OK PB, if Putin invades Moldova, what do we do? Sit tight and let them fend for themselves?
Or send troops? I can see an argument for doing nothing, but that leads to.....
What about Putin invading Finland or the Baltics or Romania?
Again, sit tight, rely on our nukes?
Arguable, but it gets a bit hairier, doesn't it?
What about Poland, or Slovakia, or Croatia, or Austria, where do we say, OK we're not going to nuke Moscow, but we will send British troops?
If we are entirely relying on our nuclear deterrent, that means
1. We are withdrawing from NATO 2. We need to spend BILLIONS on our nukes so we can make and maintain them ourselves and we don't have to rely on a newly unreliable America 3. We can bid goodbye to any co-operation with mainland Europe, forever
The alternative is we develop our conventional warfaring capability, and absent a huge increase in income tax to buy soldiers, that means some kind of national service. So Sunak has bizarrely alighted on the right policy, despite being a terrible electioneer, he's just punting it out in desperation, which looks bad
Moldova isn't in NATO. Sadly for them.
If he invades Finland he'll know about it.
So you would send British troops to defend Finland? Where do these troops come from?
Or you would immedately nuke Smolensk? Seriously, what is it? Because these are no longer sad reveries, they are real dilemmas. Putin is prepared to invade neighbouring states and he has turned Russia into a martial country whose only purpose can be conquest, and which makes no sense economically without further war
Finland is in NATO and so we send troops if it is invaded. But as part of the whole alliance.
The Finnish are bloody good though, they wont need much help.
OK PB, if Putin invades Moldova, what do we do? Sit tight and let them fend for themselves?
Or send troops? I can see an argument for doing nothing, but that leads to.....
What about Putin invading Finland or the Baltics or Romania?
Again, sit tight, rely on our nukes?
Arguable, but it gets a bit hairier, doesn't it?
What about Poland, or Slovakia, or Croatia, or Austria, where do we say, OK we're not going to nuke Moscow, but we will send British troops?
If we are entirely relying on our nuclear deterrent, that means
1. We are withdrawing from NATO 2. We need to spend BILLIONS on our nukes so we can make and maintain them ourselves and we don't have to rely on a newly unreliable America 3. We can bid goodbye to any co-operation with mainland Europe, forever
The alternative is we develop our conventional warfaring capability, and absent a huge increase in income tax to buy soldiers, that means some kind of national service. So Sunak has bizarrely alighted on the right policy, despite being a terrible electioneer, he's just punting it out in desperation, which looks bad
Moldova isn't in NATO. Sadly for them.
If he invades Finland he'll know about it.
So you would send British troops to defend Finland? Where do these troops come from?
Or you would immedately nuke Smolensk? Seriously, what is it? Because these are no longer sad reveries, they are real dilemmas. Putin is prepared to invade neighbouring states and he has turned Russia into a martial country whose only purpose can be conquest, and which makes no sense economically without further war
The face of warfare is constantly changing, but the one thing that's proven really ineffective in Ukraine is pouring endless amounts of kids into the meat grinder, as has been pointed out downthread. In the game of rock, paper, scissors, infantry get smooshed to bits by mines, artillery, drones, tanks, everything really. So conscripting a bunch of teens who will be lucky to be taught how to point and shoot a rifle and dropping them into a war zone will be sub-optimal. Both for the war effort, and the country's demographics.
There are no easy answers, but conscription isn't it. We'd be better off spending the money on a factory building knock off Boston Dynamics dog robots and sticking flamethrowers on their heads. Or air power. Massive, massive air power. Who knows. Just anything other than sending a bunch of badly trained infantry conscripts out to die.
There are conversations to be had about what to do to contain Russian aggression, but Rishi's policy seems entirely designed to contain the aggression of reform voting pensioners. Nothing to do with what's actually in the best interests of national security.
Sorry, I meant to add a paragraph about how I would make this work if I had to. I'd tie it into some sort of incentive structure. You don't have to do it, but if you do you get £2000 off your tuition fees (note, this is £2000 of your fee is paid by the government not the government will withhold £2000 from the university), you get an extra £6000 on your personal allowance for five years or you get some other tangible financial reward that is worth giving up 25 days of your time to learn an important skill for. And I mean, an important skill, not running round Salisbury Plain or stacking boxes in an Amazon warehouse. 25 days in five week long blocks (because a single day is dumb) working with the REMEs learning how to pull engines apart, or with St John's ambulance learning first response or something that adds a skill that can be actually valuable to the nation. The point of national service is not usually to bulk the army up unless you're actually in wartime. It's to create a reserve service corps so that in the event of a disaster (in which war is included) you can call upon them to take over auxiliary roles that the responding agency doesn't have the capacity to fill. So if you have a dam burst in the lakes then you can call up the locals who have experience with the Environment Agency to help with the relief effort for example. But forcing people into that never worked very well in the post-war world (see Private Bone-Spurs) and it isn't likely to work now. You need to make it a carrot so worthwhile that only the very laziest and least civic minded won't take it. Then, you have built up a strong infrastructure for that sort of community service so that if you do need to make it compulsory when baloons go skyward then you have the core of the infrastructure there to do it.
Apparently the Commission that Rishi will setup for this policy will examine non-criminal sanctions for those that refuse to volunteer.
So basically, it's a tax on being young.
Authoritarian little shit. "Non-criminal sanctions" my arse. If you are going to do something that involves enforcement, enough of this nudge rubbish, pass actual laws via actual debate in an actual Parliament. It's a democracy you [rudeword][badman].
I don't think there's any suggestion that this wouldn't go through Parliament. Indeed, Sunak isn't actually proposing a policy. He's proposing setting up a Royal Commission to consider the issue.
It's complete bullshit. Having run the armed forces into the ground, the Tories are now suggesting that all remaining military effectiveness is destroyed as professionals turn themselves into minders for a cohort of largely unwilling conscripts. Conscription ended nearly 70 years ago, and if the UK's military capability has been run down, it is mostly the result of recent, massively damaging policies enacted by.,.. checks notes... The Tory party. Conscription does not improve military effectiveness, it is expensive and requires a total change in UK military posture for which no one in or anywhere close to the high command is prepared or has been seriously asking for. If you want to improve the UK military, just getting the regular units up to full strength is the first place to start, but to be honest Tory policies have now brought ruin on our defences, as well as everywhere else. This is pathetic, deeply unserious political posturing and a reminder that in decrying experts, the Tories are now prisoners of morons.
I'm not against young people or anyone volunteering.
I am against forcing them to do it and then not paying them even minimum wage. And then having consequences for them not doing it.
Forced volunteering is an oxymoron.
Giving people opportunities is a good thing, but opportunities are a choice.
If its to be compulsory then the age it should be compulsory is circa 16/17 not 18 and it should be part of the education system. Getting experiences as part of your education is no bad thing.
To get my Diploma (aged 17, A-Level equivalent) I needed to do 50 hours each of CAS: [C]reativity, [A]ction, [S]ervice. My school helped facilitate opportunities if needed, or you could arrange your own.
"Teenagers will be signed up for compulsory National Service under bold new plans unveiled by Rishi Sunak. All 18-year-olds will have to take part in some kind of civic duty by enrolling for 12 months in the armed forces. Or they could instead opt to join the police, fire service or another body that does work in the community for one weekend every month. He believes it would unite the nation, combat crime and give youngsters life-changing skills."
I'm not against young people or anyone volunteering.
I am against forcing them to do it and then not paying them even minimum wage. And then having consequences for them not doing it.
Forced volunteering is an oxymoron.
Giving people opportunities is a good thing, but opportunities are a choice.
If its to be compulsory then the age it should be compulsory is circa 16/17 not 18 and it should be part of the education system. Getting experiences as part of your education is no bad thing.
To get my Diploma (aged 17, A-Level equivalent) I needed to do 50 hours each of CAS: [C]reativity, [A]ction, [S]ervice. My school helped facilitate opportunities if needed, or you could arrange your own.
It seems to me - a strange stranger from an even stranger land - that you and other commentators here in PB, make more sense on topic of National Service, than does the "proposal" promised/threatened by the PM and now (apparently) is a key policy (whatever the policy actually is) in the CUP manifesto.
Which is yet more evidence of the rushed nature of this snap election . . . and visa versa.
"Teenagers will be signed up for compulsory National Service under bold new plans unveiled by Rishi Sunak. All 18-year-olds will have to take part in some kind of civic duty by enrolling for 12 months in the armed forces. Or they could instead opt to join the police, fire service or another body that does work in the community for one weekend every month. He believes it would unite the nation, combat crime and give youngsters life-changing skills."
Bloody stupid idea, from the genius who made prohibition his legacy then dumped it before he'd implemented it.
One weekend a month is no time to do anything valuable and people have other responsibilities at 18 like weekend jobs already that they need to pay their bills. Many 16/17 year olds have weekend jobs already at that age too.
Getting a certain amount of hours of service in, that can be flexibly arranged, as part of education, with schools getting involved, is no bad idea. Telling people "you must do this at this time" while ignoring realities of their lives already is absurd.
Going down like a cup of cold sick in the comment section.
Lot's of "my grandson" and "my granddaughter".
I'm guilty of forgetting that older people have younger relatives sometimes. It would appear Sunak has too.
Lots of "Does this include his kids too?" sorts of questions.
Quick Edit - This is where our current ruling class has forgotten a lesson that the Royal Family learned centuries ago. They make sure that their sons (and now daughters) serve in the forces or support services and are very visibly serving. There's a sense where they can appear to be sharing the burden of defending all of us.
I'm not against young people or anyone volunteering.
I am against forcing them to do it and then not paying them even minimum wage. And then having consequences for them not doing it.
Forced volunteering is an oxymoron.
Giving people opportunities is a good thing, but opportunities are a choice.
If its to be compulsory then the age it should be compulsory is circa 16/17 not 18 and it should be part of the education system. Getting experiences as part of your education is no bad thing.
To get my Diploma (aged 17, A-Level equivalent) I needed to do 50 hours each of CAS: [C]reativity, [A]ction, [S]ervice. My school helped facilitate opportunities if needed, or you could arrange your own.
It seems to me - a strange stranger from an even stranger land - that you and other commentators here in PB, make more sense on topic of National Service, than does the "proposal" promised/threatened by the PM and now (apparently) is a key policy (whatever the policy actually is) in the CUP manifesto.
