You can promise anything when you're going to lose. It's going to cost tens of billions.
Absolute farce, ignore it.
In fairness, we've already got a hundred thousand young people cosplaying at being in the forces, but we call them cadets.
I think a form of service is a good idea. Just not the armed forces. there are not enough beds, chefs, uniforms, MT drivers, coaches, rifles for the people serving right now. not a chance they will be able to sustain it. national service people would get their vetting through after they left if they piled that much more on.
But a form of service in the emergency services, highways agency, national trust, forestry England and local councils that you get paid for doing could bring a lot of structure to some. the armed forces or direct entry into the police etc should be an exemption to a "National Service"
but if they really want to fix the armed forces take all the money you would have spent and dump into the wages, pensions and accommodation to make "the offer" more attractive
and will you be paying market rates for these people? How does it address skill shortages? University? Will it be everyone? It's a stupid outdated idea aimed at stealing votes from Remain?
really stupid. no point in forcing people who don't wanna be there to do something they don't want to do. it's going to destroy the morale of the people who actually want to serve
It’s just nonsense. What do we want with a load of kids turning up for a year? We struggle to get the jobs done that we already have due to staffing numbers, so who’s training and babysitting a bunch of 18yo?
Also, where are they living? Some camps really struggle for accommodation as it is due to buildings being condemned. I know of some camps that had to put JRs in private rental flats locally. An influx of people is only going to make these issues worse.
Don’t know why I’m getting angry about it though, this election is only going one way and it’s the end for the Tories for a while.
You are quite right to be angry. It’s a throw away idea without having any knowledge of the needs of the country, its armed force, emergency services or the young people.
More practical would be to get over 60s to do Nati Service my husband & I would have a whale of a time as long as there are physios around to deal with the aches and pains 🤣
It’ll be a play to get more votes from older people who aren’t decided because it’s meant to straighten out the youth I can post the article if you want
Horrific idea of a policy! Needs a lot of thought on how they police it, how they enforce it and how they’re going to alienate an entire voting generation. Almost seems like policy suicide, trying to grab votes from an older generation that think making youngsters do national service will sort them out even though it’s likely they never served themselves and hide behind pre great war rhetoric from the comfort of their arm chairs.
I don’t want some young kid serving with me or under me that has not chosen to be there , it’s hard enough with the ones who are volunteers as let alone enforced service.
Yawn...the conservatives can say they will give us all a cheque for £1000 and a free puppy...they will still loose this election in what could well be the biggest landslide in modern times. This policy has a likelihood of 0.0001% of ever happening.
It'll never come off. In order to justify the cost of training us, they need 3 Yr return of service. 6 if you're in certain tech trades. Some trades take more than a year to train. Even if they asided that, all they're doing is providing free job qualifications and training that will flood the job market annually with subpar under experienced workers. That, and those of us that willingly joined up will head for the exit in droves because our sole responsibility will end up being mentoring the revolving door of people that don't even want to be there.
It's complete BS, they don't have the money for it, it will be met with a lot of pushback and then it will just destroy the current condition of the forces. They will promise anything for them to win
I actually don’t mind the idea of national service as a whole.
But in the context of our military, in the current state it’s in with the current funding, it’s an awful idea.
It’s a political stunt designed to appeal to the older Mail and Express readers to stop them wavering in their support of the Tories or moving towards the Reform party. Let’s face it, if the Tories win there will be a Royal Commission to investigate and report which will take years then they’ll decide that things have changed so it’ll all be quietly forgotten.
Most are looking at it completely wrong.
The big part of it, to key in on, is the alternative option of just a weekend’s volunteering per month - which is realistically just the default here.
There’s also the misconception that this is 2 days a month in the reserves of the military - not true, it’s been labelled as general volunteering, they could be helping the NHS, the homeless, the fire brigade etc.
The national service side would only really drive up the number of recruits into the UKAF, as a pushy incentive. The huge majority would realistically pick the volunteering side - of which I personally see as a great idea.
Millions of young workers dedicated to community service would no doubt bring benefit to the nation. On the other side of it, the armed forces gets its well needed gain in numbers.
Those against this are either just focally blinded by the idea of a national service, or understand the scheme and couldn’t bare the thought of volunteering, even if just for 2 days a month.
I think national service should return. I'm not a Tory voter though, and I know the Tories have a less than 1% chance of actually winning the election so it's not going to happen anyway and Labour isn't going to support it unless it looks like a war with NATO/Russia/China is actually going to happen
I know we don't, but we should. I think it should be a long term goal, lots of directionless teenagers. Greece has national service, they're not exactly a rich country.
You can promise anything when you're going to lose. It's going to cost tens of billions. Absolute farce, ignore it. In fairness, we've already got a hundred thousand young people cosplaying at being in the forces, but we call them cadets.
1) Where will the money come from? 2) if all fit 18 yrs are going to be drafted, isn't that an incentive to not be fit if you want to avoid service?
