War is changing. Look at Ukraine and how first person view drones have completely revolutionised the battlefield. Fighting a war is becoming more like a videogame. You need the right people to fight that sort of war. You need people with the right skills, not children who spend all their time on Xbox... Hold on, maybe this is a fantastically good idea!
Rishi's next job could be in cyber, he just doesn't know it yet
No. Because the 85 year olds this policy is aimed at do not think anyone should be going to university when the 'university of life' was 'good enough for me'.
I wonder how Sir Beer of Korma reacted to this announcement?
To paraphrase "Why the fuck are you spending 2.5bn on a white paper when you can't afford to keep people in prison for their whole sentence"?
I was thinking more he probably needed a change of pants after pissing himself laughing.
I mean he must have thought at the very least the Tories have hired some half decent people to run the campaign and come up with policy, I might have a few tricky days over the campaign as I have to react to half decent ideas from them and I have to try and work out how to defend myself against why we aren't doing that.
Trying to be objective on the political implications of the policy or a moment:
- On one hand, it will be popular with the Boomer Tory/Reform voting contingent. I can imagine an uptick in Tory support from this contingent, which is their core vote now.
- On the other hand, young people (including Millennials in their 30s and 40s with kids under 18) will hate this policy. It is stupid and the compulsory nature could drive higher turnout against the Tories in a tactical voting kind of way: hold your nose and vote for who is the best opposition in your area.
I'm not sure which effect will be greater. But it comes across as desperate in any case.
If it's only unpopular with people who'd never vote for you in the first place, it's arguably good politics.
Many of those millennials do, or did, vote Tory before. I have. Writing them off as forever lost, and making that a self fulfulling prophecy, is the opposite of good politics.
It's also an amazing way to signal "We don't care about anyone young enough to have grandkids affected by the policy". Utter idiocy. I can see it being popular with a certain type of baby boomer, like the various red-faced sunlounger posters on here, but in the country? Can't see it going down as well as he thinks. If it was part of a coherent narrative it might work. But what narrative is there other than "I'm bloody desperate and I have no sane ideas?".
How else do we defend the nation against Putin and Xi?
I dunno, off the top of my head, a decent-sized, trained professional army and navy who are supplied with modern and well resourced equipment and training?
We don't have the numbers. We are struggling to man the army and navy we have, and they are comparatively tiny
Either we raise the pay for soldiering to a level which requires income tax to double, or we take the easier route, and require national service of all 18 year olds. Which one will be more popular with tax payers, in the end?
We don't have the numbers. We are struggling to man the army and navy we have, and they are comparatively tiny
This is true, but it not (just) pay.
My nephew is in the army. It's all he ever wanted to do. They have been paying him since he was 15. They paid him as he finished school. They paid him through university. He did his stint at Sandhurst and was commissioned. Made it to Afghanistan in time to fly home again. Now that he is a full Captain, after all those years of training, he is leaving as soon as possible because the army are "wasting his talents"
It will take the intellectual low-watt cohort of PBers a year or two to catch up with this, but a much more militarised society is coming, like it or not
Putin will get an Armistice in Ukraine, because we are not willing to send NATO troops to defend Kharkhiv, and neither side can "win". Putin and Xi wll then co-ordinate. Xi will go for Taiwan and Putin will probe the eastern flanks of NATO and the UK will be obliged to up its defence spending by billions and it will have to forcibly recruit young men and women, if they are not willing to serve voluntarily
= National Service, one way or another
Is it a good election winning policy? Probably not. Is it a serious pointer to the probable future? Yep
It is Leon, but first as a political leader you engage with the voting public. You explain how dangerous Putin is and you develop a conversation to explain that in order to secure a free United Kingdom for our children and our children's children we need to look at certain difficult options.
You don't ponder "how do we attract crazy ape- bonkers Reform voters? I know send their sons, daughters and grandchildren to Deepcut for 12 months. That should do the trick".
I agree, it's very probably a stupid policy to announce five days into a desperately bad election campaign
I'm not arguing that. My point is this: something LIKE this coming for the UK sooner rather than later? Absent black swans I am not allowed to talk about, we need tens of thousands of extra soldiers ready to fight. Putin really means this war against the West and so does Xi, they want to de-dollarise the world economy, they want to destabilise the West in every way possible (see Woke and Boeing) they are trying to destroy us, using our own technology and liberality, it is obvious
We are at war. War needs fighters
Also, I am not sure it is THAT bad an electoral strategy for Sunak. Polls show the Tories are headed for epochal and maybe existential defeat. What has he got to lose? Nothing. Why not tell the people the truth: bad shit is coming
Trying to be objective on the political implications of the policy or a moment:
- On one hand, it will be popular with the Boomer Tory/Reform voting contingent. I can imagine an uptick in Tory support from this contingent, which is their core vote now.
