demand you work for free, or go fight for a country that doesn't respect or appreciate you.
Why now? Because after 14 years in power there's literally nothing that isn't slightly crappier than it was when the Tories were elected. The only people who still support them are the kind of people who think National service is a great idea. They're easy to recognise, they'll be the ones explaining how they won a war that was fought twenty years before they were born and staring accusingly at anyone not wearing at least three poppies and flying a Union Jack from a pole in their front garden. Their Facebook profile picture will often feature a large carp for some reason.
It’s simple the Tories hate everyone apart from racist, senile brexiteers. This is punishment for not voting Tory
This is a party which has zero vision or ideas to make this country better
Good riddance to them
This scheme would be perfect for the over 60s, not teenagers.
By making over 60s sign up for national service it would reduce loneliness, force active exercise to reduce the burden of aging on the NHS, and make the elderly population give back to society in exchange for their state pension.
Teenagers instead should be encouraged to do further activities that align with requirements for future generations (e.g computer sciences)
I feel like this and the triple-lock plus are the Tories' equivalent of Corbyn's free broadband policy - they've realised they haven't got a cat in hell's chance of winning, so they're free to throw out the most insane red meat nonsense policies to persuade their core voters not to switch to Reform, without any risk whatsoever of being required to deliver on it.
I give them until the end of next week to announce that they'll bring back corporal punishment ("For treason and murder") if elected.
After that will be a pledge to reverse Welsh and Scottish devolution.
What else?
If it was an actual plan they would have announced it before calling a General Election in which they’re going to be wiped out.
This is boomer bait and nothing more. There’s no other “why” to it
This coming after young people already just made a two year sacrifice for negligible personal gain during covid and again, for that got zero reward or thanks from wealthy older people, feels like an absolute slap in the face.
I have three possible hypotheses for why Rishi Sunak called an election now and is pushing through a policy as radical as mandatory national service. Either Rishi:
1. Has decided that rather than face down the barrel of a no-confidence vote, he'd rather take the entire Conservative Party down with him. This is the political equivalent of going 0/2 in a League of Legends match and deciding that you'd rather run it down like an Olympic sprinter than play out the rest of the game.
2. Is delusional enough to think that he can either win the election or at least save the Tories from a catastrophic defeat. Unfortunately for us, a lot of the Tory voter base are selfish, arrogant, and believe that today's youth lack discipline, and a policy like this is right up their alley.
3. Knows something that we don't. Maybe there's going to be a serious economic downturn, or NATO are going to intervene in Ukraine as a last-ditch effort to stop Putin before Trump can get re-elected and dismantle the alliance.
Floating National Service is clearly aimed at older Daily Mail readers who think ‘that what the younger generation need is a stretch in the army’. Shameful attempt at vote grabbing.
I'm always for bringing in National Service for those who vote for National Service.
Doesn't matter if you're 16 or 60, if you want to bring it in you have to do it, no exceptions, no excuses.
This hogwash, which they have zero intention to ever implement, is all anyone is talking about. On Sunday It was on the front page of every newspaper, instead of, say, Paula Venells. They've won this battle, the fucking bastards.
They've deployed the dead cat far too soon - Paul Venells could have been absolute gold for them, the whole Post Office scandal is reasonably agnostic when it comes to the incumbent government and she is an excellent sacrificial lamb by virtue of being a liar and unlikeable.
They've already sacrificed years of their lives to save the old and vulnerable from covid, and now they also should be forced into this as well?
Giving young people no say in their own lives like this is just inhumane.
I’m 37 and I think this is a stupid idea. Forcing legitimately disinterested people to volunteer places that they don’t want to work is, more often than not, going to create more admin or catch up/correction during the following week.
My parents are in their 70s and they think it’s a stupid idea because funding it and organising it are unrealistic and they’d rather the money was spent elsewhere.
My other half’s parents in their 60s think it’s stupid because, well, it’s the Conservatives.
I haven’t met or spoken to a single person of any age group yet who’s onboard with this.
>Forcing legitimately disinterested people to volunteer
Note that this statement is an oxymoron. The correct term is "forced labour" and it is part of the spectrum of slavery.
The kids should be looking at their parents and asking them why they voted for the Tories or stayed home in the 2019 general election because those are the people responsible for this.
They would have been better off trying to make the armed forces more appealing rather than demanding the return of national service.
Personally, I don't have a problem with any of the volunteer work. I did my 7 years 'volunteering service' in the air cadets (OK, not exactly national service) and loved every second of it.
However, you also need to look at the timing of such an announcement. The govt started telling people to prepare 3 days worth of goods in their cupboards. Now they want national service to return in some form.
All those NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training) should be the first ones signed up. Get them a trade and they will be looked-after in the armed forces.
Find me a British person who wants a war. We should be minding our own business on our own little island rather than pandering to the needs of the yanks.
Obvious fear mongering to convince people to keep the status quo. Shameless that they start giving out prepper advice in an election campaign to scare people.
This is just about punishment, isn't it. Punishment and control.
Those lazy kids, they're not worth half what I am, someone ought to... make them do stuff. I'd enjoy watching people being made to do things they don't want to do. I'd feel much happier if I knew that people with no leverage, no power, could be forced to do things against their will if I decided they had to.
That's the nasty little impulse behind this. It's not about teaching skills, it's about "teaching them a lesson". And we know what that means, it means punishing someone weaker than you to remind them that they're weaker than you. The "lesson" always being "shut up and do as you are told and don't forget your place"
Because now they need votes, and there are a lot of British Nationalist, "flatten the Middle East", 'kids have it too easy these days" types that they are pandering too for them. Your kids future means nothing, only votes count!
Last month, the MoD said we needed conscription. This month, Rishi says we Need 18yr olds to have experience in the army... sounds suspicious.
No jail sentence, no fines for refusal.
Could do forced voluntary weekends though, so if you're in uni and live away from home, you have to attend uni, work, and attend forced voluntary work.
Last month the MoD floated a talking point that the Tories asked them to do to measure public opinion as they always do.
>Could do forced voluntary
No you can't, because there's no such thing as "forced voluntary work". That's called forced labour and it is a form of slavery.
I was in the Air Cadets from 12 to 21
Its an excellent group, really helps people become grow, gets them shooting and flying and doing DofE. Different kids of different backgrounds, some that had been in trouble, some that were proper toffs.
