[News] Should we Bring Back National Service? Sunak says YES.

[Guinness Boy]

There would only be space in the armed forces for less the 5% of 18 year olds. For the rest, it’d turn into road sweeping or just teens hanging around in public on their phones whilst their handlers tried to find them something useful to do.

When you look at the detail, this is only designed to stoke a culture war and drive division. It’s a cheap political trick intended to give the older generation a chance to have a dig at the younger generation. And judging by this thread, quite a few older folk are doing exactly what the Tories require.

Exactly. It’s dog whistle politics because even Mail reading Colonels from Buckinghamshire weren’t going to turn out for Sunak.

 

[heathgate]

I suspect it will be a politically popular option for many older, authoritarian, working-class, voters, who despise liberalism and young people, and think that almost any social problem can/will be solved by either sending more people to prison, putting all youngsters in the army, or stopping immigration.

Simple 'solutions' for people whose responses are driven by emotions and/or nostalgia, and who like everything to be reduced to three-word slogans: take back control; stop the boats; abolish the BBC; lock up protestors; sack the Lefties; bring back conscription.

This is just more desperate Culture War nonsense from a morally and ideologically bankrupt Right-wing Government.

I can't wait to see the miracles that Starmer etc al have in store for us,... 16 yo voting??!!... what a wonderful start...

 

[pocketseagull]

16 yo voting??!!... what a wonderful start...

Conservatives seek to disenfranchise to win and Labour want to expand. Good news for democracy.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

I know lots of people in their early 60s with a fantastic pension who all feel they have done their bit by working so why should they? They are now enjoying the fruits of their hard work and living in a 5 bed house that cost them 40k and is now worth 850k. They worked hard for that house and capital growth. The young need to stop complaining about the prospect of having to work 12 consecutive days once a month (with two of them unpaid) and suck it up.

"Done their bit"

By that of course you mean worked during an era of decent wages and terms & conditions, low taxation, low interest rates and booming house prices.

For many of us in this generation, opportunity fell into our laps.
The rewards for hard work were worth having. Increasingly that is no longer the case.

 

[Peteinblack]

I can't wait to see the miracles that Starmer etc al have in store for us,... 16 yo voting??!!... what a wonderful start...

I have no great hopes or expectations of a Starmer government, but I am quietly confident that whatever it does (or does not do), it will not be 1% as awful, corrupt, deliberately-divisive, and vindictive as the self-serving, asset-stripping, fuckwittery and endless insults to our intelligence, we've suffered over the last 14 years, from a supposedly patriotic government which acts as if it hates 80% of the British people.

But if you want to play the "Labour would be worse" card, go ahead.

 

[Hugo Rune]

I can't wait to see the miracles that Starmer etc al have in store for us,... 16 yo voting??!!... what a wonderful start...

What patronising nonsense. If they are old enough to reproduce, to die for their country and to pay tax, they are old enough to vote.

Much better than having elderly people vote for a Government when they clearly won’t outlive it’s 5 year term.

 

[stewart_weir]

Nothing more than a front page Mail/Express/Telegraph/Sun to appeal to the gammons and over 60s. Insane to think the police/fire/ambulance services would want 18yr olds who don’t want to be there. Impossible to ‘train’ anyone fast enough to do any meaningful service if it’s only weekends. At best they will make tea, mop the floor, pick up litter or paint a wall. The irony is that Crime families around the country now planning on who will be 18 if it comes in and will now more likely vote Tory.

 

[Peteinblack]

What patronising nonsense. If they are old enough to reproduce, to die for their country and to pay tax, they are old enough to vote.

Much better than having elderly people vote for a Government when they clearly won’t outlive it’s 5 year term.

And who know that its cruel and punitive policies will only be applied to sections of society they don't like or approve of.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

And who know that its cruel and punitive policies will only be applied to sections of society they don't like or approve of.

To be fair, it'd be bloody stupid to support cruel and punitive policies against sections of society they do like or approve of.

 

[Peteinblack]

Nothing more than a front page Mail/Express/Telegraph/Sun to appeal to the gammons and over 60s. Insane to think the police/fire/ambulance services would want 18yr olds who don’t want to be there. Impossible to ‘train’ anyone fast enough to do any meaningful service if it’s only weekends. At best they will make tea, mop the floor, pick up litter or paint a wall. The irony is that Crime families around the country now planning on who will be 18 if it comes in and will now more likely vote Tory.

Basically an updated version of the YTS (Youth Training Schemes) that the Tories invented in the 1980s to reduce the official unemployment figures.

 

[Zeberdi]

Sunak's 'surprise' National Service policy pledge derided as 'deeply cynical' by defence insider

Russia's full-scale war in Ukraine, growing threats from China, an increasingly aggressive North Korea, and the potential for war with Iran in the Middle East means the world is more dangerous now than at any time since the Cold War.

news.sky.com

 

[Deportivo Seagull]

I can't wait to see the miracles that Starmer etc al have in store for us,... 16 yo voting??!!... what a wonderful start...

Good is it not.

 

[chip]

Why not fund FE colleges better so that people can get skills and a trade? Not sure about giving the vote to children, that will create some legal/constitutional problems.

 

[Commander]

Did you do national service? If not, why do you think today's youth lack basic life skills that you had at the same age?

Also, nothing stopping your kids volunteering today, no reason for it to be mandatory.

No I didn’t. But I do think it might have helped me.

 

[Bold Seagull]

I know lots of people in their early 60s with a fantastic pension who all feel they have done their bit by working so why should they? They are now enjoying the fruits of their hard work and living in a 5 bed house that cost them 40k and is now worth 850k. They worked hard for that house and capital growth. The young need to stop complaining about the prospect of having to work 12 consecutive days once a month (with two of them unpaid) and suck it up.

At first I thought this was satirical.

 

[FIVESTEPS]

What patronising nonsense. If they are old enough to reproduce, to die for their country and to pay tax, they are old enough to vote.

Much better than having elderly people vote for a Government when they clearly won’t outlive it’s 5 year term.

Cannot legally die for your country till the age of 18.

 

[Hugo Rune]

Cannot legally die for your country till the age of 18.

So if a terrorist group linked to Iran on Russia destroys a British military training base (not on the front line) killing 16 and 17 year olds, could we take the Ayatollah or Putin to court?

 

[vegster]

Clever move by the Tories to float an unworkable " look over there " scheme that will never reach fruition. We don't have the infrastructure or the armed forces personnel or the amount of uniforms to supply 2 or 3 hundred thousand teenagers. There's also an acute shortage of trained people to organise and allocate Voluntary Service as youth groups have had so many funding cuts.

So, it's better for them that we all argue about a scheme like this than poverty, Food Banks and collapsing personal health and the health service and everything else.

 

[Nobby]

I can't wait to see the miracles that Starmer etc al have in store for us,... 16 yo voting??!!... what a wonderful start...

Great news isn't it
I mean - compared to training them to kill people - jobs a good un

 

[A1X]

Have to say I agree. As someone who has employed a lot of 19-24 year olds in recent times, so many of them completely lack basic life skills that I had at that age.

Which “life skills” are these, then?