- On the other hand, young people (including Millennials in their 30s and 40s with kids under 18) will hate this policy. It is stupid and the compulsory nature could drive higher turnout against the Tories in a tactical voting kind of way: hold your nose and vote for who is the best opposition in your area.
I'm not sure which effect will be greater. But it comes across as desperate in any case.
If it's only unpopular with people who'd never vote for you in the first place, it's arguably good politics.
Many of those millennials do, or did, vote Tory before. I have. Writing them off as forever lost, and making that a self fulfulling prophecy, is the opposite of good politics.
It's also an amazing way to signal "We don't care about anyone young enough to have grandkids affected by the policy". Utter idiocy. I can see it being popular with a certain type of baby boomer, like the various red-faced sunlounger posters on here, but in the country? Can't see it going down as well as he thinks. If it was part of a coherent narrative it might work. But what narrative is there other than "I'm bloody desperate and I have no sane ideas?".
How else do we defend the nation against Putin and Xi?
I dunno, off the top of my head, a decent-sized, trained professional army and navy who are supplied with modern and well resourced equipment and training?
We don't have the numbers. We are struggling to man the army and navy we have, and they are comparatively tiny
Either we raise the pay for soldiering to a level which requires income tax to double, or we take the easier route, and require national service of all 18 year olds. Which one will be more popular with tax payers, in the end?
EXTRAPOLATE, you dimwits
Are you signing up Capt. Mainwaring?
That is extremely unfair Mr Mexican. You're slandering a brave, patriotic and decent fellow who is just trying to do the best to help his country in its hour of need. And he's a rather sympathetic bank manager too.
This whole affair is giving me flashbacks to my last playthrough of Suzerain, where despite my valiant efforts to modernise the economy of my ficitonal nation and bring peace to the region, I had botched education policy and caused debt to spiral on failed infrastructure projects, and my own spouse told me I shouldn't run for re-election because I was so crap at being President.
It will probably hurt Rishi more when Akshata says the same thing to him.
This whole affair is giving me flashbacks to my last playthrough of Suzerain, where despite my valiant efforts to modernise the economy of my ficitonal nation and bring peace to the region, I had botched education policy and caused debt to spiral on failed infrastructure projects, and my own spouse told me I shouldn't run for re-election because I was so crap at being President.
It will probably hurt Rishi more when Akshata says the same thing to him.
This whole affair is giving me flashbacks to my last playthrough of Suzerain, where despite my valiant efforts to modernise the economy of my ficitonal nation and bring peace to the region, I had botched education policy and caused debt to spiral on failed infrastructure projects, and my own spouse told me I shouldn't run for re-election because I was so crap at being President.
It will probably hurt Rishi more when Akshata says the same thing to him.
I liberalized the country, joined NATO, crushed Akshata's version of Theresa May in the primaries and then announced a shock retirement to live in the pseudo-US as a tech millionaire. I think I got the good ending?
Sunak allies insist the national service plan has been worked on for weeks, is “extremely detailed” and is only one of a raft of proposals that underpin the election slogan “bold action”. One said:
“This has not been put together in a rush, rather been considerable work over a long period of time”.
Another said: “policy work on this is extremely detailed. Three weeks ago the short was 35 pages.”
Have often remarked what a lucky general SKS is. Grand Final day and his opponent appears to have had a nervous breakdown. Peace and blessings to Rishi.
Trying to be objective on the political implications of the policy or a moment:
- On one hand, it will be popular with the Boomer Tory/Reform voting contingent. I can imagine an uptick in Tory support from this contingent, which is their core vote now.
- On the other hand, young people (including Millennials in their 30s and 40s with kids under 18) will hate this policy. It is stupid and the compulsory nature could drive higher turnout against the Tories in a tactical voting kind of way: hold your nose and vote for who is the best opposition in your area.
I'm not sure which effect will be greater. But it comes across as desperate in any case.
If it's only unpopular with people who'd never vote for you in the first place, it's arguably good politics.
Many of those millennials do, or did, vote Tory before. I have. Writing them off as forever lost, and making that a self fulfulling prophecy, is the opposite of good politics.