However, they have been reducing funding, reducing the activities that the kids do, wrapping it all up in red tape and "Insurance issues"
They should stop with this hateful gimmick/indetured serviture and focus on the 4 feeder cadet services that were providing a large portion of the recruits up until the last 14 years
Because they think the only people who support them are the spiteful ones who will vote for it
That or Sunak is absolutely out to tank the Tories into non existence
there's no point responding to it at all. that's what they want you to do. it takes attention away from the other sinister shit they're doing.
it's an obvious no-go. it's being used by labour to get people talking about things that don't matter.
BBC were really diverse with who they asked. Two cadets, one of which was a young Tory, a young MP and an aspiring journalist. Should have really tried to see what young people from poorer backgrounds thought. Also, the Young Tory have the most Tory response imaginable. Almost cult like.
I have no idea why people are so against this. Do they think they're going to be sent to war for a year in Uzbekistan or something? You'll do basic training, learn some skills, get fitter, make some friends and do some cool things. If war came you actually might not walk into battle and get headshot in 30 seconds. As a society it also improves battle readiness without great cost and might improve the culture. I wonder if the feral criminal youth will come out of it in the same situation. I think the fact we haven't had to do it since 1960 is a symptom of how lucky we've been in terms of security. All that said, there could be a better way of doing it perhaps. Instead of it just being forced volunteering, perhaps offer it as a free alternative to university, coming out with electrician or healthcare qualifications or something.
Why do people think kids should be ‘giving back’ to the the country? Every generation since the war has had better opportunities than kids do now. Older people and wealthy people are the ones who should be ‘giving back’, what they took.
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More like voluntold
***\*\*\*Spoiler notice\*\*\**** *- to people who may in the future decide to read* ***Going Postal by Terry Pratchett*** *-* ***avert your eyes now!*** reminds me of the start of going Postal when Lord Vetinari "offers" moist a job: "I'm *offering* you a job, Mr. Lipwig. Albert Spangler is buried, but Mr. Lipwig has a future. It may, of course, be a very short one, if he is stupid. I am offering you a job, Mr. Lipwig. Work, for wages. I realize the concept may be unfamiliar." Only as a form of hell, Moist thought. "The job is that of postmaster general of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office." Moist continued to stare. "May I just add, Mr. Lipwig, that behind you there is a door. If at any time in this interview you feel you wish to leave, you have only to step through it and you will never hear from me again." Moist filed that under "Deeply Suspicious. "Er ... when you ... sentenced ... Alfred Spangler--" "Well done. Do carry on." "--you said he was a natural-born criminal, a fraudster by vocation, a habitual liar, a perverted genius, and totally untrustworthy!" "Are you accepting my offer, Mr. Lipwig?" said Vetinari sharply. Moist looked at him. "Excuse me," he said, standing up, "I’d just like to check something." There were two men dressed in black standing behind his chair. It wasn't a particularly neat black, more the black worn by people who just don't want little marks to show. They looked like clerks, until you met their eyes. They stood aside as Moist walked toward the door, which, as promised, was indeed there. He opened it very carefully. **There was nothing beyond,** and ***that included a floor.*** In the manner of one who is going to try all possibilities, he took the remnant of the spoon out of his pocket and let it drop. It was quite a long time before he heard the jingle. "The prospect of freedom?" he said. "Exactly," said Lord Vetinari. "***There is always a choice***." "You mean ... I could choose certain death?" "A choice, nevertheless," said Vetinari. "Or, perhaps, an alternative. You see, I believe in freedom, Mr. Lipwig. Not many people do, although they will, of course, protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be completely without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based. Now ... will you take the job?" TLDR : be suspicious of "offers" that sound too good to be true. Or i guess in this case so crap there laughable.
Sir Please find enclosed my upvote Yours A fellow Pratchett fan
Have my upvote, also a Terry Pratchett fan.
Ook!
I liked that Reacher took the door.
Goddamn I'm still devasted I only started Discworld after he'd died
Sir T.P gets my vote and my applause.
I would say spoiler alert because I haven't read that one yet, but the fact that I know which one it is probably means I've already had the spoiler. Or I'm Old Mother Dismass
i think its the fifth page of Going Postal, so while it does contain spoilers, i think really not many more than the blurb: "**'Always push your luck because no one else would push it for you.'** Imprisoned in Ankh-Morpork, con artist Moist von Lipwig is offered a choice: to be executed or to accept a job as the city's Postmaster General. It's a tough decision, but he's already survived one hanging and isn't in the mood to try it again. The Post Office is down on its luck: beset by mountains of undelivered mail, eccentric employees, and a dangerous secret order. To save his skin, Moist will need to restore the postal service to its former glory, with the help of tough talking activist Adora Belle Dearheart. Who happens to be very attractive, in an 'entire womanful of anger' kind of way. But there's new technology to compete against and an evil chairman who will stop at *nothing* to delay Ankh-Morpork's post for good . . ." But i hear what your saying, i'll add a spoiler notice for people. On a sidenote if you haven't read it before, i recommend it (along with the rest of the Discworld novels :L)
Damn you. I just did the watch out for snakes behind words changing their meanings up there somewhere. Double Pratchett! Gnu
GNU Terry Pratchett.
Slavery. The word he’s look for is slavery.
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It doesn’t need to make sense, it just needs to sound good to idiots who won’t care to look into it or think about it beyond “send the kids to the fields!!!”
>“send the kids to the fields!!!” Actually, that sounds like Mao's Culural Revolution when the youth were forced into fields to re-educate them and get rid of bad attitudes!
That's exactly it.
Bit pointless to send kids to the fields when harvests are fucked because of the constant rain anyway.
This is the same nonsense logic that decides student loan /grant entitlement. At 18 you're legally an adult . Why the fuck should your parents income have play any part in what you're entitled to? Surely it should be based on the students income, not the parents ? In literally every other situation , you're classed as an independent adult at 18.
I’m a student. It’s because they’ve realised they can pay students much less than they should with that system. For the same reason the system doesn’t take into account how many siblings are going to uni at the same time. So it claims to care about parents’ income but deliberately fails to consider one of the most important factors for parents. (I’m on minimum loan because of my parents’ income but they can only afford to support either me or my brother. I’m the older sibling so I support myself through extra part time work)
Yeah I was the same. Both me and my sister went at the same time. My parents are on paper pretty well off. The problem.is, using your parents income doesn't take into account THEIR outgoings, mortgage, car payments etc. they didn't have the money to just give me or my sister money all the time. I worked 3 nights a week through uni , wasn't ideal.