Which is yet more evidence of the rushed nature of this snap election . . . and visa versa.
When its more than four years since the previous general election then parties should be fully prepared for the next to come at any time.
I don't see the point of this self-absorbed tale. Does the editor not realise there was corporal punishment in state schools too?
Indeed, I was the last pupil caned in my state school, autumn of 1985 - it gave me enormous kudos among my year as the previous Deputy Head hadn't favoured corporal punishment so I was the only kid in the school to have been that hard
Rishi, when I said you need to appeal to young voters, I meant build some houses.
This is the kind of nonsense that puts young people off for good, it's yet another "screw the young" from the elderly.
He already has no votes from anyone under...checks notes... about 75. So what is there to lose?
Shore up the triple-locked pensioner vote who loved the 1950s when their mates were sent to Suez on National Service and may well have been killed if the US didn't pull the plug.
These countries are set up for a largely conscript armed forces, and France, which is also reinstituting limited conscription, only abolished it less than 15 years ago. The UK abolished conscription nearly 70 years ago.
Rishi, when I said you need to appeal to young voters, I meant build some houses.
This is the kind of nonsense that puts young people off for good, it's yet another "screw the young" from the elderly.
He already has no votes from anyone under...checks notes... about 75. So what is there to lose?
Shore up the triple-locked pensioner vote who loved the 1950s when their mates were sent to Suez on National Service and may well have been killed if the US didn't pull the plug.
Are there very many 90-year-old voters?
about 550,000 according to ONS, assume that about 80% of them vote that's about 600-700 in every constituency.
Rishi Sunak’s plan for compulsory national service is the most insane policy proposal ever launched in an election campaign by a major political party.
There is also the option of community service, rather like my public school had the option of CCF in the army, navy or RAF or conservation or visiting the elderly
Yougov found 34% of voters back a year's compulsory military or community service which is actually more than the current Tory poll rating. Indeed 50% of 2019 Conservative voters back such compulsory national service to 44% opposed, 54% of Leave voters back it too
Rishi Sunak’s plan for compulsory national service is the most insane policy proposal ever launched in an election campaign by a major political party.
There is also the option of community service, rather like my public school had the option of CCF in the army, navy or RAF or conservation or visiting the elderly
Yougov found 34% of voters back a year's compulsory military or community service which is actually more than the current Tory poll rating. Indeed 50% of 2019 Conservative voters back such compulsory national service to 44% opposed, 54% of Leave voters back it too
Rishi Sunak’s plan for compulsory national service is the most insane policy proposal ever launched in an election campaign by a major political party.
There is also the option of community service, rather like my public school had the option of CCF in the army, navy or RAF or conservation or visiting the elderly
Yougov found 34% of voters back a year's compulsory military or community service which is actually more than the current Tory poll rating. Indeed 50% of 2019 Conservative voters back such compulsory national service to 44% opposed, 54% of Leave voters back it too
Popular among less than half Conservative voters but not Labour or LibDem supporters.
And yet it's compulsory in Nordic countries, which the liberal/left generally lionises.
Really? And can these Nordic conscripts vote in British elections? Because if not, we are left with an off-the-wall policy out of thin air (or maybe a reheated version of Cameron's compulsory volunteering) that appeals only to people already inclined to vote Conservative, and less than half of those. The blue team needs to attract voters, not repel them.
Rishi Sunak’s plan for compulsory national service is the most insane policy proposal ever launched in an election campaign by a major political party.
There is also the option of community service, rather like my public school had the option of CCF in the army, navy or RAF or conservation or visiting the elderly
Yougov found 34% of voters back a year's compulsory military or community service which is actually more than the current Tory poll rating. Indeed 50% of 2019 Conservative voters back such compulsory national service to 44% opposed, 54% of Leave voters back it too
Popular among less than half Conservative voters but not Labour or LibDem supporters.
And yet it's compulsory in Nordic countries, which the liberal/left generally lionises.
I'm not sure why it's difficult to understand. There's nothing wrong with a national service / citizenship scheme as long as it's well structured, beneficial to the nation and the individual and properly resourced. Those nations pay their young citizens for their service, the Sunak proposal is unpaid. One of these things is not like the others.
Rishi Sunak’s plan for compulsory national service is the most insane policy proposal ever launched in an election campaign by a major political party.
There is also the option of community service, rather like my public school had the option of CCF in the army, navy or RAF or conservation or visiting the elderly
Yougov found 34% of voters back a year's compulsory military or community service which is actually more than the current Tory poll rating. Indeed 50% of 2019 Conservative voters back such compulsory national service to 44% opposed, 54% of Leave voters back it too
Rishi Sunak’s plan for compulsory national service is the most insane policy proposal ever launched in an election campaign by a major political party.
There is also the option of community service, rather like my public school had the option of CCF in the army, navy or RAF or conservation or visiting the elderly
Yougov found 34% of voters back a year's compulsory military or community service which is actually more than the current Tory poll rating. Indeed 50% of 2019 Conservative voters back such compulsory national service to 44% opposed, 54% of Leave voters back it too
Rishi Sunak’s plan for compulsory national service is the most insane policy proposal ever launched in an election campaign by a major political party.
There is also the option of community service, rather like my public school had the option of CCF in the army, navy or RAF or conservation or visiting the elderly
Yougov found 34% of voters back a year's compulsory military or community service which is actually more than the current Tory poll rating. Indeed 50% of 2019 Conservative voters back such compulsory national service to 44% opposed, 54% of Leave voters back it too
Popular among less than half Conservative voters but not Labour or LibDem supporters.
And yet it's compulsory in Nordic countries, which the liberal/left generally lionises.
Really not a good comparison. If you know a country like Norway you’ll realise that whilst we have some commonality, the geopolitical and cultural differences are vast.
F1: backed Piastri each way for the win at 6.5, with a hedge at 1.8 (same for the Sainz bet, with him starting 3rd and tipped yesterday each way at 23).
What a difference a desperate desire to save one's career makes.
Just four months ago: Downing Street has dismissed a warning from the head of the British army that the UK public must be prepared to take up arms in a war against Vladimir Putin’s Russia because today’s professional military is too small. Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson said the prime minister did not agree with comments made by Gen Sir Patrick Sanders in a speech on Wednesday, and was forced to insist there would be no return to national service, which was abolished in 1960. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/24/army-chief-says-people-of-uk-are-prewar-generation-who-must-be-ready-to-fight-russia
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
?
You mean people secretly support the idea and are just pretending the opposite?
As I feared this campaign is already bringing out the nastiest elements of the Right. There’s going to be a lot of this during the campaign, especially the more they stare defeat in the face.
Hopefully we can be spared too much of it on here or I, along with most of the electorate, will switch off until polling day.
p.s. I knew someone who genuinely argued that this country’s decline began when women were given the vote, and then accelerated when the contraceptive pill appeared.
Perhaps reversing those could be the next announcements?
I see the Front page of the Times has an item about a private school in Hampshire closing because of "Labour's VAT raid" (although it mentions that The school has suffered from dwindling pupil numbers in recent years).
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
?
You mean people secretly support the idea and are just pretending the opposite?
Dozens and dozens of political opponents come out within minutes nervously trying to pepper it with bullets, both on here on Twitter, and generate hundreds and hundreds of comments as a result.
It's caught them off-guard, they're not really sure how to respond, and worry it will cut through.
Criticizing the Sunakjugend plan because it's unfeasible misses the point. It's never going to happen so whether or not it's possible or even desirable is of no moment. It's a turnout strategy to ensure that the only significant remaining island of tory support - over 70s of low educational attainment and zero moral conscience - get out and vote on the day.
It's a policy finely crafted to appeal to that generation that thinks they fought WW2 but didn't. On that basis, it's not, unlike almost everything else the little shit does, terrible politics.
It's a bit misleading calling it National Service.
There must be about 750,000 18 year olds each year.
There are just 30,000 military places, implying 720,000 will be doing the volunteering.
Of course there are practical problems in enforcing it but at the same time asking people to do 25 days of volunteering doesn't sound like an especially oppressive commitment.
It's amazing how things vary in different countries. A friend is married to a Dane and their son (aged a bit over 18) has just moved to Denmark. He says in Denmark you get zero benefits if you just stay at home. If you are unemployed and have nothing you have to report in person (no online applications) to the local office of their equivalent of the DWP and they will place you in a job. If you don't do it, you get zero benefits. No excuses, no mucking around. And guess what - it works.
There's also national service in the military. Again there is no avoiding it - he says if you don't turn up they physically come and get you.
Criticizing the Sunakjugend plan because it's unfeasible misses the point. It's never going to happen so whether or not it's possible or even desirable is of no moment. It's a turnout strategy to ensure that the only significant remaining island of tory support - over 70s of low educational attainment and zero moral conscience - get out and vote on the day.
It's a policy finely crafted to appeal to that generation that thinks they fought WW2 but didn't. On that basis, it's not, unlike almost everything else the little shit does, terrible politics.
Tories do have a habit of getting themselves terribly excited about things that appeal to their own entrenched view of the world, but which no one else is interested in.
They are in bunker mentality at the moment, with little real attempt to reach out to the middle ground with policies that matter to the majority of people, perhaps especially working people, who will decide the outcome.
Tories do have a habit of getting themselves terribly excited about things that appeal to their own entrenched view of the world, but which no one else is interested in.
Big Rish doesn't just invent these policies on the fly while he's sat on his Action Man sized gold toilet pushing out last night's aloo ghobi. This rubbish gets focused grouped to death. They know what they are doing.
Criticizing the Sunakjugend plan because it's unfeasible misses the point. It's never going to happen so whether or not it's possible or even desirable is of no moment. It's a turnout strategy to ensure that the only significant remaining island of tory support - over 70s of low educational attainment and zero moral conscience - get out and vote on the day.
It's a policy finely crafted to appeal to that generation that thinks they fought WW2 but didn't. On that basis, it's not, unlike almost everything else the little shit does, terrible politics.
It seems the clearest signal yet that the Tories are going to follow what Paul Scully termed the "bell end" strategy. They have given up on the centre ground and are going to concentrate on fighting Reform for the right-wing fringe.
Given that they have no chance of winning the election, it may seem to make some kind of sense, but it really doesn't.