It's also an amazing way to signal "We don't care about anyone young enough to have grandkids affected by the policy". Utter idiocy. I can see it being popular with a certain type of baby boomer, like the various red-faced sunlounger posters on here, but in the country? Can't see it going down as well as he thinks. If it was part of a coherent narrative it might work. But what narrative is there other than "I'm bloody desperate and I have no sane ideas?".
How else do we defend the nation against Putin and Xi?
I dunno, off the top of my head, a decent-sized, trained professional army and navy who are supplied with modern and well resourced equipment and training?
We don't have the numbers. We are struggling to man the army and navy we have, and they are comparatively tiny
Either we raise the pay for soldiering to a level which requires income tax to double, or we take the easier route, and require national service of all 18 year olds. Which one will be more popular with tax payers, in the end?
EXTRAPOLATE, you dimwits
Are you signing up Capt. Mainwaring?
That is extremely unfair Mr Mexican. You're slandering a brave, patriotic and decent fellow who is just trying to do the best to help his country in its hour of need. And he's a rather sympathetic bank manager too.
For bank manager, read tank manager.
To be fair, recruitment for the services is a(nother) shitshow after being contracted out.
As is Pilot Training I think, after David Cameron iirc tied it down to an as-cheap-as-possible model locking in exactly what we needed THEN, which now cannot be expanded without extreme difficulty.
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.
You mean, a tax on being young and poor? He might wish to study the outcomes of the New York City Draft Riots to see how well that sort of policy goes...
This whole affair is giving me flashbacks to my last playthrough of Suzerain, where despite my valiant efforts to modernise the economy of my ficitonal nation and bring peace to the region, I had botched education policy and caused debt to spiral on failed infrastructure projects, and my own spouse told me I shouldn't run for re-election because I was so crap at being President.
It will probably hurt Rishi more when Akshata says the same thing to him.
+1 for this.
The new DLC is also excellent.
Despite being effectively a visual novel one of the most absorbing games I've played in years. I'm such a wonk the fact a major plank of the story/gameplay is internal party management in order to pass a series of constitutional changes is just delightful to me. Can't wait to go through Rizia.
It will take the intellectual low-watt cohort of PBers a year or two to catch up with this, but a much more militarised society is coming, like it or not
Putin will get an Armistice in Ukraine, because we are not willing to send NATO troops to defend Kharkhiv, and neither side can "win". Putin and Xi wll then co-ordinate. Xi will go for Taiwan and Putin will probe the eastern flanks of NATO and the UK will be obliged to up its defence spending by billions and it will have to forcibly recruit young men and women, if they are not willing to serve voluntarily
= National Service, one way or another
Is it a good election winning policy? Probably not. Is it a serious pointer to the probable future? Yep
and your plan is to give an SA80 to a Vegan, Hamas-supporting trans cyclist and airdrop them over the South China Sea/Estonia?
What has been shown not to work in Ukraine is mass infantry assaults against artillery and minefields, which is pretty much all a national service bod would be capable of.
Ah but you're discussing it with noted military historian and expert Leon, master of manoeuvre, a tactician on par with Rommel, a strategist on par with Napoleon, a logistician greater than Zhukhov and truly madder than all three.
I'm sorry, but I have to call you to order here. I'm not just a strategist on a par with Napoleon, I am actually and literally the reincarnation of him, or - more accurately - he was a somewhat pallid, prior incarnation of me. This shit is important, it may seem trivial to some, but it is significant
Why did he choose that name? NapoLEON. He knew. He knew deep inside
£2.5bn for the full-timers, another £4bn for the 700k part-timer "volunteers", plus another couple of billion to feed, water, and manage them. Likely another billion or so to actually create volunteering opportunities for them and provide tools & materials etc. Call it £10bn in total.
Cost of abolishing tuition fees whilst maintaining student numbers: £10.38 bn (according to London Economics for UCU earlier this month)
Trying to be objective on the political implications of the policy or a moment:
- On one hand, it will be popular with the Boomer Tory/Reform voting contingent. I can imagine an uptick in Tory support from this contingent, which is their core vote now.
- On the other hand, young people (including Millennials in their 30s and 40s with kids under 18) will hate this policy. It is stupid and the compulsory nature could drive higher turnout against the Tories in a tactical voting kind of way: hold your nose and vote for who is the best opposition in your area.
I'm not sure which effect will be greater. But it comes across as desperate in any case.
If it's only unpopular with people who'd never vote for you in the first place, it's arguably good politics.
Many of those millennials do, or did, vote Tory before. I have. Writing them off as forever lost, and making that a self fulfulling prophecy, is the opposite of good politics.