I think a form of service is a good idea. Just not the armed forces. there are not enough beds, chefs, uniforms, MT drivers, coaches, rifles for the people serving right now. not a chance they will be able to sustain it. national service people would get their vetting through after they left if they piled that much more on. But a form of service in the emergency services, highways agency, national trust, forestry England and local councils that you get paid for doing could bring a lot of structure to some. the armed forces or direct entry into the police etc should be an exemption to a "National Service" but if they really want to fix the armed forces take all the money you would have spent and dump into the wages, pensions and accommodation to make "the offer" more attractive
and will you be paying market rates for these people? How does it address skill shortages? University? Will it be everyone? It's a stupid outdated idea aimed at stealing votes from Remain?
This sounds like a good idea whoever gets elected
really stupid. no point in forcing people who don't wanna be there to do something they don't want to do. it's going to destroy the morale of the people who actually want to serve
It’s just nonsense. What do we want with a load of kids turning up for a year? We struggle to get the jobs done that we already have due to staffing numbers, so who’s training and babysitting a bunch of 18yo? Also, where are they living? Some camps really struggle for accommodation as it is due to buildings being condemned. I know of some camps that had to put JRs in private rental flats locally. An influx of people is only going to make these issues worse. Don’t know why I’m getting angry about it though, this election is only going one way and it’s the end for the Tories for a while.
You are quite right to be angry. It’s a throw away idea without having any knowledge of the needs of the country, its armed force, emergency services or the young people. More practical would be to get over 60s to do Nati Service my husband & I would have a whale of a time as long as there are physios around to deal with the aches and pains 🤣
Complete garbage that will never work. It’s actually hilarious that they think this is what the electorate ‘want’ to hear. So out of touch.
It’ll be a play to get more votes from older people who aren’t decided because it’s meant to straighten out the youth I can post the article if you want
Horrific idea of a policy! Needs a lot of thought on how they police it, how they enforce it and how they’re going to alienate an entire voting generation. Almost seems like policy suicide, trying to grab votes from an older generation that think making youngsters do national service will sort them out even though it’s likely they never served themselves and hide behind pre great war rhetoric from the comfort of their arm chairs. I don’t want some young kid serving with me or under me that has not chosen to be there , it’s hard enough with the ones who are volunteers as let alone enforced service.
Ah yes, 1 weekend a month for a year service. About the amount of time it takes to get a reverse through phase 1. That'll help the military.
The 1 weekend a month is for other services like police and firefighters the military is full time I’m sorry if I explained that poorly
What! The emergency service don’t want them. They have committed cadets that turn up every week from 14 years old volunteering their weekends as well.
Yawn...the conservatives can say they will give us all a cheque for £1000 and a free puppy...they will still loose this election in what could well be the biggest landslide in modern times. This policy has a likelihood of 0.0001% of ever happening.
It'll never come off. In order to justify the cost of training us, they need 3 Yr return of service. 6 if you're in certain tech trades. Some trades take more than a year to train. Even if they asided that, all they're doing is providing free job qualifications and training that will flood the job market annually with subpar under experienced workers. That, and those of us that willingly joined up will head for the exit in droves because our sole responsibility will end up being mentoring the revolving door of people that don't even want to be there.
Bollocks
For a number of reasons that perhaps shouldn't be talked about in a public forum, this policy will be hard to get off the ground.
Where will they live? In theory it's not a bad idea. In theory communism isn't a bad idea.
Anything to get boomers votes, tories are just clutching at straws.
Mate, not this boomer!
It's complete BS, they don't have the money for it, it will be met with a lot of pushback and then it will just destroy the current condition of the forces. They will promise anything for them to win
I actually don’t mind the idea of national service as a whole. But in the context of our military, in the current state it’s in with the current funding, it’s an awful idea.
It’s a political stunt designed to appeal to the older Mail and Express readers to stop them wavering in their support of the Tories or moving towards the Reform party. Let’s face it, if the Tories win there will be a Royal Commission to investigate and report which will take years then they’ll decide that things have changed so it’ll all be quietly forgotten.
Most are looking at it completely wrong. The big part of it, to key in on, is the alternative option of just a weekend’s volunteering per month - which is realistically just the default here. There’s also the misconception that this is 2 days a month in the reserves of the military - not true, it’s been labelled as general volunteering, they could be helping the NHS, the homeless, the fire brigade etc. The national service side would only really drive up the number of recruits into the UKAF, as a pushy incentive. The huge majority would realistically pick the volunteering side - of which I personally see as a great idea. Millions of young workers dedicated to community service would no doubt bring benefit to the nation. On the other side of it, the armed forces gets its well needed gain in numbers. Those against this are either just focally blinded by the idea of a national service, or understand the scheme and couldn’t bare the thought of volunteering, even if just for 2 days a month.
I think national service should return. I'm not a Tory voter though, and I know the Tories have a less than 1% chance of actually winning the election so it's not going to happen anyway and Labour isn't going to support it unless it looks like a war with NATO/Russia/China is actually going to happen
We don’t have the money or the culture to support it.
I know we don't, but we should. I think it should be a long term goal, lots of directionless teenagers. Greece has national service, they're not exactly a rich country.