Tories do have a habit of getting themselves terribly excited about things that appeal to their own entrenched view of the world, but which no one else is interested in.
Big Rish doesn't just invent these policies on the fly while he's sat on his Action Man sized gold toilet pushing out last night's aloo ghobi. This rubbish gets focused grouped to death. They know what they are doing.
Criticizing the Sunakjugend plan because it's unfeasible misses the point. It's never going to happen so whether or not it's possible or even desirable is of no moment. It's a turnout strategy to ensure that the only significant remaining island of tory support - over 70s of low educational attainment and zero moral conscience - get out and vote on the day.
It's a policy finely crafted to appeal to that generation that thinks they fought WW2 but didn't. On that basis, it's not, unlike almost everything else the little shit does, terrible politics.
It seems the clearest signal yet that the Tories are going to follow what Paul Scully termed the "bell end" strategy. They have given up on the centre ground and are going to concentrate on fighting Reform for the right-wing fringe.
Given that they have no chance of winning the election, it may seem to make some kind of sense, but it really doesn't.
It makes a lot of sense.
You don't play for 350 seats with floating voters when your core has deserted you and you don't have a cat in hell's chance of winning, because you might then end up with no votes and seats at all.
You play for 200+ seats and reinforce your core, because those are votes you can get, and, if the gap closes, you then see what more you can do - but it ensures the party lives to fight another day.
Sunak's aim, as party leader, is to maximise Conservative political representation in parliament.
Criticizing the Sunakjugend plan because it's unfeasible misses the point. It's never going to happen so whether or not it's possible or even desirable is of no moment. It's a turnout strategy to ensure that the only significant remaining island of tory support - over 70s of low educational attainment and zero moral conscience - get out and vote on the day.
It's a policy finely crafted to appeal to that generation that thinks they fought WW2 but didn't. On that basis, it's not, unlike almost everything else the little shit does, terrible politics.
It's the right wing equivalent of VAT on private schools. A signal for the base.
Problem is that the denizens of Mail Online have turned against it.
Keir Starmer has been wrapping himself in the Union Jack flag.
But Labour come out against Rishi Sunak’s plan for compulsory National Service in the military or for charity 🇬🇧
They offered Keir a trap, he refused to walk into it.
That's actually quite a poor response showing it caught them off-guard: "But BUT the Tories are SHIT! Remember what they've DONE! Vote Labour!"
He's not going to get through the next 6 weeks with just that.
Maybe it's me, but I don't get the capital letters and exclamation marks from the Labour soundbite.
Weary contempt (this government has joined others of recent decades in running down the military) and naming the elephant in the room (at most, Rishi is promising to set up a review.)
Some have compared Rishi to a flailing supply teacher who has broadly lost control of the class. This is more the response of the teacher who doesn't have to be scary, because even Scroteface Minor knows that, fairly rapidly, they will get their man.
I'd be much more confident about that sustaining for six weeks, even six years, than Sunak's "throw out an idea I haven't really tested on my allies in a Saturday evening press release" approach.
Given that they have no chance of winning the election, it may seem to make some kind of sense, but it really doesn't.
Of course it makes sense. It's their best play in this situation.
If Sunak did one of those nervous little swallows of his and said, "You know what guys, I think we should do something about climate change so our kids don't have to live in Fallout 4. And by the way let's try not being shitty to trans people." Thus indicating the tories are going to fight from the centre then they would get roughly taken in all holes by the Fukkers losing swathes of seats.
Oh god - I feel like I’m going to step into the firing line here, but I don’t think the idea is necessarily that.., bad?
Dont get me wrong, it won’t make me vote Tory. Do I think the idea is worthwhile? Potentially. Do I think it’s a bit performative? Possibly. But do I think giving young people access to practical service/volunteering opportunities is a bad idea! Not really.
I remain at your disposal to castigate at will.
I think you're right about the last bit, but this policy is quite a bad way to do it. Firstly, it's ruinously expensive to make it mandatory. You have to set up enforcement mechanisms, you need to track and organise deployment of that manpower and you need to equip the people to do the job you've parachuted them into. Secondly, raw manpower is often not what is needed, certainly not untrained manpower that will do one day a week and then bugger off. That's more likely to be a hindrance than a help. In my particular little part of the public sector we would have zero use for that. We need trained specialists, not a work experience boy or girl. Finally you need to be serious about sanctions or it becomes a joke, and if you're serious about sanctions and fairness that needs to go beyond a token monetary sum or it just becomes a poverty draft. How well is that likely to go down?
I'm leaving the army bit aside because bluntly, the UK military is not set up for conscription and we'd be better off using the money to enhance the regular army, navy and air force significantly with better kit, conditions and recruitment. Basically reverse everything Cameron did since 2010 and most of what Blair/Brown did after 2005.
If you want people to join the forces for short service, then free tuition and grants for university would be a better option, with an obligation to stay a reservist for their time in Uni.
It used to be like that in the Netherlands, and the GI bill was in some ways similar and part of the reason that the US economy went gangbusters in the 1950s and 1960s. Government funding of higher education is a massive spur to economic growth.
Tories do have a habit of getting themselves terribly excited about things that appeal to their own entrenched view of the world, but which no one else is interested in.
Big Rish doesn't just invent these policies on the fly while he's sat on his Action Man sized gold toilet pushing out last night's aloo ghobi. This rubbish gets focused grouped to death. They know what they are doing.
Yes that’s doubtless true. My point was more about them giving up on the centre ground.
Those who like these dog-whistle politics get terribly excited about such policy announcements, thinking they're great or that their opponents have been caught off guard etc., or even deluding themselves that this will appeal to the masses.
It just leaves the centre ground even more open for the Opposition parties. It tells me that the tories really have given up on trying to win this election.
Although, Sunak is so out of touch that he might genuinely believe this sort of thing is the way to win middle Britain.
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
?
You mean people secretly support the idea and are just pretending the opposite?
Dozens and dozens of political opponents come out within minutes nervously trying to pepper it with bullets, both on here on Twitter, and generate hundreds and hundreds of comments as a result.
It's caught them off-guard, they're not really sure how to respond, and worry it will cut through.
Seriously? Just look at the comment section of the Daily Mail. This is not where all the lefties hang out, it's where your natural support + the ones that wish you were a bit less left are. Here's the top five best rated comments.
Ex military myself , you have to have the right attitude in the first place. The majority of the youth are not up to it i’m sorry to say. In relation to the unemployed they should be forced into community service work in exchange for their benifits even if it was just two days. The trouble is they won’t turn up and the government to soft to reduce payments . I think if they made the forces more appealing they may recruit more.
(+4.3k, -333)
What is this fantasy? Most school leavers won't pass the medical or basic fitness and the Army have nothing like the required facilities or accommodation to cope.
(+2.9k, -204)
Let me guess, it will be administered by Capita in a multi billion in pound contract that allows Capita to increase charges every 6 months.
(+2.5k, -45)
The Tories have lost the plot.
Young people are not going to be cannon fodder for The Political Elite who seem to be intent of getting this country involved in wars which have nothing to do with us.
(+1.8k, -107)
National service is a terrible idea. A modern military needs a well-trained, specialised force, not a bunch of 18-year olds who don’t want to be there. We need soldiers who have the right mental strength, and resilience, and drive, from the start, and actually choose the military as a career.
Rather than packing kids off to the army to ‘teach them some discipline’ how about a culture where the youth are actually supported properly through the better education system, and teach them skills that they will actually find useful in life.
(+1.7k, -262)
Coming up with a stupid idea that was dismissed by number 10 as impracticable in January doesn't became a good idea just because it's upset people that you don't like.
Criticizing the Sunakjugend plan because it's unfeasible misses the point. It's never going to happen so whether or not it's possible or even desirable is of no moment. It's a turnout strategy to ensure that the only significant remaining island of tory support - over 70s of low educational attainment and zero moral conscience - get out and vote on the day.
It's a policy finely crafted to appeal to that generation that thinks they fought WW2 but didn't. On that basis, it's not, unlike almost everything else the little shit does, terrible politics.
It's the right wing equivalent of VAT on private schools. A signal for the base.
Problem is that the denizens of Mail Online have turned against it.
David Cameron proposed almost exactly the same policy in opposition pre-2010.
I remember it being heavily pilloried then too, and the only difference is that it was voluntary and the military bit was eventually dropped, but it's been running for over 10 years now and over a half a million young people have completed it and it has secured cross-party support.
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
?
You mean people secretly support the idea and are just pretending the opposite?
Dozens and dozens of political opponents come out within minutes nervously trying to pepper it with bullets, both on here on Twitter, and generate hundreds and hundreds of comments as a result.
It's caught them off-guard, they're not really sure how to respond, and worry it will cut through.
It might very well cut through - and motivate less enthusiastic younger voters to go to the polling stations and help to turf Sunak out.
It's yet another instance of policies crafted to punish the young, in order to please the elderly. Like the eternal triple lock, morally bankrupt but very good politics for a party with an ancient membership and core vote.
That said, the manner in which the Opposition is reported to have dismissed the plan is instructive: both Labour and the Liberal Democrats have declined to point out that forcing the young into the army or unpaid donkey work might be bad for the victims of this hare brained scheme, instead choosing to attack it for being unfunded, on value for money grounds, or by suggesting that conscription is being used to plug gaps in the numbers of military personnel which wouldn't exist had the Tories not neglected defence. They've taken against this initiative, on the basis of political calculation, but they care no more for the welfare of the poor bloody conscripts than Sunak does.
In short, it's yet more evidence that Britain despises its youth.
To use my photo of the day, this is his shrine on the Saigon street corner
Interesting you use the word ‘Saigon’.
I’m a big admirer of Ho Chi Minh but he wasn’t universally loved down south and many denizens still refer to the city as Saigon. The railway station is still called Saigon.
We could have a whole day’s worth of discussion about the appropriate naming or renaming of places and countries with colonial legacies and political motivations. Zaire / Congo is one example. Burma / Myanmar another.
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
?
You mean people secretly support the idea and are just pretending the opposite?
Dozens and dozens of political opponents come out within minutes nervously trying to pepper it with bullets, both on here on Twitter, and generate hundreds and hundreds of comments as a result.
It's caught them off-guard, they're not really sure how to respond, and worry it will cut through.