It's also an amazing way to signal "We don't care about anyone young enough to have grandkids affected by the policy". Utter idiocy. I can see it being popular with a certain type of baby boomer, like the various red-faced sunlounger posters on here, but in the country? Can't see it going down as well as he thinks. If it was part of a coherent narrative it might work. But what narrative is there other than "I'm bloody desperate and I have no sane ideas?".
How else do we defend the nation against Putin and Xi?
I dunno, off the top of my head, a decent-sized, trained professional army and navy who are supplied with modern and well resourced equipment and training?
We don't have the numbers. We are struggling to man the army and navy we have, and they are comparatively tiny
Either we raise the pay for soldiering to a level which requires income tax to double, or we take the easier route, and require national service of all 18 year olds. Which one will be more popular with tax payers, in the end?
EXTRAPOLATE, you dimwits
Doubling income tax raises an additional £300billion for the armed forces.
I think we might be able to arm-twist a few more professional and long-term recruits with that.
We agree i think on the ends - we have to bulk our military because Russia is planning total war and Trump isn't going to save europe. We are disagreeing over whether Sunak's barely thought out plan is the answer.
Trying to be objective on the political implications of the policy or a moment:
- On one hand, it will be popular with the Boomer Tory/Reform voting contingent. I can imagine an uptick in Tory support from this contingent, which is their core vote now.
- On the other hand, young people (including Millennials in their 30s and 40s with kids under 18) will hate this policy. It is stupid and the compulsory nature could drive higher turnout against the Tories in a tactical voting kind of way: hold your nose and vote for who is the best opposition in your area.
I'm not sure which effect will be greater. But it comes across as desperate in any case.
If it's only unpopular with people who'd never vote for you in the first place, it's arguably good politics.
Many of those millennials do, or did, vote Tory before. I have. Writing them off as forever lost, and making that a self fulfulling prophecy, is the opposite of good politics.
It's also an amazing way to signal "We don't care about anyone young enough to have grandkids affected by the policy". Utter idiocy. I can see it being popular with a certain type of baby boomer, like the various red-faced sunlounger posters on here, but in the country? Can't see it going down as well as he thinks. If it was part of a coherent narrative it might work. But what narrative is there other than "I'm bloody desperate and I have no sane ideas?".
How else do we defend the nation against Putin and Xi?
I dunno, off the top of my head, a decent-sized, trained professional army and navy who are supplied with modern and well resourced equipment and training?
We don't have the numbers. We are struggling to man the army and navy we have, and they are comparatively tiny
Either we raise the pay for soldiering to a level which requires income tax to double, or we take the easier route, and require national service of all 18 year olds. Which one will be more popular with tax payers, in the end?
EXTRAPOLATE, you dimwits
Are you signing up Capt. Mainwaring?
That is extremely unfair Mr Mexican. You're slandering a brave, patriotic and decent fellow who is just trying to do the best to help his country in its hour of need. And he's a rather sympathetic bank manager too.
For bank manager, read tank manager.
To be fair, recruitment for the services is a(nother) shitshow after being contracted out.
As is Pilot Training I think, after David Cameron iirc tied it down to an as-cheap-as-possible model locking in exactly what we needed THEN, which now cannot be expanded without extreme difficulty.
We could probably use that 2.5bn to get more people into the armed services than this wild ass idea by bringing recruitment back in house and making it work properly.
This sounds like policy made by AI trained exclusively on copies of the Daily Telegrah. but worst of all it costs £2.5bn, I repeat £2.5bn, for most 18yos to do a glorified Duke of Edinburgh award?
Sunak allies insist the national service plan has been worked on for weeks, is “extremely detailed” and is only one of a raft of proposals that underpin the election slogan “bold action”. One said:
“This has not been put together in a rush, rather been considerable work over a long period of time”.
Another said: “policy work on this is extremely detailed. Three weeks ago the short was 35 pages.”
It will take the intellectual low-watt cohort of PBers a year or two to catch up with this, but a much more militarised society is coming, like it or not
Putin will get an Armistice in Ukraine, because we are not willing to send NATO troops to defend Kharkhiv, and neither side can "win". Putin and Xi wll then co-ordinate. Xi will go for Taiwan and Putin will probe the eastern flanks of NATO and the UK will be obliged to up its defence spending by billions and it will have to forcibly recruit young men and women, if they are not willing to serve voluntarily
= National Service, one way or another
Is it a good election winning policy? Probably not. Is it a serious pointer to the probable future? Yep
and your plan is to give an SA80 to a Vegan, Hamas-supporting trans cyclist and airdrop them over the South China Sea/Estonia?