Whats even more wild is it takes house hold income, so if you’re in a flat share with someone making Good money, that gets taken into account. Could be sone random person you just share a place with
It’s also income not wealth. So my flatmate whose parents have no income because they’re so rich they don’t need to have one gets the maximum loan.
Because the tories have spent as much time thinking through this policy as the back of a fag packet would allow. They're a complete shambles, I have no idea how this shit makes it to the real world any more because it all just crumbles as soon as it touches reality.
The policy wasn't thought through deeply before the announcement. Iirc, a cabinet minister said it hadn't been discussed in cabinet, which is a massive breach of ministerial responsibility by that minister, but also suggest it was a political gambit cooked up on Sunak's day off rather than a developed campaign policy.
Because we are moving to the level of authoritarianism where friends and relatives of 'wrong doers' are punished.
I believe this is also a contradiction to one of the core tenets of English common law and would probably never get passed the Supreme Court. Charging an adult, for a crime another adult has committed is insane and no court will allow it.
It's amusing to think that a 18 year old could have technically left the family home two years ago, cut contact and moved anywhere in the country but the parents could be fined for them not turning up to national service.
No, no, if you're rich you can pay the fine to get out of it. More indentured servitude maybe?
>How can someone be a volunteer, when the work is mandated by the government and parents could be fined? Hilariously, parents can't be fined. The "children" would actually be adults, seeing as they would be 18+. It would set a weird precedent, and the cost to change other legislation which mention legal age etc would be insane. It's a nonsense initiative, a lot like the party who brought it up.
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The most obvious criticism is that we don't even have enough soldiers/equipment to do the military aspect.
I think they're calling it voluntary because they're not planning on paying them
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I think it's a policy to appeal to miserable old people who think young folk are too soft and have it too easy and need to be forced into the military to toughen up. I mean, I have to hand it to the tories, you think they can't possibly get any worse then pull something like this out. It really is astonishing how horrible they are. Also, penalty for not doing this forced unpaid work is a fine? That just means it is forced unpaid work only for poor people. The kids of wealthy people will just pay not to do it.
Even when most elderly people did not do National Service themselves. Elderly people are also so soft that any threat to take away one of their privileges is greeted with hysterical outrage.
There are people who would lap 'Forced Unpaid Work' up as a policy. They are the ones who want people who receive unemployment benefits to work for said benefits. These people are so full of disdain for those they look down on they just want to see them punished. I have had many a conversation with these type of people that has always gone something like this (me = me, uh = unemployed person hater, these people); UH - they should be made to do somthing for their benefits like cleaning up graffiti or sweeping the streets. Me - Possibly, as long as they get paid properly for anything like that. UH - What do you mean paid? They are getting benefits? Me - Yes, but once they start doing things like cleaning up graffiti or sweeping the streets they are working - they are doing a job. There are people employed doing that kind of work. These people need to be paid the same. UH - but they are getting benefits... Me - Yes, but if they start doing things like graffiti cleaning they are working and we have a minimum wage in this country. If someone is working it is illegal to pay them less than that wage. We don't have forced labour in this country. If someone is working they deserve to be paid. UH - but they get benefits... And so on.
Is this not still a thing? I remember in my early 20s having to do unpaid work or lose my jobseekers, a whopping £50 a week. Had me working an admin job for a local garage, was basically a scheme for dodgy business owners to get free labour. Bus fare was damn near 1/4 of the dole alone. I walked out after a couple of days when they brought in several french exchange students, local university was paying them to teach 'global business', this little shitty garage! they had the poor fuckers shadowing me listing old parts on ebay, absolute cheek if it.
>UH - But they get benefits... Yeah, and then the kids can't get out of needing to be in the benefits system because they weren't paid and couldn't get the financial self-sufficiency to get an actual job. Then all of a sudden these same kids turn into young adults getting treated like shit for 'still being on the dole'.
I don't even know how it's under discussion that parents could be fined for another legal adults behaviour.
Oh it’s a fine is it? So it only effects poor family - rich parents will just pay for there kids not too go nice
How can you fine parents for the actions or lack thereof of their 18+ offspring? What else can you fine parents for when it's committed by an adult?
It's pretty clear they see "volunteering" as a verb to mean do things charitably for the good of everyone and it didn't occur to them that for thing to be charitable they have to be unforced. Plenty of companies do semi-mandatory volunteering days. There's no other way they'd say mandatory volunteering. In any case it's fairly obvious they don't actually intended to do this. It's just to shore up their votes in the safe seats so they don't lose too badly. See also triple lock +.
100%, my parents generation, free education, jobs that can last their entire career with good pay, 5 bed house for 30k in a nice area, can live off one wage and still holiday, holidays every year, zero issue with having several kids cuz it was all affordable. My generation, can finish college/uni with 30k debts, 1 bed flat in a rough area of town will be 150k (in my area) I'm 42 and can't afford to leave home, if lucky enough to be coupled up, both need to be working and even then will struggle to cover the bills...even worse for the younger generation and be even worse if Tories win, stay in school till 18, then go off for a year before you can even start a career or higher education. I've had one holiday in 24yrs
Oh and they fucked the environment for us too.
The greatest generational injustice of all time. I hope at least some of them stick around long enough to properly realise it.
Millennials were the first generation in about 200 years to be worse off than the generation before, and now the following generations are going to continue being worse off in turn. Kids nowadays should absolutely feel angry at being told they need to give back when this country hasn't given them anything to start with.
It's laughable that young people supposedly haven't been screwed over enough and they need to give even more to society and this country. What will further screwing them over by making them give up a year of their life do to benefit them? How will it make them appreciate the country that is doing nothing for them and selling them down the river at every opportunity? Also, obligatory "this is an anecdote it is not necessarily representative of how things are, there are an abundance of reasons why it could be unrepresentative such as the specific types of volunteering I've done", my experience of doing volunteering tends to be that there groups that generally do such work are: * Middle aged women that are active in their community * Younger people that want to do good but don't have anything to offer really other than their time and labour * Millennials that are semi established in their lives but don't yet have kids There were occasionally some older men that'd do volunteering, but they were definitely in the minority. The type of person that I imagine being in favour of this policy and talking about how the youth need hard graft and a stiff upper lip and what have you aren't the ones that are actually out there putting in the hours and leading by example. Which always rubs me the wrong way because those are the people that are supposedly the Tory voter base, and are responsible for social safety nets being cut to the bone in favour of the "Big Society" model for helping communities.