Seriously? Just look at the comment section of the Daily Mail. This is not where all the lefties hang out, it's where your natural support + the ones that wish you were a bit less left are. Here's the top five best rated comments.
Ex military myself , you have to have the right attitude in the first place. The majority of the youth are not up to it i’m sorry to say. In relation to the unemployed they should be forced into community service work in exchange for their benifits even if it was just two days. The trouble is they won’t turn up and the government to soft to reduce payments . I think if they made the forces more appealing they may recruit more.
(+4.3k, -333)
What is this fantasy? Most school leavers won't pass the medical or basic fitness and the Army have nothing like the required facilities or accommodation to cope.
(+2.9k, -204)
Let me guess, it will be administered by Capita in a multi billion in pound contract that allows Capita to increase charges every 6 months.
(+2.5k, -45)
The Tories have lost the plot.
Young people are not going to be cannon fodder for The Political Elite who seem to be intent of getting this country involved in wars which have nothing to do with us.
(+1.8k, -107)
National service is a terrible idea. A modern military needs a well-trained, specialised force, not a bunch of 18-year olds who don’t want to be there. We need soldiers who have the right mental strength, and resilience, and drive, from the start, and actually choose the military as a career.
Rather than packing kids off to the army to ‘teach them some discipline’ how about a culture where the youth are actually supported properly through the better education system, and teach them skills that they will actually find useful in life.
(+1.7k, -262)
Coming up with a stupid idea that was dismissed by number 10 as impracticable in January doesn't became a good idea just because it's upset people that you don't like.
Wow, you're fisking the comments section of the Daily Mail.
This one really has got under your skin, hasn't it?
The logic of a core vote strategy is obvious when you think how few actual votes you need to do quite well.
Supposing Con is targeting 33% - way more than anyone expects them to get.
With a 60% turnout, a 33% vote share means getting just 20% of the electorate to actually vote for you. Just one in five people. It's not many is it?
40% is almost always a winning score in a GE. With a 60% turnout that's just 24% of the electorate. Less than one person in four.
It's almost unbelievable really. When you think of the numbers that way, you realise there is almost no point at all in trying to persuade anyone to switch sides. Just make sure your (natural) supporters are enthused and actually go and vote for you.
Keir Starmer has been wrapping himself in the Union Jack flag.
But Labour come out against Rishi Sunak’s plan for compulsory National Service in the military or for charity 🇬🇧
They offered Keir a trap, he refused to walk into it.
That's actually quite a poor response showing it caught them off-guard: "But BUT the Tories are SHIT! Remember what they've DONE! Vote Labour!"
He's not going to get through the next 6 weeks with just that.
Maybe it's me, but I don't get the capital letters and exclamation marks from the Labour soundbite.
Weary contempt (this government has joined others of recent decades in running down the military) and naming the elephant in the room (at most, Rishi is promising to set up a review.)
Some have compared Rishi to a flailing supply teacher who has broadly lost control of the class. This is more the response of the teacher who doesn't have to be scary, because even Scroteface Minor knows that, fairly rapidly, they will get their man.
I'd be much more confident about that sustaining for six weeks, even six years, than Sunak's "throw out an idea I haven't really tested on my allies in a Saturday evening press release" approach.
This is the most nervous and lacking in confidence Opposition I've ever seen.
It's a ming vase strategy, whilst sweating profusely the whole time.
Given that they have no chance of winning the election, it may seem to make some kind of sense, but it really doesn't.
Of course it makes sense. It's their best play in this situation.
If Sunak did one of those nervous little swallows of his and said, "You know what guys, I think we should do something about climate change so our kids don't have to live in Fallout 4. And by the way let's try not being shitty to trans people." Thus indicating the tories are going to fight from the centre then they would get roughly taken in all holes by the Fukkers losing swathes of seats.
Almost right but it's a real sign of being a left-wing activist that thinks "Trans" is what's required to appeal to the centre.
Criticizing the Sunakjugend plan because it's unfeasible misses the point. It's never going to happen so whether or not it's possible or even desirable is of no moment. It's a turnout strategy to ensure that the only significant remaining island of tory support - over 70s of low educational attainment and zero moral conscience - get out and vote on the day.
It's a policy finely crafted to appeal to that generation that thinks they fought WW2 but didn't. On that basis, it's not, unlike almost everything else the little shit does, terrible politics.
It's the right wing equivalent of VAT on private schools. A signal for the base.
Problem is that the denizens of Mail Online have turned against it.
David Cameron proposed almost exactly the same policy in opposition pre-2010.
I remember it being heavily pilloried then too, and the only difference is that it was voluntary and the military bit was eventually dropped, but it's been running for over 10 years now and over a half a million young people have completed it and it has secured cross-party support.
It didn't start out that way.
Doesn't the fact it's voluntary in fact make a huge difference?
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
?
You mean people secretly support the idea and are just pretending the opposite?
Dozens and dozens of political opponents come out within minutes nervously trying to pepper it with bullets, both on here on Twitter, and generate hundreds and hundreds of comments as a result.
It's caught them off-guard, they're not really sure how to respond, and worry it will cut through.
Seriously? Just look at the comment section of the Daily Mail. This is not where all the lefties hang out, it's where your natural support + the ones that wish you were a bit less left are. Here's the top five best rated comments.
Ex military myself , you have to have the right attitude in the first place. The majority of the youth are not up to it i’m sorry to say. In relation to the unemployed they should be forced into community service work in exchange for their benifits even if it was just two days. The trouble is they won’t turn up and the government to soft to reduce payments . I think if they made the forces more appealing they may recruit more.
(+4.3k, -333)
What is this fantasy? Most school leavers won't pass the medical or basic fitness and the Army have nothing like the required facilities or accommodation to cope.
(+2.9k, -204)
Let me guess, it will be administered by Capita in a multi billion in pound contract that allows Capita to increase charges every 6 months.
(+2.5k, -45)
The Tories have lost the plot.
Young people are not going to be cannon fodder for The Political Elite who seem to be intent of getting this country involved in wars which have nothing to do with us.
(+1.8k, -107)
National service is a terrible idea. A modern military needs a well-trained, specialised force, not a bunch of 18-year olds who don’t want to be there. We need soldiers who have the right mental strength, and resilience, and drive, from the start, and actually choose the military as a career.
Rather than packing kids off to the army to ‘teach them some discipline’ how about a culture where the youth are actually supported properly through the better education system, and teach them skills that they will actually find useful in life.
(+1.7k, -262)
Coming up with a stupid idea that was dismissed by number 10 as impracticable in January doesn't became a good idea just because it's upset people that you don't like.
Wow, you're fisking the comments section of the Daily Mail.
This one really has got under your skin, hasn't it?
I haven't fisked anything, I've copy/pasted the actual comments from the Mail Online comments section.
Quick Edit: Why do you want to make this personal?
Keir Starmer has been wrapping himself in the Union Jack flag.
But Labour come out against Rishi Sunak’s plan for compulsory National Service in the military or for charity 🇬🇧
They offered Keir a trap, he refused to walk into it.
That's actually quite a poor response showing it caught them off-guard: "But BUT the Tories are SHIT! Remember what they've DONE! Vote Labour!"
He's not going to get through the next 6 weeks with just that.
Maybe it's me, but I don't get the capital letters and exclamation marks from the Labour soundbite.
Weary contempt (this government has joined others of recent decades in running down the military) and naming the elephant in the room (at most, Rishi is promising to set up a review.)
Some have compared Rishi to a flailing supply teacher who has broadly lost control of the class. This is more the response of the teacher who doesn't have to be scary, because even Scroteface Minor knows that, fairly rapidly, they will get their man.
I'd be much more confident about that sustaining for six weeks, even six years, than Sunak's "throw out an idea I haven't really tested on my allies in a Saturday evening press release" approach.
This is the most nervous and lacking in confidence Opposition I've ever seen.
It's a ming vase strategy, whilst sweating profusely the whole time.
Perhaps so, but it is working.
We are on current polling looking at a Labour victory that exceeds Blair in 1997 or Attlee in 1945.
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
?
You mean people secretly support the idea and are just pretending the opposite?
Dozens and dozens of political opponents come out within minutes nervously trying to pepper it with bullets, both on here on Twitter, and generate hundreds and hundreds of comments as a result.
It's caught them off-guard, they're not really sure how to respond, and worry it will cut through.
It might very well cut through - and motivate less enthusiastic younger voters to go to the polling stations and help to turf Sunak out.
It's yet another instance of policies crafted to punish the young, in order to please the elderly. Like the eternal triple lock, morally bankrupt but very good politics for a party with an ancient membership and core vote.
That said, the manner in which the Opposition is reported to have dismissed the plan is instructive: both Labour and the Liberal Democrats have declined to point out that forcing the young into the army or unpaid donkey work might be bad for the victims of this hare brained scheme, instead choosing to attack it for being unfunded, on value for money grounds, or by suggesting that conscription is being used to plug gaps in the numbers of military personnel which wouldn't exist had the Tories not neglected defence. They've taken against this initiative, on the basis of political calculation, but they care no more for the welfare of the poor bloody conscripts than Sunak does.
In short, it's yet more evidence that Britain despises its youth.
It’s a good point. It tells me though that Labour are very savvy this time around and attacking the tories about unfunded schemes and promises is smart politics: so the Rwandan scheme and now this.
If you have a weakness, and let’s be frank Labour’s is always spending too much of other people’s money, then make it the weakness of your opponents instead. It totally undermines the tories' best attack.
p.s. top tory tip: making the nation angry isn’t the way to win their vote ...
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
?
You mean people secretly support the idea and are just pretending the opposite?
Dozens and dozens of political opponents come out within minutes nervously trying to pepper it with bullets, both on here on Twitter, and generate hundreds and hundreds of comments as a result.
It's caught them off-guard, they're not really sure how to respond, and worry it will cut through.
It might very well cut through - and motivate less enthusiastic younger voters to go to the polling stations and help to turf Sunak out.
It's yet another instance of policies crafted to punish the young, in order to please the elderly. Like the eternal triple lock, morally bankrupt but very good politics for a party with an ancient membership and core vote.