What has been shown not to work in Ukraine is mass infantry assaults against artillery and minefields, which is pretty much all a national service bod would be capable of.
Ah but you're discussing it with noted military historian and expert Leon, master of manoeuvre, a tactician on par with Rommel, a strategist on par with Napoleon, a logistician greater than Zhukhov and truly madder than all three.
I'm sorry, but I have to call you to order here. I'm not just a strategist on a par with Napoleon, I am actually and literally the reincarnation of him, or - more accurately - he was a somewhat pallid, prior incarnation of me. This shit is important, it may seem trivial to some, but it is significant
Why did he choose that name? NapoLEON. He knew. He knew deep inside
Having seen the Napoleon film, I will agree that you bear many similarities to the depiction of the man.
Someone should point out to Rishi that 18 year olds did their national service when they spent a year in lockdown as 14 and 15 years old.
I pointed this out already but was told this was not right.
Didn't see the comment, but I think you're right. This generation of kids spent a year shut away from school and their friends to try and prevent deaths in the elderly from a virus that for most of them would have been no worse than a cold.
Politicians should be working on policies to reward this generation of youngsters for their service and sacrifices during lockdown, not coming up with ways to punish them further...
This whole affair is giving me flashbacks to my last playthrough of Suzerain, where despite my valiant efforts to modernise the economy of my ficitonal nation and bring peace to the region, I had botched education policy and caused debt to spiral on failed infrastructure projects, and my own spouse told me I shouldn't run for re-election because I was so crap at being President.
It will probably hurt Rishi more when Akshata says the same thing to him.
I liberalized the country, joined NATO, crushed Akshata's version of Theresa May in the primaries and then announced a shock retirement to live in the pseudo-US as a tech millionaire. I think I got the good ending?
I did manage to end the constitutional quagmire of the 'special region' and even get the previous dictator convicted, but it must have taken too much out of me. I should play it again to feel more sympathy for Rishi, running a country is hard!
It will take the intellectual low-watt cohort of PBers a year or two to catch up with this, but a much more militarised society is coming, like it or not
Putin will get an Armistice in Ukraine, because we are not willing to send NATO troops to defend Kharkhiv, and neither side can "win". Putin and Xi wll then co-ordinate. Xi will go for Taiwan and Putin will probe the eastern flanks of NATO and the UK will be obliged to up its defence spending by billions and it will have to forcibly recruit young men and women, if they are not willing to serve voluntarily
= National Service, one way or another
Is it a good election winning policy? Probably not. Is it a serious pointer to the probable future? Yep
It is Leon, but first as a political leader you engage with the voting public. You explain how dangerous Putin is and you develop a conversation to explain that in order to secure a free United Kingdom for our children and our children's children we need to look at certain difficult options.
You don't ponder "how do we attract crazy ape- bonkers Reform voters? I know send their sons, daughters and grandchildren to Deepcut for 12 months. That should do the trick".
But that’s not the policy. It’s compulsory community service with an exception for people who join the military.
Oh for goodness sake, that is not how it will be perceived by voters.
The options are not exactly equal though are they? A year on patrol in a warzone or a few bob-a-job weekends?
This whole affair is giving me flashbacks to my last playthrough of Suzerain, where despite my valiant efforts to modernise the economy of my ficitonal nation and bring peace to the region, I had botched education policy and caused debt to spiral on failed infrastructure projects, and my own spouse told me I shouldn't run for re-election because I was so crap at being President.
It will probably hurt Rishi more when Akshata says the same thing to him.
I liberalized the country, joined NATO, crushed Akshata's version of Theresa May in the primaries and then announced a shock retirement to live in the pseudo-US as a tech millionaire. I think I got the good ending?
I did manage to end the constitutional quagmire of the 'special region' and even get the previous dictator convicted, but it must have taken too much out of me. I should play it again to feel more sympathy for Rishi, running a country is hard!
I think I sent him into internal exile since I didn't want to completely blow up the entire party. He came in to do a speech at some point and metaphorically died on his arse so I count that as a success.