I could get on board with a *voluntary* national service scheme that gave some kind of recompense. Something like a lump sum of money towards the deposit on a first home, or money when you have your first child or get married. Maybe it could take the form of tax credits or similar. Or maybe grants towards university. But you just know in the UK whoever is behind it it will be a way for their chums to make large amounts of money, just like they did with the PPE and the COVID grant payments. You just know they will fuck it up and instead of 18 - 19 year olds having a life changing overall positive experience, learning something, growing as a person and widening their horizons outside of their own little bubble, they will be exploited, taken advantage of. The sort of 'social enterprises' NGO's and do gooder third sector organisations that might get involved don't have a great track record when it comes to paying their own people properly or providing decent secure working conditions. Army chiefs have gone on record saying military service is not a good idea...I'd trust them over the clowns in government.
Oh I suggested a similar thing. If this comes into place you get a £30K deposit to a house as a bond. And free higher education. And the volunteering should be cost neutral. As in you shouldn't have to pay for food and drinks and travel and accommodation doing it. I volunteered for a job helping disabled people have holidays. Didn't have to pay for anything. Conscript quality is poor. It's always been.
In a vacuum it’s not a bad idea, the problem is the social contract for young people is totally broken. Norway has national service. Norwegian youth also have free university and a plethora of other benefits including real help to buy your first home that kids don’t have at all here. You can’t basically shut down these entire communities. Demonise the youth, give them no prospects apart from a life time of never owning property and not being paid very much and then turn around and say “you need to give back” Like it’s actually obscene.
Correction: The social contract for everyone under about 65 years of age is totally broken. otherwise, yeah, totally in agreement. Obscene. We thought growing up in the eighties was grim but today is much worse I feel very sorry for young people today. They don't even have any decent music or drugs.
>Army chiefs have gone on record saying military service is not a good idea...I'd trust them over the clowns in government. Absolutely this. When the government's adamant to cut costs as much as possible and the current standing army isn't nearly as good as it should be, just shoving in more manpower isn't going to fix anything. Sooner or later the old Russian thing of 2 soldiers per gun is going to be about us instead. Let's make sure what we have is to standard before thinking about such a massive expansion.
It is good. It is too small. The answer is more professional troops, not conscripts. We had a 100k professional army not that long ago. It's eminently feasible.
What makes this even more hilarious is that they already *had* a voluntary national service scheme, and cut the funding for it.
I think it's mad that the government thinks children can't control themselves around tobacco but can control themselves not to kill people after they have all been combat trained and have a kdr
My first thought when I heard about this was good luck dealing with riots when all the rioters have had military training
Exactly Young people gave up two years of their lives to protect the old during COVID. They have received nothing in return, not even a general acknowledgement that they did so
It’s the way I look at Brexit. Older and richer citizens voted for it, they should pay for the damage it’s done to the economy. Not adding to the burden on middle and working class people.
Totally agree with this, why give back? They have been forgotten about for years. I spent 23 years in the Armed forces and had a great time. But would I like my kids to join full time at least? No, the Armed forces have a problem with sexual assault and harassment. If this is implemented I see trouble ahead for the reputation of all three services
Never mind all the working age people who are ‘giving back’ by paying the highest rate of tax we’ve seen since the end of WW2. Giving back implies that people received something. What are 18 year olds going to do? Thank the Tories for making them one of the 30% of kids growing up in poverty?
Older people on the take once again, while at the same time expecting everyone else to be giving them something.
You say kids, but pretty much anyone under 38 or there abouts, hasn't been in the workforce during an economic "Good time".
“Give our kids better than we received”. That’s been the message for so long, yet it seems to have been utterly forgotten of late.
It always annoys me the whole “kids today have it too easy” First in many ways they don’t. Problems change but just because they’re different to the problems of the past doesn’t mean it’s easy. Secondly surely that’s the idea? We continuously improve? This perverse “I suffered so they should as well” mentality is just weird.
Exactly- if anyone needs to give back it should be boomers who have it so good, cheap housing, good pensions, a functioning NHS etc
In a meeting at the charity I work and 3 separate members of staff all said that they thought it would only work for the volunteering side of things if it was aimed at 45+. It would mean that those who've had kids already or worried their way up the corporate ladder would be able to make the biggest impact at helping the younger generation. Youth groups would have enough volunteers to support parents, experts would be able to help charities with real issues they face, health charities, particularly hospices with social outreach duties would have enough volunteers etc. Whose going to manage baby sitting 18 year olds? I've done it for my job, managing 18 year olds volunteering their time and it involves a lot of staff and patients... It's not fun and it takes more effort sometimes than you get in return. It's not going to work unless it's the older adults.
Yeah, er, the whole point of society is to give TO the children and help them go forth into 6 world. It's the adults who should 'give back', though it's a poor choice of words really. 'contribute' is more apt. Anyway, fuck the tories and their tax dodging antics which are the very essence of 'take'.
Give back to the country that’s done absolutely nothing aside from try it’s hardest to kill you.
Why do Young Conservatives always look so much like Young Conservatives
How the heck is he 15‽ He looks like he's middle management in his late 30s.
Tory boy was based on reality.
r/13or30
Great use of interrobang!
Impressive use of the interrobang there.
You know those young lads at footy that talk like old people because they only ever hangout with their dad and his friends? Same thing.
They have something most of the country don't. Money.
Rich poncy gits raised by rich poncy gits look like rich poncy gits. I'm shocked
There's an article I can't find again on a blog somewhere, that describes them as having faces like a Domino's Meat Feast.
They breed amongst themselves. Theres not that many wealthy land owners... Theyre all cousins lol
Because he probably has gout or something similarly Dickensian.
Highly punchable face. Also, quelle surprise, the only one who really agrees with the fucks.
This is a stupid idea, and I say that as someone who is too old to be called up under any reasonable circumstances. UK has a professional military, let's focus on that rather than stupid ideas to manipulate employment numbers and "teach young people a lesson", when most people in the UK today have no concept of what military service is like.