That said, the manner in which the Opposition is reported to have dismissed the plan is instructive: both Labour and the Liberal Democrats have declined to point out that forcing the young into the army or unpaid donkey work might be bad for the victims of this hare brained scheme, instead choosing to attack it for being unfunded, on value for money grounds, or by suggesting that conscription is being used to plug gaps in the numbers of military personnel which wouldn't exist had the Tories not neglected defence. They've taken against this initiative, on the basis of political calculation, but they care no more for the welfare of the poor bloody conscripts than Sunak does.
In short, it's yet more evidence that Britain despises its youth.
They won't vote because they will be too busy on Tik-Tok.
We hear this every time, and it never changes.
(FWIW, I agree that Brits don't like young people, or kids, very much; they far prefer dogs. The RSPCA was founded decades and decades before the NSPCC and still gets much more money than the latter. It's quite weird because in most other countries, it's absolutely not like that; we are misanthropic.)
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
?
You mean people secretly support the idea and are just pretending the opposite?
Dozens and dozens of political opponents come out within minutes nervously trying to pepper it with bullets, both on here on Twitter, and generate hundreds and hundreds of comments as a result.
It's caught them off-guard, they're not really sure how to respond, and worry it will cut through.
Seriously? Just look at the comment section of the Daily Mail. This is not where all the lefties hang out, it's where your natural support + the ones that wish you were a bit less left are. Here's the top five best rated comments.
Ex military myself , you have to have the right attitude in the first place. The majority of the youth are not up to it i’m sorry to say. In relation to the unemployed they should be forced into community service work in exchange for their benifits even if it was just two days. The trouble is they won’t turn up and the government to soft to reduce payments . I think if they made the forces more appealing they may recruit more.
(+4.3k, -333)
What is this fantasy? Most school leavers won't pass the medical or basic fitness and the Army have nothing like the required facilities or accommodation to cope.
(+2.9k, -204)
Let me guess, it will be administered by Capita in a multi billion in pound contract that allows Capita to increase charges every 6 months.
(+2.5k, -45)
The Tories have lost the plot.
Young people are not going to be cannon fodder for The Political Elite who seem to be intent of getting this country involved in wars which have nothing to do with us.
(+1.8k, -107)
National service is a terrible idea. A modern military needs a well-trained, specialised force, not a bunch of 18-year olds who don’t want to be there. We need soldiers who have the right mental strength, and resilience, and drive, from the start, and actually choose the military as a career.
Rather than packing kids off to the army to ‘teach them some discipline’ how about a culture where the youth are actually supported properly through the better education system, and teach them skills that they will actually find useful in life.
(+1.7k, -262)
Coming up with a stupid idea that was dismissed by number 10 as impracticable in January doesn't became a good idea just because it's upset people that you don't like.
Wow, you're fisking the comments section of the Daily Mail.
This one really has got under your skin, hasn't it?
I haven't fisked anything, I've copy/pasted the actual comments from the Mail Online comments section.
Quick Edit: Why do you want to make this personal?
Nothing personal about it, I'm simply making observations about behaviour.
Keir Starmer has been wrapping himself in the Union Jack flag.
But Labour come out against Rishi Sunak’s plan for compulsory National Service in the military or for charity 🇬🇧
They offered Keir a trap, he refused to walk into it.
That's actually quite a poor response showing it caught them off-guard: "But BUT the Tories are SHIT! Remember what they've DONE! Vote Labour!"
He's not going to get through the next 6 weeks with just that.
Maybe it's me, but I don't get the capital letters and exclamation marks from the Labour soundbite.
Weary contempt (this government has joined others of recent decades in running down the military) and naming the elephant in the room (at most, Rishi is promising to set up a review.)
Some have compared Rishi to a flailing supply teacher who has broadly lost control of the class. This is more the response of the teacher who doesn't have to be scary, because even Scroteface Minor knows that, fairly rapidly, they will get their man.
I'd be much more confident about that sustaining for six weeks, even six years, than Sunak's "throw out an idea I haven't really tested on my allies in a Saturday evening press release" approach.
This is the most nervous and lacking in confidence Opposition I've ever seen.
It's a ming vase strategy, whilst sweating profusely the whole time.
Perhaps so, but it is working.
We are on current polling looking at a Labour victory that exceeds Blair in 1997 or Attlee in 1945.
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
?
You mean people secretly support the idea and are just pretending the opposite?
Dozens and dozens of political opponents come out within minutes nervously trying to pepper it with bullets, both on here on Twitter, and generate hundreds and hundreds of comments as a result.
It's caught them off-guard, they're not really sure how to respond, and worry it will cut through.
Seriously? Just look at the comment section of the Daily Mail. This is not where all the lefties hang out, it's where your natural support + the ones that wish you were a bit less left are. Here's the top five best rated comments.
Ex military myself , you have to have the right attitude in the first place. The majority of the youth are not up to it i’m sorry to say. In relation to the unemployed they should be forced into community service work in exchange for their benifits even if it was just two days. The trouble is they won’t turn up and the government to soft to reduce payments . I think if they made the forces more appealing they may recruit more.
(+4.3k, -333)
What is this fantasy? Most school leavers won't pass the medical or basic fitness and the Army have nothing like the required facilities or accommodation to cope.
(+2.9k, -204)
Let me guess, it will be administered by Capita in a multi billion in pound contract that allows Capita to increase charges every 6 months.
(+2.5k, -45)
The Tories have lost the plot.
Young people are not going to be cannon fodder for The Political Elite who seem to be intent of getting this country involved in wars which have nothing to do with us.
(+1.8k, -107)
National service is a terrible idea. A modern military needs a well-trained, specialised force, not a bunch of 18-year olds who don’t want to be there. We need soldiers who have the right mental strength, and resilience, and drive, from the start, and actually choose the military as a career.
Rather than packing kids off to the army to ‘teach them some discipline’ how about a culture where the youth are actually supported properly through the better education system, and teach them skills that they will actually find useful in life.
(+1.7k, -262)
Coming up with a stupid idea that was dismissed by number 10 as impracticable in January doesn't became a good idea just because it's upset people that you don't like.
Considering most DM comments and likes come from Moscow troll farms, I am not surprised that they are opposed.
Do the military want Sunaks proposal ? The practicalities around the weekend community service . What happens to 18 year olds at university who might be working to supplement their studies .
What if you actually are in full time work but work at weekends . Will the government pay for your lossed income ?
And how much will the policy cost tax payers when finances are so tight ?
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
?
You mean people secretly support the idea and are just pretending the opposite?
Dozens and dozens of political opponents come out within minutes nervously trying to pepper it with bullets, both on here on Twitter, and generate hundreds and hundreds of comments as a result.
It's caught them off-guard, they're not really sure how to respond, and worry it will cut through.
Seriously? Just look at the comment section of the Daily Mail. This is not where all the lefties hang out, it's where your natural support + the ones that wish you were a bit less left are. Here's the top five best rated comments.
Ex military myself , you have to have the right attitude in the first place. The majority of the youth are not up to it i’m sorry to say. In relation to the unemployed they should be forced into community service work in exchange for their benifits even if it was just two days. The trouble is they won’t turn up and the government to soft to reduce payments . I think if they made the forces more appealing they may recruit more.
(+4.3k, -333)
What is this fantasy? Most school leavers won't pass the medical or basic fitness and the Army have nothing like the required facilities or accommodation to cope.
(+2.9k, -204)
Let me guess, it will be administered by Capita in a multi billion in pound contract that allows Capita to increase charges every 6 months.
(+2.5k, -45)
The Tories have lost the plot.
Young people are not going to be cannon fodder for The Political Elite who seem to be intent of getting this country involved in wars which have nothing to do with us.
(+1.8k, -107)
National service is a terrible idea. A modern military needs a well-trained, specialised force, not a bunch of 18-year olds who don’t want to be there. We need soldiers who have the right mental strength, and resilience, and drive, from the start, and actually choose the military as a career.
Rather than packing kids off to the army to ‘teach them some discipline’ how about a culture where the youth are actually supported properly through the better education system, and teach them skills that they will actually find useful in life.
(+1.7k, -262)
Coming up with a stupid idea that was dismissed by number 10 as impracticable in January doesn't became a good idea just because it's upset people that you don't like.
Wow, you're fisking the comments section of the Daily Mail.
This one really has got under your skin, hasn't it?
I haven't fisked anything, I've copy/pasted the actual comments from the Mail Online comments section.
Quick Edit: Why do you want to make this personal?
Because he has nothing left.
His over-excitement and hyperbole this morning really is on full throttle.
I’m afraid the Conservatives have lost the plot at the moment and they need to get back to the centre or, notwithstanding MikeL’s eloquent post above, they are going to get a 1997 style defeat which, in swing terms, will be record-breaking.
Keir Starmer has been wrapping himself in the Union Jack flag.
But Labour come out against Rishi Sunak’s plan for compulsory National Service in the military or for charity 🇬🇧
They offered Keir a trap, he refused to walk into it.
That's actually quite a poor response showing it caught them off-guard: "But BUT the Tories are SHIT! Remember what they've DONE! Vote Labour!"
He's not going to get through the next 6 weeks with just that.
Maybe it's me, but I don't get the capital letters and exclamation marks from the Labour soundbite.
Weary contempt (this government has joined others of recent decades in running down the military) and naming the elephant in the room (at most, Rishi is promising to set up a review.)
Some have compared Rishi to a flailing supply teacher who has broadly lost control of the class. This is more the response of the teacher who doesn't have to be scary, because even Scroteface Minor knows that, fairly rapidly, they will get their man.
I'd be much more confident about that sustaining for six weeks, even six years, than Sunak's "throw out an idea I haven't really tested on my allies in a Saturday evening press release" approach.
This is the most nervous and lacking in confidence Opposition I've ever seen.
It's a ming vase strategy, whilst sweating profusely the whole time.
Perhaps so, but it is working.
We are on current polling looking at a Labour victory that exceeds Blair in 1997 or Attlee in 1945.
Tories do have a habit of getting themselves terribly excited about things that appeal to their own entrenched view of the world, but which no one else is interested in.
Big Rish doesn't just invent these policies on the fly while he's sat on his Action Man sized gold toilet pushing out last night's aloo ghobi. This rubbish gets focused grouped to death. They know what they are doing.
The Thick of It had an episode on focus groups.