It will take the intellectual low-watt cohort of PBers a year or two to catch up with this, but a much more militarised society is coming, like it or not
Putin will get an Armistice in Ukraine, because we are not willing to send NATO troops to defend Kharkhiv, and neither side can "win". Putin and Xi wll then co-ordinate. Xi will go for Taiwan and Putin will probe the eastern flanks of NATO and the UK will be obliged to up its defence spending by billions and it will have to forcibly recruit young men and women, if they are not willing to serve voluntarily
= National Service, one way or another
Is it a good election winning policy? Probably not. Is it a serious pointer to the probable future? Yep
and your plan is to give an SA80 to a Vegan, Hamas-supporting trans cyclist and airdrop them over the South China Sea/Estonia?
What has been shown not to work in Ukraine is mass infantry assaults against artillery and minefields, which is pretty much all a national service bod would be capable of.
Ah but you're discussing it with noted military historian and expert Leon, master of manoeuvre, a tactician on par with Rommel, a strategist on par with Napoleon, a logistician greater than Zhukhov and truly madder than all three.
I'm sorry, but I have to call you to order here. I'm not just a strategist on a par with Napoleon, I am actually and literally the reincarnation of him, or - more accurately - he was a somewhat pallid, prior incarnation of me. This shit is important, it may seem trivial to some, but it is significant
Why did he choose that name? NapoLEON. He knew. He knew deep inside
Having seen the Napoleon film, I will agree that you bear many similarities to the depiction of the man.
So is an actual last thought - will any media come out and back this idea?
Rishi needs help to sell this as not a disaster, and if Guido is any indication he won't find it among the Reform minded alternative media, so will any traditional media go to bat for him on this to reassure the old fogeys it is to appeal to?
Paul Mason @paulmasonnews Sunak's "National Service" plan requires a Royal Commission and 5 years to implement - meanwhile our armed forces have the lowest morale and satisfaction rates for decades: pay them well, honour their service and incentivise reserve participation ... you can't fly an F-35 one weekend a month!
So is an actual last thought - will any media come out and back this idea?
Rishi needs help to sell this as not a disaster, and if Guido is any indication he won't find it among the Reform minded alternative media, so will any traditional media go to bat for him on this to reassure the old fogeys it is to appeal to?
Oh the Telegraph will go out to bat for any old shit from the blue side.
So is an actual last thought - will any media come out and back this idea?
Rishi needs help to sell this as not a disaster, and if Guido is any indication he won't find it among the Reform minded alternative media, so will any traditional media go to bat for him on this to reassure the old fogeys it is to appeal to?
GB News?
Even among the papers, Sunak is pretty much down to the Telegraph and even they gave a nice write up of Starmer today.
It will take the intellectual low-watt cohort of PBers a year or two to catch up with this, but a much more militarised society is coming, like it or not
Putin will get an Armistice in Ukraine, because we are not willing to send NATO troops to defend Kharkhiv, and neither side can "win". Putin and Xi wll then co-ordinate. Xi will go for Taiwan and Putin will probe the eastern flanks of NATO and the UK will be obliged to up its defence spending by billions and it will have to forcibly recruit young men and women, if they are not willing to serve voluntarily
= National Service, one way or another
Is it a good election winning policy? Probably not. Is it a serious pointer to the probable future? Yep
and your plan is to give an SA80 to a Vegan, Hamas-supporting trans cyclist and airdrop them over the South China Sea/Estonia?
What has been shown not to work in Ukraine is mass infantry assaults against artillery and minefields, which is pretty much all a national service bod would be capable of.
Ah but you're discussing it with noted military historian and expert Leon, master of manoeuvre, a tactician on par with Rommel, a strategist on par with Napoleon, a logistician greater than Zhukhov and truly madder than all three.
I'm sorry, but I have to call you to order here. I'm not just a strategist on a par with Napoleon, I am actually and literally the reincarnation of him, or - more accurately - he was a somewhat pallid, prior incarnation of me. This shit is important, it may seem trivial to some, but it is significant
Why did he choose that name? NapoLEON. He knew. He knew deep inside
Having seen the Napoleon film, I will agree that you bear many similarities to the depiction of the man.
More like Trotsky, imo
Sadly we can't follow Lenin's example on that one:
"Trotsky has sent a silly letter, we will neither print it nor reply"
Paul Mason @paulmasonnews Sunak's "National Service" plan requires a Royal Commission and 5 years to implement - meanwhile our armed forces have the lowest morale and satisfaction rates for decades: pay them well, honour their service and incentivise reserve participation ... you can't fly an F-35 one weekend a month!
He has obviously never heard of Microsoft Flight Simulator....
Paul Mason @paulmasonnews Sunak's "National Service" plan requires a Royal Commission and 5 years to implement - meanwhile our armed forces have the lowest morale and satisfaction rates for decades: pay them well, honour their service and incentivise reserve participation ... you can't fly an F-35 one weekend a month!