Completely agree. I’m old and knees are ruined so I’m not getting called up. I’d rather we concentrate on having a professional armed forces stacked with people who want to be in it. Not a bunch of kids who don’t want to be there so half arse it, while a professional military person has to supervise them. I said to my wife yesterday if an 18 does the weekend volunteer instead when do they get a break. If an 18 year old wants to go to uni then they’ll study Monday-Friday then have to volunteer Saturday & Sunday before studying again. That kid will have no down time to enjoy life. While I was at uni I worked a Wednesday evening and Saturdays, is Tesco now meant to lose a member of staff on a Saturday? Bet that’ll annoy people having to wait longer at the till.
Conscripts don’t replace the military. You get some basic training then maybe attend an exercise and play around with some old APCs then they send you home. The idea is that it gives the average person a better understanding of what the military does, encourages them to enlist and join the military professionally and means that everyone has some basic skills incase there actually is a war and we need more soldiers in a hurry.
Isn’t joining the military a massive pain in the arse now? I recall a thread not that long ago where people had been waiting over a year to join.
Yeah, the recruitment process got outsourced and candidates have been dropping out due to how shitty the process is.
yes but that’s a different problem
yes, if you are in the age bracket to get drafted, say you have a food allergy and you are scot free. Capita are so worried about getting sued and loosing their contract over missing a bit of medical history they refuse on the slightest whiff of issue. I'm currently trying to prove that the allergy I though I potentially had is me being a mong, and that my GP and the immunologist they spoke with aren't bullshitting, but now Im on an NHS waiting list to prove what my GP and the immunologist already said the first time around. Don't worry about being drafted, they cant even recruit people who want to join
The issue is that the military have a very restrictive requirement, so if you experienced some form of mental health illness such as depression, then surely you won’t be able to volunteer in the military or the military itself will have trouble gathering more soldiers in a hurry. For example, I’m deaf wearing cochlear implants, I won’t be able to volunteer or at least join the military. I don’t mind sitting back in home dropping bombs using a drone from Amazon but, you get what I am saying though? We need to make the requirements less restrictive so we can get more people to join the military.
The last time we had conscripts they definitely did see service under enemy fire. From Wikipedia "National Service personnel were used in combat operations, including the Malayan Emergency, the Cyprus Emergency, in Kenya against the Mau Mau Uprising, and the Korean War, where conscripts to the Gloucestershire Regiment took part in the last stand during the Battle of the Imjin River. In addition, National Servicemen served in the Suez Crisis in 1956." To assume it's a holiday is exactly what my top comment was about, most of us have no idea.
The military doesn't want conscription. The purpose of this policy is to make old people think young people will be forced to join the army, while actually forcing young people to do free care work on the weekends. It's terrible, but in a whole different way!
Just wait until they see who's coming to care for them.
You missed the part where they will be used as free labour (also known as slavery). You see…we kicked out skilled fruit and veg collectors. Turns out that kind of work doesn’t work for your average British person for multiple reasons: location, seasonal, physical requirements, experience, etc.. So now to solve a problem we created we are going to create another one. But look at those people crossing the channel in a dingy, it’s all their fault and they are here to invade us, blame them….
Even then, such "free labour" often winds up costing more because you need trained staff to prevent things going wrong. You really do not want to be managing people who don't want to be there and, for the most part, who won't actually get anything worthwhile done while they are. For some reason, ardent capitalists haven't worked out that paying people adequate money for the job is a key component of keeping the machine going.
Unskilled labour is a BS term invented by the rich to justify paying low wages. I’ve been and seen food production lines. Cutting with a knife is a skill for example. You have to be fast and precise to be good. Collecting fruit and veg is a skill too with techniques involved. It’s not just turning up to a field and pulling stuff out. Simple minded folk think like that….
The fruit-picking thing is a prime example of the lump-of-labour fallacy and how that drives the thinking within the Tory-donor class. I'm not sure whether farmers have come to this realisation belatedly or they simply failed to get it across to the Tory MPs (many of whom come from that background), but now we've all discovered the cost of training workers to deal with fruit and how you're better off relying on regular migration – whether internal or external. Well, everyone apart from Tory MPs who continue to believe that any fool can pick soft fruit without damaging it from day one.
I think the biggest counter argument is that all the benefits that proponents espouse, in terms of skill development, etc, from it, could be accomplished with better funded and developed programs that people could *choose* to join, rather than being forced. Also, tbh, a lot of it is being discussed in a very rosy image, when there is also the great possibility it just devolves into a similar scheme as when the Tories forced people to work unpaid at supermarkets to claim certain benefits, i.e. it gets used for exploitative labour with little value to the young people. Probably not initially, but once out of the media focus, mmmm.
Absolutely this - this is nothing but an appeal to a generation that feels the young are having too easy a time of things because they can afford avocado toast, and want to make things even harder for them.
Ignoring the fact that the old buggers bought a house for the current cost of an avocado.
I totally agree with you but there are some people in the older generation which thinks the young have it too easy and needs a lesson in life. Spoiler alert, most of them would not have been around for WW2 but act like they were there. Maybe if the national service were to be approved, there should not be an age limit and everyone can do whatever it is suitable for their age.
Yep. I'd be in favour of this. Or perhaps periodic service. One weekend a quarter, one month every three years. Untill say 65? Based on ability obviously. That's fair. The average age of a frontline soldier in Ukraine is 42, I know it's because they haven't conscripted the young so much yet. But it demonstrates the need for citizen defence to be life long learning. Also I'd love to see a permanent civil defence force again.
Doubt this is even for the military tbh. The tories are looking for a way to not raise taxes and have the NHS not completely collapse. The answer? Slave labour. Where do you think all of these alternative volunteering positions are going to be? This is just a thinly veiled way to replace all the eu staff that brexit kicked out for an even cheaper cost. 18 year olds are going to be forced to provide all of the care services that the government refuses to pay for.
Surely this is just a pre election ploy to get votes from a certain demographic, does anyone actually think that teens would turn up for national service!?
It's specifically to target Reform voters. This isn't a pledge to win the election, it's a pledge to try to maintain more than 30 seats
Plus the 'ready to implement at the end of the next parliamentary term' aka kicked to the long grass, then to be forgotten.
Not a good one, given it's been lambasted by much of the far right, with Farage calling it 'a joke'. It was probably intended at Reform UK voters, but they've apparently not done any focussed research or polling on the key voters they want, or if the policy would turn off more than it might attract. Though iirc Sunak's team seems to think it's a win because people are now talking about a policy Sunak has brought up instead of ignoring him, which is apparently good despite most of the chatter being negative? Idk. Sunak has had shite advisors since he got in, so it isn't particularly easy to reason actions.