Looks like team Richi still thinks it was a documentary/
Criticizing the Sunakjugend plan because it's unfeasible misses the point. It's never going to happen so whether or not it's possible or even desirable is of no moment. It's a turnout strategy to ensure that the only significant remaining island of tory support - over 70s of low educational attainment and zero moral conscience - get out and vote on the day.
It's a policy finely crafted to appeal to that generation that thinks they fought WW2 but didn't. On that basis, it's not, unlike almost everything else the little shit does, terrible politics.
It's the right wing equivalent of VAT on private schools. A signal for the base.
Problem is that the denizens of Mail Online have turned against it.
David Cameron proposed almost exactly the same policy in opposition pre-2010.
I remember it being heavily pilloried then too, and the only difference is that it was voluntary and the military bit was eventually dropped, but it's been running for over 10 years now and over a half a million young people have completed it and it has secured cross-party support.
It didn't start out that way.
Doesn't the fact it's voluntary in fact make a huge difference?
Gordon Brown extended the compulsory schooling and training age from 16 to 18 in 2008, which took effect as recently as 2015.
Tories do have a habit of getting themselves terribly excited about things that appeal to their own entrenched view of the world, but which no one else is interested in.
Big Rish doesn't just invent these policies on the fly while he's sat on his Action Man sized gold toilet pushing out last night's aloo ghobi. This rubbish gets focused grouped to death. They know what they are doing.
What evidence do you have that they know what they are doing?
Why did Rishi not join up or give up his weekends to volunteer when he was 18? If he didn't, why should 18 year olds be forced to do it now? This is a policy designed for old people who never did national service by a party that actively hates the young. I suspect it will not go down as well as the Tories hope it will.
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
?
You mean people secretly support the idea and are just pretending the opposite?
Dozens and dozens of political opponents come out within minutes nervously trying to pepper it with bullets, both on here on Twitter, and generate hundreds and hundreds of comments as a result.
It's caught them off-guard, they're not really sure how to respond, and worry it will cut through.
It might very well cut through - and motivate less enthusiastic younger voters to go to the polling stations and help to turf Sunak out.
It's yet another instance of policies crafted to punish the young, in order to please the elderly. Like the eternal triple lock, morally bankrupt but very good politics for a party with an ancient membership and core vote.
That said, the manner in which the Opposition is reported to have dismissed the plan is instructive: both Labour and the Liberal Democrats have declined to point out that forcing the young into the army or unpaid donkey work might be bad for the victims of this hare brained scheme, instead choosing to attack it for being unfunded, on value for money grounds, or by suggesting that conscription is being used to plug gaps in the numbers of military personnel which wouldn't exist had the Tories not neglected defence. They've taken against this initiative, on the basis of political calculation, but they care no more for the welfare of the poor bloody conscripts than Sunak does.
In short, it's yet more evidence that Britain despises its youth.
They won't vote because they will be too busy on Tik-Tok.
We hear this every time, and it never changes.
(FWIW, I agree that Brits don't like young people, or kids, very much; they far prefer dogs. The RSPCA was founded decades and decades before the NSPCC and still gets much more money than the latter. It's quite weird because in most other countries, it's absolutely not like that; we are misanthropic.)
Yeah, probably, hence the death spiral in support for democracy that was being discussed yesterday. The more disengaged and disinclined to vote younger people become, the more fixated politicians are on the elderly, and the more support for elected government ebbs away. Things get to the point where an 18 year old with no prospects and no hope of things ever improving could hardly be blamed for thinking that autocracy might be better for them - on the basis that their situation could improve, and they can't imagine it getting much worse.
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
?
You mean people secretly support the idea and are just pretending the opposite?
Dozens and dozens of political opponents come out within minutes nervously trying to pepper it with bullets, both on here on Twitter, and generate hundreds and hundreds of comments as a result.
It's caught them off-guard, they're not really sure how to respond, and worry it will cut through.
Seriously? Just look at the comment section of the Daily Mail. This is not where all the lefties hang out, it's where your natural support + the ones that wish you were a bit less left are. Here's the top five best rated comments.
Ex military myself , you have to have the right attitude in the first place. The majority of the youth are not up to it i’m sorry to say. In relation to the unemployed they should be forced into community service work in exchange for their benifits even if it was just two days. The trouble is they won’t turn up and the government to soft to reduce payments . I think if they made the forces more appealing they may recruit more.
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What is this fantasy? Most school leavers won't pass the medical or basic fitness and the Army have nothing like the required facilities or accommodation to cope.
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Let me guess, it will be administered by Capita in a multi billion in pound contract that allows Capita to increase charges every 6 months.
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The Tories have lost the plot.
Young people are not going to be cannon fodder for The Political Elite who seem to be intent of getting this country involved in wars which have nothing to do with us.
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National service is a terrible idea. A modern military needs a well-trained, specialised force, not a bunch of 18-year olds who don’t want to be there. We need soldiers who have the right mental strength, and resilience, and drive, from the start, and actually choose the military as a career.
Rather than packing kids off to the army to ‘teach them some discipline’ how about a culture where the youth are actually supported properly through the better education system, and teach them skills that they will actually find useful in life.
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Coming up with a stupid idea that was dismissed by number 10 as impracticable in January doesn't became a good idea just because it's upset people that you don't like.
Wow, you're fisking the comments section of the Daily Mail.
This one really has got under your skin, hasn't it?
I haven't fisked anything, I've copy/pasted the actual comments from the Mail Online comments section.
Quick Edit: Why do you want to make this personal?
Because he has nothing left.
His over-excitement and hyperbole this morning really is on full throttle.
I’m afraid the Conservatives have lost the plot at the moment and they need to get back to the centre or, notwithstanding MikeL’s eloquent post above, they are going to get a 1997 style defeat which, in swing terms, will be record-breaking.
Do the military want Sunaks proposal ? The practicalities around the weekend community service . What happens to 18 year olds at university who might be working to supplement their studies .
What if you actually are in full time work but work at weekends . Will the government pay for your lossed income ?
And how much will the policy cost tax payers when finances are so tight ?
It's a compulsory scheme. There will have to be some level of payment to the hundreds of thousands forced into this, just as there was when military national service was in place.
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
?
You mean people secretly support the idea and are just pretending the opposite?
Dozens and dozens of political opponents come out within minutes nervously trying to pepper it with bullets, both on here on Twitter, and generate hundreds and hundreds of comments as a result.
It's caught them off-guard, they're not really sure how to respond, and worry it will cut through.
It might very well cut through - and motivate less enthusiastic younger voters to go to the polling stations and help to turf Sunak out.
It's yet another instance of policies crafted to punish the young, in order to please the elderly. Like the eternal triple lock, morally bankrupt but very good politics for a party with an ancient membership and core vote.
That said, the manner in which the Opposition is reported to have dismissed the plan is instructive: both Labour and the Liberal Democrats have declined to point out that forcing the young into the army or unpaid donkey work might be bad for the victims of this hare brained scheme, instead choosing to attack it for being unfunded, on value for money grounds, or by suggesting that conscription is being used to plug gaps in the numbers of military personnel which wouldn't exist had the Tories not neglected defence. They've taken against this initiative, on the basis of political calculation, but they care no more for the welfare of the poor bloody conscripts than Sunak does.
In short, it's yet more evidence that Britain despises its youth.
They won't vote because they will be too busy on Tik-Tok.
We hear this every time, and it never changes.
(FWIW, I agree that Brits don't like young people, or kids, very much; they far prefer dogs. The RSPCA was founded decades and decades before the NSPCC and still gets much more money than the latter. It's quite weird because in most other countries, it's absolutely not like that; we are misanthropic.)
The 18-24 cohort tend to always have low turnout, but those above but still young and youngish less so. And that's where the Tories are doing badly in a way they just weren't before. Because of the way successive Tory governments have treated those younger generations with contempt bordering on cruelty.
They are also liable to be pissed off with this as were both young themselves recently enough to empathise, and will have kids themselves young enough to face the prospect.
It's unlikely to push many more to be angry in a way they weren't already, but it's an absolutely dismal reminder of why it's important for anyone without grey hairs to crawl over broken glass to get rid of the Tories.
Among the lower turnout, youngest group too, it's a useful thing for Labour in telling those who do vote not to waste a protest vote on the greens or an oddball left party because they dislike Starmer, but to vote Labour.
@edwinhayward This story is so delicious, it's unbelievable. It spanks the Tories so, so hard, albeit inadvertently.
But it will take a little explaining, so please have patience and bear with me while I walk you through it.
The Telegraph tonight is running a big splash about the first Tory pledge of the GE campaign, namely bringing back compulsory national service.
Yes, they want to force all 18-year olds to spend a year in the Army, or devote a weekend a month for a year doing community service chores.
(Related aside: they plan to get £1.5 billion of the £2.5 billion a year cost of the programme by gutting the post-Brexit shared prosperity fund, which was meant to replace the loss of EU structural funding. The diametric opposite of levelling up.)
Now here's where things get FUN!
The Telegraph embeds links within their articles to other "related" Telegraph stories to direct more traffic around their website. (I believe these links are likely inserted automatically, for SEO purposes.)
So they have this big piece about national service by Camilla Turner, their Sunday Political Editor.
And in it they've linked prominently to the older article that I've screenshot below...
Yes. They really have chosen as a representative related story an opinion piece that spells out in no uncertain terms what an utterly idiotic idea bringing back national service would be. ("Yet once again the reintroduction of National Service is being mooted by think tanks, this time as a thinly veiled mechanism for enslaving the young.")
It's like a boat-builder deliberately drilling a large hole in their new craft below the waterline, and then launching it. Sunk before it had a chance.
But the fun doesn't stop there. There's a second sneaky link lurking in tonight's article too. That one leads to an older piece entitled "Why conscription would leave Britain fighting a losing battle". This second article digs into the economics and jobs aspects of a programme such as national service, and concludes that it's a non-starter.
And if the Telegraph weren't so greedy for clicks, we'd never even have seen the articles that blow holes straight through the grand Tory plan!
And the big policy for the day-three campaign relaunch is… national service? Which the Defence Secretary dismissed as “nonsense” only in January?
There has been much ink spilled, since the advent of New Labour, about the decline of Cabinet government. But it’s hard to think of a clearer example of the very opposite, government by bunker, than we have seen in the past year. The headline conference policies, like the election, were cooked up secretly in Downing Street – and like they election, they were botch jobs.