So is an actual last thought - will any media come out and back this idea?
Rishi needs help to sell this as not a disaster, and if Guido is any indication he won't find it among the Reform minded alternative media, so will any traditional media go to bat for him on this to reassure the old fogeys it is to appeal to?
All the usual suspects have it as "EXCLUSIVE" news.
Paul Mason @paulmasonnews Sunak's "National Service" plan requires a Royal Commission and 5 years to implement - meanwhile our armed forces have the lowest morale and satisfaction rates for decades: pay them well, honour their service and incentivise reserve participation ... you can't fly an F-35 one weekend a month!
He has obviously never heard of Microsoft Flight Simulator....
I did have a good laugh tbf at that Bradley driver who knocked out a T-90 because he knew the weakpoints in the armour layout from playing War Thunder.
Well, we can't complain that the campaign is boring.
800 hours of "compulsory volunteering" for young people. A lorry driver killed a cyclist in Glasgow and got 100.
800 hours of "compulsory volunteering" for young people. A child rapist* from Midlothian got 270.
*Conviction overturned on appeal, but had it stood...
Though you can be sent to prison if you fail to comply with a community service order for a few months. That is unlikely to apply in this case for school leavers
Paul Mason @paulmasonnews Sunak's "National Service" plan requires a Royal Commission and 5 years to implement - meanwhile our armed forces have the lowest morale and satisfaction rates for decades: pay them well, honour their service and incentivise reserve participation ... you can't fly an F-35 one weekend a month!
He has obviously never heard of Microsoft Flight Simulator....
I did have a good laugh tbf at that Bradley driver who knocked out a T-90 because he knew the weakpoints in the armour layout from playing War Thunder.
Was it War Thunder where a player wrote to the devs to say you have such and such a tank wrong, and they said how do you know, and they were actually a tank driver and had a set of military documents. The devs then put that in the game.
Edit - It was Challenger 2. Apparently the turret was the wrong thickness.
Well, at least next week Trump is going to be convicted/acquitted/hung juried, so that will take up a lot of media attention to give Rishi some breathing room.
Sunak allies insist the national service plan has been worked on for weeks, is “extremely detailed” and is only one of a raft of proposals that underpin the election slogan “bold action”. One said:
“This has not been put together in a rush, rather been considerable work over a long period of time”.
Another said: “policy work on this is extremely detailed. Three weeks ago the short was 35 pages.”
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
Sunak allies insist the national service plan has been worked on for weeks, is “extremely detailed” and is only one of a raft of proposals that underpin the election slogan “bold action”. One said:
“This has not been put together in a rush, rather been considerable work over a long period of time”.
Another said: “policy work on this is extremely detailed. Three weeks ago the short was 35 pages.”
Sunak allies insist the national service plan has been worked on for weeks, is “extremely detailed” and is only one of a raft of proposals that underpin the election slogan “bold action”. One said:
“This has not been put together in a rush, rather been considerable work over a long period of time”.
Another said: “policy work on this is extremely detailed. Three weeks ago the short was 35 pages.”
So is an actual last thought - will any media come out and back this idea?
Rishi needs help to sell this as not a disaster, and if Guido is any indication he won't find it among the Reform minded alternative media, so will any traditional media go to bat for him on this to reassure the old fogeys it is to appeal to?
The Daily Express wrote the policy, (to paraphrase David Brent. 😊 )
So is an actual last thought - will any media come out and back this idea?
Rishi needs help to sell this as not a disaster, and if Guido is any indication he won't find it among the Reform minded alternative media, so will any traditional media go to bat for him on this to reassure the old fogeys it is to appeal to?
Oh the Telegraph will go out to bat for any old shit from the blue side.
Sure, but in a lukewarm, obligatory kind of way. We'll be able to tell if their heart is really in it.
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 1h As @BloombergUK reported 2 days ago the Sunak strategy is to go very hard after Reform votes in the first 2 weeks to narrow the gap with Labour — that’s what the National Service policy is about — whether it works is another question
It will take the intellectual low-watt cohort of PBers a year or two to catch up with this, but a much more militarised society is coming, like it or not
Putin will get an Armistice in Ukraine, because we are not willing to send NATO troops to defend Kharkhiv, and neither side can "win". Putin and Xi wll then co-ordinate. Xi will go for Taiwan and Putin will probe the eastern flanks of NATO and the UK will be obliged to up its defence spending by billions and it will have to forcibly recruit young men and women, if they are not willing to serve voluntarily
= National Service, one way or another
Is it a good election winning policy? Probably not. Is it a serious pointer to the probable future? Yep
and your plan is to give an SA80 to a Vegan, Hamas-supporting trans cyclist and airdrop them over the South China Sea/Estonia?