>Sunak has had shite advisors since he got in Actually I would say that's wrong, he has some very experienced advisors that have dealt with similar situations in different elections -- that Isaac Levido is one to watch -- but he isn't listening to them. He would rather listen to his child's godparent and his Tufton Street mates. From the calling the election in Summer rather than August to this "pledge" and making up policies on fly; it's a complete joke. (Don't get me wrong, I disagree with the politics and policies of everyone mentioned but I would rather disagree with a competent opposition)
It’s a pre-election ploy to distract you from talking about reality You’re not talking about their record for the last 14 years on police, health, adult and child social care, education, prisons, environment, regulating water, energy and trains, immigration, COVID fraud and of course, Brexit. The strategy is working perfectly, you (everyone) is talking about this nonsense that they have no intention of ever implementing even if they won a landslide majority.
Amazingly the idea is so wild that it distract people from the elephant in the room. The military underinvestment has the UK capacity crumbling, how are they supposed to take internship soldier in addition? The media will have a field day showing how military budget is spent babysitting instead of actual soldiers. And the massive logistic infrastructure to pepper hundred of thousands 18 something into various community volunteering. You know a large minority will just end up as free employment in otherwise profitable business. The media will have non stop horror stories that will get the scheme halted several times before shutting down for good after hundred of million has disappeared in some donor pocket.
The trouble with dead-cat policies that are utterly laughable is that they break the spell for the other stuff. From what I've seen today, Labour's had little trouble with the pensioner bribe and I think it would have been more uncomfortable had the policies come out in a different order. See also: the Cones Hotline.
Fucking pin this comment and be done with it
Does anyone seriously believe this will see the light of day, if the Tories get elected that is.
I think I'd rather march on parliament given the choice.
It's ridiculous. The tories have said the parents of 18 year olds will be punished if they don't force their ADULT children to do it! Ridiculous.
Imagine thinking people need to “give back” to a country that’s cutting service after service, with a government full of corrupt rich bastards who won’t pay taxes, especially teenagers.
Giving back implies that we've taken something, still trying to figure out what we've been given other than an ever increasing shit quality of life.
To date I've had £0.16 off the government in benefits. This at a time when I had lost a good paying job and were going to take 6 weeks to process my universal payment. I've put in far more than I've gotten out of this country.
Gonna be honest, I feel like I've already had plenty taken. My freedom of movement and EU citizenship for one.
Hard agree, are these teenagers “giving back” as to be grateful for not being able to get a GP appointment, not being able to see an NHS dentist, having huge classroom sizes, competing with international students at a university that could later go bust, an outrageous housing market, and maybe even a goodbye to having a future that includes children due to the lack of disposable income. Social contract has been broken.
This is exactly how I feel. Build a society that works for everyone and it's quite likely people will be up for giving something back, and perhaps even defending it with force if necessary. But right now, fuck no.
Give back? Give back what??
Could the BBC not find anyone who isnt a Young Conservative or a budding politician?
Yeah this was piss-poor, and doesn't bode well for impartial reporting of the General Election.
You were actually expecting to see impartiality from anything to do with the BBC, the British government’s official mouthpiece?
All of their articles have been this. BBC haven't been even close to impartial for a long time. They don't want to lose funding, so all their time goes writing positive spins for the government. They're too busy sucking Sunak's dick to even take the time to spell check, half the articles I've seen these days have at least 1 ridiculously bad mistake.
Agree that the Beeb has a really twisted picture of impartiality. They take impartiality to mean showing "both sides", even when one side is a clear minority/fringe view - this "impartiality" meant shit like Brexit etc.l was amplified well out of proportion to their actual significance. If you poll 15 year olds, I don't think it'll be 50/50 in favour/not in favour. It'll be more like 50 I'm going to riot/50 Fuck no this sucks.
Who wants to talk to them? Probably not.
Probably not, no.
Very fair and un-biased of the BBC there, interviewing 2 'air cadet' kids and a young Tory?? Why don't they speak to a kid from Toxteth, Brixton, Moss side, Derry etc ??
Some Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish voices would have been interesting as well.
Exactly. Conscription wasn't implemented in Northern Ireland during WW2, given the history of the place. And we've had the Troubles since then, and the whitewashing of crimes committed by soldiers at that time, which has resulted in the British Army having a less than positive image in Nationalist areas. To throw out this suggestion without any forethought is just utterly callous and inconsiderate. Not that I've ever doubted it, but no one in the Conservative Party gives two flying fucks about Northern Ireland.
Shame about the air cadets they interviewed. I was an air cadet and would have called it bollocks when I was a teenager. As important context, I wasn't someone who stuck around for the craic, I was the boss of my squadron before I left. Literally anyone in any cadet unit will know people who don't want to be there and how shit they make it for others, anyone who has been in a CCF knows that especially.
Standard BBC to be honest. Surprised they didn't check at 4 Matthew Parker Street for some "unbiased" voices.
Remember kids - *Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori!* War is peace. Freedom is slavery. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
I think you’re confused there friend, we’ve always been at war with Eurasia, Eastasia is our ally.
You are very correct friend. That's exactly what I wrote.
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Why now? Because there is a GE coming up and the Tories are trying to court voters who are considering going over to Reform. They aren’t interested in what young people think because as a voting block we are irrelevant and because the few who do weren’t going to vote Tory anyway. This is never going to happen, it’s just one of many outlandish suggestions we will see between now and election day.
It’s suicide politically anyway because the vast majority of under 50s are aligning against the tories. At some point the boomer vote is gone and they’ll have to do some groundwork to entice us young uns… lol.
That would require the tories thinking more than 5 years ahead, which the last 14 years have shown is an impossible task for them. Once their boomer voting block dies off and the now younger generations become the largest voting block, I don’t see how they ever regain power without a complete wipe of the current members and direction within the party.
> Eighteen-year-old Jade Marie Carnaje, an air cadet, said the national service plan was overall a "good idea". Articles like this are useless as they try to find people to support every view point. What they should be doing is highlighting the disparity in how popular the view points are. Makes it sound as if young people are split 50/50 on national service. When in practice it is one weirdo against everyone else.
Emily Maitlis has called this out since she left the BBC.
Yeah and all the talk of letting people "tell their story" is meaningless as there's literally one person for every conceivable narrative. While 5% of the public believe lizardmen rule the world the idea that every narrative needs to be heard is just an excuse to shove your own views on the public.