Now the same thing is playing out again. What would be the consequences if an 18-year-old refused national service? We can hardly send them to prison, not whilst ministers are having to extend early release programmes. Even if Conservative candidates support national service in principle, they need and deserve answers to those questions, and a fully worked-out policy.
Because how long will it be before this, too, implodes? Before people realise that only five per cent of 18-year-olds could even do the military component, and not a single one in a combat role (even if they wanted to), or that it’s funded by scrapping the levelling up money.
Maybe it will peel a couple of percentage points off Reform UK’s. But as I have written elsewhere, in the medium term Reform’s prospects aren’t amazing.
The long-term challenge for the Party is going to be regaining the trust of all those generations (broadly, the under-50s) who have abandoned the party over its failures on issues such as housing, childcare, and the cost of living. Some of those voters may well recall the promise to conscript them, or their children, long after the immediate threat of Reform UK has faded.
Nostalgia for a lost golden era of British politics is usually unhelpful, even where it is not misinformed. But it is increasingly clear that the withering of the Party as an institution has reached the point where it is self-destructive.
I feel really sorry for moderate Conservatives. They’re getting drowned out by the loonies in their own Party.
I really, really, hope you get your voice back in Opposition and that you are able to take back control of your Party. I fear it’s going to take a long time.
Times leader today Rishi Sunak’s rain-spattered announcement of a July general election was drearily befitting of a government more than 20 points behind in the polls. The spoils that await the victor include a near-record NHS waiting list, an education system still reeling from Covid and an economy producing anaemic growth. But Sunak was right to call the election, even if he ends up falling short. Britain has been drifting for eight years, since the Brexit vote that unleashed demons within the Tory party and hobbled the economy.
As ever, start with defining the problem, then look for solutions. Finally, pick the 'best' solution.
What 'problem' is mandatory national service meant to solve? I can't think of a convincing one, and if there is one, can it be 'solved' by other means?
You define the problem space; spend some time drilling that problem in the public's mind, then come up with the solution. You don't give a solution without preparation - as May found out in 2017 (and that actually was a problem that needed solving.)
Times leader today Rishi Sunak’s rain-spattered announcement of a July general election was drearily befitting of a government more than 20 points behind in the polls. The spoils that await the victor include a near-record NHS waiting list, an education system still reeling from Covid and an economy producing anaemic growth. But Sunak was right to call the election, even if he ends up falling short. Britain has been drifting for eight years, since the Brexit vote that unleashed demons within the Tory party and hobbled the economy.
The national service policy is pretty mental given the documented struggles the Conservatives have with voters under 45.
I also think the framing of it is pretty daft. Allowing the term National Service anywhere near it is suicidally insane. You could have framed it as a Royal Commission to explore the setting up of a structured gap year programme, whether it should be optional or mandatory etc. You can then pretend it’s a year on Ibiza to the youth vote and nod and wink your true intentions to the old and crotchety. It might not work but the approach would be smarter politically.
The only thing I can think is that Rishi knows he’s going to lose so is going to put as many right wing hobby horses in the manifesto to discredit them, hope they retain a credible number of seats and force the Tories towards sanity as they rebuild. Risky.
This is why I think buying Tory seats is such a risky proposition.
If they carry on like this, it is difficult to see where the floor is, particularly in view of the number of narrow Tory victories in the current projections.
Comments
The Finnish are bloody good though, they wont need much help.
I v much doubt he will go for Finland.
The Suwałki Gap is another matter...
I am against forcing them to do it and then not paying them even minimum wage. And then having consequences for them not doing it.
"Prime Minister reveals radical plan to force all 18-year-olds to serve in the military for 12 months - or give up weekends to carry out civil duties | Daily Mail Online" https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13460033/prime-minister-military-service-school-leavers-12-months-general-election.html#
Conscription ended nearly 70 years ago, and if the UK's military capability has been run down, it is mostly the result of recent, massively damaging policies enacted by.,.. checks notes... The Tory party.
Conscription does not improve military effectiveness, it is expensive and requires a total change in UK military posture for which no one in or anywhere close to the high command is prepared or has been seriously asking for.
If you want to improve the UK military, just getting the regular units up to full strength is the first place to start, but to be honest Tory policies have now brought ruin on our defences, as well as everywhere else.
This is pathetic, deeply unserious political posturing and a reminder that in decrying experts, the Tories are now prisoners of morons.
Giving people opportunities is a good thing, but opportunities are a choice.
If its to be compulsory then the age it should be compulsory is circa 16/17 not 18 and it should be part of the education system. Getting experiences as part of your education is no bad thing.
To get my Diploma (aged 17, A-Level equivalent) I needed to do 50 hours each of CAS: [C]reativity, [A]ction, [S]ervice. My school helped facilitate opportunities if needed, or you could arrange your own.
"Teenagers will be signed up for compulsory National Service under bold new plans unveiled by Rishi Sunak.
All 18-year-olds will have to take part in some kind of civic duty by enrolling for 12 months in the armed forces.
Or they could instead opt to join the police, fire service or another body that does work in the community for one weekend every month.
He believes it would unite the nation, combat crime and give youngsters life-changing skills."
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1903634/UK-Army-conscription-National-Service-announcement-Rishi-Sunak
Which is yet more evidence of the rushed nature of this snap election . . . and visa versa.
RUSSIA CAN'T TAKE KHARKOV WHICH IS A FUCKING 10 MINUTE BUS RIDE FROM THEIR BORDER.
The idea that we have to militarise our entire society to prepare for a conventional land war again the Russian Federation is farcical.
One weekend a month is no time to do anything valuable and people have other responsibilities at 18 like weekend jobs already that they need to pay their bills. Many 16/17 year olds have weekend jobs already at that age too.
Getting a certain amount of hours of service in, that can be flexibly arranged, as part of education, with schools getting involved, is no bad idea. Telling people "you must do this at this time" while ignoring realities of their lives already is absurd.
I'm guilty of forgetting that older people have younger relatives sometimes. It would appear Sunak has too.
Quick Edit - This is where our current ruling class has forgotten a lesson that the Royal Family learned centuries ago. They make sure that their sons (and now daughters) serve in the forces or support services and are very visibly serving. There's a sense where they can appear to be sharing the burden of defending all of us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSABHfdjjgM
Godawful desperate authoritarian youth-hating fucking bullshit. Honestly. They're such pitiful limp-brained cunts."
https://x.com/IanDunt/status/1794502864402042942
Denmark
Norway
Sweden
Finland
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Switzerland
Austria
Greece
https://sjms.nu/articles/10.31374/sjms.166
Could be interesting trying to get some parts of the community to join the UK military for a year.
If you thought John Major’s Back to Basics was living in the past, this lot are living in the 1950’s.
Thank god the country is about to move on from this sorry mob. Goodbye to All That.
I love the Norwegians but we will never be them.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
Betting PostGood morning, everyone.
F1: backed Piastri each way for the win at 6.5, with a hedge at 1.8 (same for the Sainz bet, with him starting 3rd and tipped yesterday each way at 23).
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2024/05/monaco-pre-race-2024.html
Just four months ago:
Downing Street has dismissed a warning from the head of the British army that the UK public must be prepared to take up arms in a war against Vladimir Putin’s Russia because today’s professional military is too small.
Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson said the prime minister did not agree with comments made by Gen Sir Patrick Sanders in a speech on Wednesday, and was forced to insist there would be no return to national service, which was abolished in 1960.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/24/army-chief-says-people-of-uk-are-prewar-generation-who-must-be-ready-to-fight-russia
The strategy here is to heavily go after Reform votes for the first 2 weeks to close the gap with Labour.
I'd say there's a decent chance of that working.
You mean people secretly support the idea and are just pretending the opposite?
He's not going to get through the next 6 weeks with just that.
Hopefully we can be spared too much of it on here or I, along with most of the electorate, will switch off until polling day.
xx
Perhaps reversing those could be the next announcements?
You can see there in the accounts how the policy has made the difference between the school surviving a bad year, and closure.
That's what a 20% price demand shock does.
And a lot of dazed and bewildered Nasty Party people wondering where they will go and what they will do for the next decade or more.
We in this country are about to move on.
p.s. Lol. This has actually been flagged (by you know whom), showing that someone is getting very rattled. Oh dear. Their time closes.
It's caught them off-guard, they're not really sure how to respond, and worry it will cut through.
It's a policy finely crafted to appeal to that generation that thinks they fought WW2 but didn't. On that basis, it's not, unlike almost everything else the little shit does, terrible politics.
There must be about 750,000 18 year olds each year.
There are just 30,000 military places, implying 720,000 will be doing the volunteering.
Of course there are practical problems in enforcing it but at the same time asking people to do 25 days of volunteering doesn't sound like an especially oppressive commitment.
It's amazing how things vary in different countries. A friend is married to a Dane and their son (aged a bit over 18) has just moved to Denmark. He says in Denmark you get zero benefits if you just stay at home. If you are unemployed and have nothing you have to report in person (no online applications) to the local office of their equivalent of the DWP and they will place you in a job. If you don't do it, you get zero benefits. No excuses, no mucking around. And guess what - it works.
There's also national service in the military. Again there is no avoiding it - he says if you don't turn up they physically come and get you.
xx
They are in bunker mentality at the moment, with little real attempt to reach out to the middle ground with policies that matter to the majority of people, perhaps especially working people, who will decide the outcome.
It makes me more confident of their defeat.
Given that they have no chance of winning the election, it may seem to make some kind of sense, but it really doesn't.
Edit: maybe just in the paper review. Naturally missing the point that it’s community service not national service.
You don't play for 350 seats with floating voters when your core has deserted you and you don't have a cat in hell's chance of winning, because you might then end up with no votes and seats at all.
You play for 200+ seats and reinforce your core, because those are votes you can get, and, if the gap closes, you then see what more you can do - but it ensures the party lives to fight another day.
Sunak's aim, as party leader, is to maximise Conservative political representation in parliament.
Problem is that the denizens of Mail Online have turned against it.
Weary contempt (this government has joined others of recent decades in running down the military) and naming the elephant in the room (at most, Rishi is promising to set up a review.)
Some have compared Rishi to a flailing supply teacher who has broadly lost control of the class. This is more the response of the teacher who doesn't have to be scary, because even Scroteface Minor knows that, fairly rapidly, they will get their man.