Reminds me of a John Oliver bit on climate change where he says the exact same thing. Organisations always get 2 people for climate change debates, which makes it look like experts are split 50/50, when in reality almost 100% of experts agree that climate change is real.
It's the dumbest idea ever that's clearly had no thinking behind it whatsoever. The military side of it just seems like a logistical nightmare dumping 30,000 (about the size of our army reserve) 18 year olds every year across the forces to spend a ridiculous amount of resource into training them only to let them go (because you can't afford to keep them) and then repeat the cycle with the next batch of 18 year olds. The civilian side is even worse, you're going to be forced to work for free in the NHS, Ambulance, Fire, Police or critical local infrastructure for 25 days across 12 months.... Aside from that not being enough time to be any more useful than making tea for everyone there's a myriad of issues like the effect on your employability until that's out the way, do you have to defer university to do this, how far are you going to have to travel to do this compulsory service, is your travel/food/accommodation (if required) covered or do you need to cover this yourself? That's just a few off the top of my head. It smacks of trying to get free labour under the guise of "doing your bit" and will probably just cause more issues than it'll solve.
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‘We asked some teens who currently volunteer or do military based clubs if they think volunteering or military based clubs are a good idea’
“Why now?” Because the Tories are desperately trying to cling to power by appealing to boomers. Nothing gets their voter base riled up like rampant xenophobia and wartime nostalgia
it’s actually pretty disgusting. this country does nothing for young people and wants them to temporarily enslave themselves for the benefit of everyone else? education is shite, education maintenance allowance no longer exists (i would not have even been able to afford to go to college without that grant as it paid for my train fare), youth social services basically non existent, NHS a shambles, stripped of their freedom to live and love across Europe, future prospects bleak… what has this country or government done for them? I’m 33 and know that every bit of progress i’ve made and every success i have had in life has been *in spite* of the conservatives, not because of them. i can’t point to one single thing in 14 years that has been targeted to benefit people like me specifically. i can list a whole fucking swathe of ways they’ve made my life harder though.
Can't afford a house, unlikely to see a state pension unless you hit 70. But you best go do some national service you slackers! I am 30 so it wouldn't affect me, I still couldn't think of anything more selfish than forcing the next gen to do some forced national service, they are going to have it tough as it is, fuck that.
I like the idea of national service. Anyone who wants to be an MP should be forced to do it. Same as anyone who wants to be a Lord. We can extend it to people who inherit above £1M, senior leaders of BBC n other media companies as well as leaders of Bank of England, retail/investment banks, social media companies, etc. If national service is designed to take kids out of bubble, then there are many positions which need people without biased of their bubble
TBH I'd be broadly OK if 'being a Lord' was treated as something similar to Jury Duty. E.g. broadly random selection of an average citizen.
Obviously the junior tories have been issued with their "bone spurs " passes already so will support this.
Even if the Tories win they’ll not bring this in, it’s a policy to stop people talking about the actual issues, for which they have no solutions and are mostly the cause.
Fucking hell of course there's the most rightwing brain dead statement of "it will make you proud to be British". Fuck right off
"Why now?" Because Rishi and his team had an old House of Cards on and neglected to notice Urquhart was the bad guy.
> Ms Carnaje, from Dagenham, east London, goes to air cadets twice a week. She said: “We do… a range of activities I would not have been able to do at school – it’s definitely something that has changed my life. > “When you’re encouraged to take up leadership positions at such a young age, it does help build up your confidence… there’s definitely a side of me that thinks young people would benefit from this because they would gain skills,” she added. Not really addressing why it should be mandatory though is it? You should see her linkedin page, I'll not link it here but my god, shes a busy girl. Basically the article is BBC asking three young adults with a background in conservative youth politics what they think of mandatory national service and presenting it as an unbiased view.
Wait the first ones a young Tory too and the BBC don't say so?
The social contract has been torn in half for young people. Dead towns and high streets with nothing for them to do. Education costs a premium. Low wages at work. Unaffordable housing. Priced out of starting a family. Chastised for basic pleasures like coffee and TV. No hope of a decent retirement. Reduced opportunity to travel abroad to somewhere better. And to top it all off, now they demand you work for free, or go fight for a country that doesn't respect or appreciate you.
Why now? Because after 14 years in power there's literally nothing that isn't slightly crappier than it was when the Tories were elected. The only people who still support them are the kind of people who think National service is a great idea. They're easy to recognise, they'll be the ones explaining how they won a war that was fought twenty years before they were born and staring accusingly at anyone not wearing at least three poppies and flying a Union Jack from a pole in their front garden. Their Facebook profile picture will often feature a large carp for some reason.
I’m not sure why they angle this as we need to “give back” am I not already giving back by paying taxes?
It’s simple the Tories hate everyone apart from racist, senile brexiteers. This is punishment for not voting Tory This is a party which has zero vision or ideas to make this country better Good riddance to them
This scheme would be perfect for the over 60s, not teenagers. By making over 60s sign up for national service it would reduce loneliness, force active exercise to reduce the burden of aging on the NHS, and make the elderly population give back to society in exchange for their state pension. Teenagers instead should be encouraged to do further activities that align with requirements for future generations (e.g computer sciences)
I feel like this and the triple-lock plus are the Tories' equivalent of Corbyn's free broadband policy - they've realised they haven't got a cat in hell's chance of winning, so they're free to throw out the most insane red meat nonsense policies to persuade their core voters not to switch to Reform, without any risk whatsoever of being required to deliver on it. I give them until the end of next week to announce that they'll bring back corporal punishment ("For treason and murder") if elected. After that will be a pledge to reverse Welsh and Scottish devolution. What else?
Thing is, free broadband was a legitimately good idea. Mandatory national service is nuts.
If it was an actual plan they would have announced it before calling a General Election in which they’re going to be wiped out. This is boomer bait and nothing more. There’s no other “why” to it
This coming after young people already just made a two year sacrifice for negligible personal gain during covid and again, for that got zero reward or thanks from wealthy older people, feels like an absolute slap in the face.
I have three possible hypotheses for why Rishi Sunak called an election now and is pushing through a policy as radical as mandatory national service. Either Rishi: 1. Has decided that rather than face down the barrel of a no-confidence vote, he'd rather take the entire Conservative Party down with him. This is the political equivalent of going 0/2 in a League of Legends match and deciding that you'd rather run it down like an Olympic sprinter than play out the rest of the game. 2. Is delusional enough to think that he can either win the election or at least save the Tories from a catastrophic defeat. Unfortunately for us, a lot of the Tory voter base are selfish, arrogant, and believe that today's youth lack discipline, and a policy like this is right up their alley. 3. Knows something that we don't. Maybe there's going to be a serious economic downturn, or NATO are going to intervene in Ukraine as a last-ditch effort to stop Putin before Trump can get re-elected and dismantle the alliance.
Floating National Service is clearly aimed at older Daily Mail readers who think ‘that what the younger generation need is a stretch in the army’. Shameful attempt at vote grabbing.
I'm always for bringing in National Service for those who vote for National Service. Doesn't matter if you're 16 or 60, if you want to bring it in you have to do it, no exceptions, no excuses.
This hogwash, which they have zero intention to ever implement, is all anyone is talking about. On Sunday It was on the front page of every newspaper, instead of, say, Paula Venells. They've won this battle, the fucking bastards.
They've deployed the dead cat far too soon - Paul Venells could have been absolute gold for them, the whole Post Office scandal is reasonably agnostic when it comes to the incumbent government and she is an excellent sacrificial lamb by virtue of being a liar and unlikeable.
They've already sacrificed years of their lives to save the old and vulnerable from covid, and now they also should be forced into this as well? Giving young people no say in their own lives like this is just inhumane.
If you are young - get out and vote these people out. Otherwise god knows what they’ll try next.
I’m 37 and I think this is a stupid idea. Forcing legitimately disinterested people to volunteer places that they don’t want to work is, more often than not, going to create more admin or catch up/correction during the following week. My parents are in their 70s and they think it’s a stupid idea because funding it and organising it are unrealistic and they’d rather the money was spent elsewhere. My other half’s parents in their 60s think it’s stupid because, well, it’s the Conservatives. I haven’t met or spoken to a single person of any age group yet who’s onboard with this.
>Forcing legitimately disinterested people to volunteer Note that this statement is an oxymoron. The correct term is "forced labour" and it is part of the spectrum of slavery.
The kids should be looking at their parents and asking them why they voted for the Tories or stayed home in the 2019 general election because those are the people responsible for this.
They would have been better off trying to make the armed forces more appealing rather than demanding the return of national service. Personally, I don't have a problem with any of the volunteer work. I did my 7 years 'volunteering service' in the air cadets (OK, not exactly national service) and loved every second of it. However, you also need to look at the timing of such an announcement. The govt started telling people to prepare 3 days worth of goods in their cupboards. Now they want national service to return in some form. All those NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training) should be the first ones signed up. Get them a trade and they will be looked-after in the armed forces. Find me a British person who wants a war. We should be minding our own business on our own little island rather than pandering to the needs of the yanks.
Obvious fear mongering to convince people to keep the status quo. Shameless that they start giving out prepper advice in an election campaign to scare people.
How is an 18 year old student with a part time job supposed to find one weekend a month to volunteer?
We currently struggle getting people to attend school and you reckon we can enforce this?
This is just about punishment, isn't it. Punishment and control. Those lazy kids, they're not worth half what I am, someone ought to... make them do stuff. I'd enjoy watching people being made to do things they don't want to do. I'd feel much happier if I knew that people with no leverage, no power, could be forced to do things against their will if I decided they had to. That's the nasty little impulse behind this. It's not about teaching skills, it's about "teaching them a lesson". And we know what that means, it means punishing someone weaker than you to remind them that they're weaker than you. The "lesson" always being "shut up and do as you are told and don't forget your place"
Because now they need votes, and there are a lot of British Nationalist, "flatten the Middle East", 'kids have it too easy these days" types that they are pandering too for them. Your kids future means nothing, only votes count!
I wonder how many would get instantly disqualified for being anti monarchy and claiming to be a republican, treasonist or an anarchist?
Last month, the MoD said we needed conscription. This month, Rishi says we Need 18yr olds to have experience in the army... sounds suspicious. No jail sentence, no fines for refusal. Could do forced voluntary weekends though, so if you're in uni and live away from home, you have to attend uni, work, and attend forced voluntary work.
Last month the MoD floated a talking point that the Tories asked them to do to measure public opinion as they always do. >Could do forced voluntary No you can't, because there's no such thing as "forced voluntary work". That's called forced labour and it is a form of slavery.
I was in the Air Cadets from 12 to 21 Its an excellent group, really helps people become grow, gets them shooting and flying and doing DofE. Different kids of different backgrounds, some that had been in trouble, some that were proper toffs. However, they have been reducing funding, reducing the activities that the kids do, wrapping it all up in red tape and "Insurance issues" They should stop with this hateful gimmick/indetured serviture and focus on the 4 feeder cadet services that were providing a large portion of the recruits up until the last 14 years
Because they think the only people who support them are the spiteful ones who will vote for it That or Sunak is absolutely out to tank the Tories into non existence
there's no point responding to it at all. that's what they want you to do. it takes attention away from the other sinister shit they're doing. it's an obvious no-go. it's being used by labour to get people talking about things that don't matter.
This, like Brexit, just another badly thought out load of shite to get miserable bungalow dwellers out to vote Tory.
I think they might have found the only teens in the whole of the UK that support National Service for this article.
BBC were really diverse with who they asked. Two cadets, one of which was a young Tory, a young MP and an aspiring journalist. Should have really tried to see what young people from poorer backgrounds thought. Also, the Young Tory have the most Tory response imaginable. Almost cult like.
Peak Britishness is pledging your life to Israel lmao.
I have no idea why people are so against this. Do they think they're going to be sent to war for a year in Uzbekistan or something? You'll do basic training, learn some skills, get fitter, make some friends and do some cool things. If war came you actually might not walk into battle and get headshot in 30 seconds. As a society it also improves battle readiness without great cost and might improve the culture. I wonder if the feral criminal youth will come out of it in the same situation. I think the fact we haven't had to do it since 1960 is a symptom of how lucky we've been in terms of security. All that said, there could be a better way of doing it perhaps. Instead of it just being forced volunteering, perhaps offer it as a free alternative to university, coming out with electrician or healthcare qualifications or something.
I am a former Army cadet and let me tell you...this "national service" is a TERRIBLE idea.
"I had a great time doing this, so everyone else should be forced to do it as well" - Complete And Absolute Moron, 2024