I'd be much more confident about that sustaining for six weeks, even six years, than Sunak's "throw out an idea I haven't really tested on my allies in a Saturday evening press release" approach.
If Sunak did one of those nervous little swallows of his and said, "You know what guys, I think we should do something about climate change so our kids don't have to live in Fallout 4. And by the way let's try not being shitty to trans people." Thus indicating the tories are going to fight from the centre then they would get roughly taken in all holes by the Fukkers losing swathes of seats.
It used to be like that in the Netherlands, and the GI bill was in some ways similar and part of the reason that the US economy went gangbusters in the 1950s and 1960s. Government funding of higher education is a massive spur to economic growth.
Those who like these dog-whistle politics get terribly excited about such policy announcements, thinking they're great or that their opponents have been caught off guard etc., or even deluding themselves that this will appeal to the masses.
It just leaves the centre ground even more open for the Opposition parties. It tells me that the tories really have given up on trying to win this election.
Although, Sunak is so out of touch that he might genuinely believe this sort of thing is the way to win middle Britain.
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Young people are not going to be cannon fodder for The Political Elite who seem to be intent of getting this country involved in wars which have nothing to do with us.
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Rather than packing kids off to the army to ‘teach them some discipline’ how about a culture where the youth are actually supported properly through the better education system, and teach them skills that they will actually find useful in life.
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Coming up with a stupid idea that was dismissed by number 10 as impracticable in January doesn't became a good idea just because it's upset people that you don't like.
I remember it being heavily pilloried then too, and the only difference is that it was voluntary and the military bit was eventually dropped, but it's been running for over 10 years now and over a half a million young people have completed it and it has secured cross-party support.
It didn't start out that way.
It's yet another instance of policies crafted to punish the young, in order to please the elderly. Like the eternal triple lock, morally bankrupt but very good politics for a party with an ancient membership and core vote.
That said, the manner in which the Opposition is reported to have dismissed the plan is instructive: both Labour and the Liberal Democrats have declined to point out that forcing the young into the army or unpaid donkey work might be bad for the victims of this hare brained scheme, instead choosing to attack it for being unfunded, on value for money grounds, or by suggesting that conscription is being used to plug gaps in the numbers of military personnel which wouldn't exist had the Tories not neglected defence. They've taken against this initiative, on the basis of political calculation, but they care no more for the welfare of the poor bloody conscripts than Sunak does.
In short, it's yet more evidence that Britain despises its youth.
I’m a big admirer of Ho Chi Minh but he wasn’t universally loved down south and many denizens still refer to the city as Saigon. The railway station is still called Saigon.
We could have a whole day’s worth of discussion about the appropriate naming or renaming of places and countries with colonial legacies and political motivations. Zaire / Congo is one example. Burma / Myanmar another.
Anywhoooo, back to the election ‘eh?
This one really has got under your skin, hasn't it?
Supposing Con is targeting 33% - way more than anyone expects them to get.
With a 60% turnout, a 33% vote share means getting just 20% of the electorate to actually vote for you. Just one in five people. It's not many is it?
40% is almost always a winning score in a GE. With a 60% turnout that's just 24% of the electorate. Less than one person in four.
It's almost unbelievable really. When you think of the numbers that way, you realise there is almost no point at all in trying to persuade anyone to switch sides. Just make sure your (natural) supporters are enthused and actually go and vote for you.
It's a ming vase strategy, whilst sweating profusely the whole time.
Quick Edit: Why do you want to make this personal?
We are on current polling looking at a Labour victory that exceeds Blair in 1997 or Attlee in 1945.
If you have a weakness, and let’s be frank Labour’s is always spending too much of other people’s money, then make it the weakness of your opponents instead. It totally undermines the tories' best attack.
p.s. top tory tip: making the nation angry isn’t the way to win their vote ...
We hear this every time, and it never changes.
(FWIW, I agree that Brits don't like young people, or kids, very much; they far prefer dogs. The RSPCA was founded decades and decades before the NSPCC and still gets much more money than the latter. It's quite weird because in most other countries, it's absolutely not like that; we are misanthropic.)
What if you actually are in full time work but work at weekends . Will the government pay for your lossed income ?
And how much will the policy cost tax payers when finances are so tight ?
His over-excitement and hyperbole this morning really is on full throttle.
I’m afraid the Conservatives have lost the plot at the moment and they need to get back to the centre or, notwithstanding MikeL’s eloquent post above, they are going to get a 1997 style defeat which, in swing terms, will be record-breaking.
Looks like team Richi still thinks it was a documentary/
Not voluntary.
Somebody won a toy Koala for this shit
Is the most liked comment in the Telegraph.
That will bring them into more political engagement and social responsibility, notwithstanding the disdain and contempt from the usual quarter above.
They are also liable to be pissed off with this as were both young themselves recently enough to empathise, and will have kids themselves young enough to face the prospect.
It's unlikely to push many more to be angry in a way they weren't already, but it's an absolutely dismal reminder of why it's important for anyone without grey hairs to crawl over broken glass to get rid of the Tories.
Among the lower turnout, youngest group too, it's a useful thing for Labour in telling those who do vote not to waste a protest vote on the greens or an oddball left party because they dislike Starmer, but to vote Labour.
This story is so delicious, it's unbelievable. It spanks the Tories so, so hard, albeit inadvertently.
But it will take a little explaining, so please have patience and bear with me while I walk you through it.
The Telegraph tonight is running a big splash about the first Tory pledge of the GE campaign, namely bringing back compulsory national service.
Yes, they want to force all 18-year olds to spend a year in the Army, or devote a weekend a month for a year doing community service chores.
(Related aside: they plan to get £1.5 billion of the £2.5 billion a year cost of the programme by gutting the post-Brexit shared prosperity fund, which was meant to replace the loss of EU structural funding. The diametric opposite of levelling up.)
Now here's where things get FUN!
The Telegraph embeds links within their articles to other "related" Telegraph stories to direct more traffic around their website. (I believe these links are likely inserted automatically, for SEO purposes.)
So they have this big piece about national service by Camilla Turner, their Sunday Political Editor.
And in it they've linked prominently to the older article that I've screenshot below...
Yes. They really have chosen as a representative related story an opinion piece that spells out in no uncertain terms what an utterly idiotic idea bringing back national service would be. ("Yet once again the reintroduction of National Service is being mooted by think tanks, this time as a thinly veiled mechanism for enslaving the young.")
It's like a boat-builder deliberately drilling a large hole in their new craft below the waterline, and then launching it. Sunk before it had a chance.
But the fun doesn't stop there. There's a second sneaky link lurking in tonight's article too. That one leads to an older piece entitled "Why conscription would leave Britain fighting a losing battle". This second article digs into the economics and jobs aspects of a programme such as national service, and concludes that it's a non-starter.
And if the Telegraph weren't so greedy for clicks, we'd never even have seen the articles that blow holes straight through the grand Tory plan!
Begin long, slow clap.
Link to this evening's article
https://archive.ph/6m5qj
Link to the article explaining why it's a terrible, terrible idea
https://archive.ph/M7ZIT
Link to the article about constriction being a losing battle
https://archive.ph/hsD8w
https://conservativehome.com/2024/05/26/this-campaign-must-be-the-nadir-of-government-by-bunker/
There has been much ink spilled, since the advent of New Labour, about the decline of Cabinet government. But it’s hard to think of a clearer example of the very opposite, government by bunker, than we have seen in the past year. The headline conference policies, like the election, were cooked up secretly in Downing Street – and like they election, they were botch jobs.
Now the same thing is playing out again. What would be the consequences if an 18-year-old refused national service? We can hardly send them to prison, not whilst ministers are having to extend early release programmes. Even if Conservative candidates support national service in principle, they need and deserve answers to those questions, and a fully worked-out policy.
Because how long will it be before this, too, implodes? Before people realise that only five per cent of 18-year-olds could even do the military component, and not a single one in a combat role (even if they wanted to), or that it’s funded by scrapping the levelling up money.
Maybe it will peel a couple of percentage points off Reform UK’s. But as I have written elsewhere, in the medium term Reform’s prospects aren’t amazing.
The long-term challenge for the Party is going to be regaining the trust of all those generations (broadly, the under-50s) who have abandoned the party over its failures on issues such as housing, childcare, and the cost of living. Some of those voters may well recall the promise to conscript them, or their children, long after the immediate threat of Reform UK has faded.
Nostalgia for a lost golden era of British politics is usually unhelpful, even where it is not misinformed. But it is increasingly clear that the withering of the Party as an institution has reached the point where it is self-destructive.
I really, really, hope you get your voice back in Opposition and that you are able to take back control of your Party. I fear it’s going to take a long time.
Rishi Sunak’s rain-spattered announcement of a July general election was drearily befitting of a government more than 20 points behind in the polls. The spoils that await the victor include a near-record NHS waiting list, an education system still reeling from Covid and an economy producing anaemic growth. But Sunak was right to call the election, even if he ends up falling short. Britain has been drifting for eight years, since the Brexit vote that unleashed demons within the Tory party and hobbled the economy.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/704af81b-65bd-47de-b3bb-eec1a11128aa
What 'problem' is mandatory national service meant to solve? I can't think of a convincing one, and if there is one, can it be 'solved' by other means?
You define the problem space; spend some time drilling that problem in the public's mind, then come up with the solution. You don't give a solution without preparation - as May found out in 2017 (and that actually was a problem that needed solving.)
I also think the framing of it is pretty daft. Allowing the term National Service anywhere near it is suicidally insane. You could have framed it as a Royal Commission to explore the setting up of a structured gap year programme, whether it should be optional or mandatory etc. You can then pretend it’s a year on Ibiza to the youth vote and nod and wink your true intentions to the old and crotchety. It might not work but the approach would be smarter politically.
The only thing I can think is that Rishi knows he’s going to lose so is going to put as many right wing hobby horses in the manifesto to discredit them, hope they retain a credible number of seats and force the Tories towards sanity as they rebuild. Risky.
And neither supervision nor training is something our Government will be prepared to pay for.
Pure kneejerk dog whistling. A policy that could never be implemented.
Hence perfect for this dishonest, stale, backward looking Government.
If they carry on like this, it is difficult to see where the floor is, particularly in view of the number of narrow Tory victories in the current projections.