What has been shown not to work in Ukraine is mass infantry assaults against artillery and minefields, which is pretty much all a national service bod would be capable of.
Ah but you're discussing it with noted military historian and expert Leon, master of manoeuvre, a tactician on par with Rommel, a strategist on par with Napoleon, a logistician greater than Zhukhov and truly madder than all three.
I'm sorry, but I have to call you to order here. I'm not just a strategist on a par with Napoleon, I am actually and literally the reincarnation of him, or - more accurately - he was a somewhat pallid, prior incarnation of me. This shit is important, it may seem trivial to some, but it is significant
Why did he choose that name? NapoLEON. He knew. He knew deep inside
What do the Foreign Legion see and do when you open your coat and say "Go on then, shoot me!" ?
But isn't this actually a claim to be related to Miss @Cyclefree and her 17 co-owners of whatever that picture was?
How do you handle safeguarding? How do you check which 18 year olds you don't want working in the NHS or police?
Finding suitable roles for 700,000 18 year olds is going to be a gargantuan task all by itself. Will they be given training? Will their performance be monitored? Will they be insured? Can they claim travel expenses? Who's going to administer it all?
Krishna Sunak is13. If this scheme is to go into operation in 5 years, she'll be in the first cohort. What does she think about it?
It's not just us - the comments on the Daily Mail article are nearly as scathing
"there goes my vote for the Tories. As a mum of 3 - I do not want my kids being forced to do that"
"So our young do national service, while illegal migrants get housed and given benefits."
"The final nail in the coffin. I am one of the ‘anyone but Labour’ voters. Was seriously considering a Tory vote, but this latest policy will direct my vote to Reform."
"6000 ex British servicemen are living on the streets in the uk today while we feed and house illegals, how about looking after them, I wouldn’t fight for this country again. "
Paul Mason @paulmasonnews Sunak's "National Service" plan requires a Royal Commission and 5 years to implement - meanwhile our armed forces have the lowest morale and satisfaction rates for decades: pay them well, honour their service and incentivise reserve participation ... you can't fly an F-35 one weekend a month!
He has obviously never heard of Microsoft Flight Simulator....
I did have a good laugh tbf at that Bradley driver who knocked out a T-90 because he knew the weakpoints in the armour layout from playing War Thunder.
Was it War Thunder where a player wrote to the devs to say you have such and such a tank wrong, and they said how do you know, and they were actually a tank driver and had a set of military documents. The devs then put that in the game.
Edit - It was Challenger 2. Apparently the turret was the wrong thickness.
Not quite. There have been... seven I think incidents of classified documents posted on the WT forums from France, the US, UK, and China including certain bits of Challenger 2 documentation. The mods nuke those posts from orbit because they're a Russian company at the end of the chain and they don't want to risk their largest markets banning them over security leaks. What you're thinking of is a public access source that was submitted as a bug report over an incorrect model and they updated that last patch (but not correctly so there was a lot of blowback from Teaboos on the forums and reddit).
I only play WW2 era stuff because the playerbase that dick around in the modern tiers are truly horrendous human beings.
Sunak allies insist the national service plan has been worked on for weeks, is “extremely detailed” and is only one of a raft of proposals that underpin the election slogan “bold action”. One said:
“This has not been put together in a rush, rather been considerable work over a long period of time”.
Another said: “policy work on this is extremely detailed. Three weeks ago the short was 35 pages.”
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].
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
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.
OT: Roland Rat in the steering wheel of a Ford Focus, which came from I know not where today.
You will never unsee it.
You've just ruined my car.
If it's any consolation, I came across quite a cool Raleigh advert that I had not seen before. A small resistance to the IDS culture war (which will end abruptly on July 5th). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oltX2dxHYDE
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
Alex Wickham @alexwickham · 1h As @BloombergUK reported 2 days ago the Sunak strategy is to go very hard after Reform votes in the first 2 weeks to narrow the gap with Labour — that’s what the National Service policy is about — whether it works is another question
Eighteen year olds get to choose between 12months in the army or 6weeks as a Tory election candidate
A snap announcement certainly wrong footed those in charge of political party machinery. Genius! Wait, did you say the Tories are 190 candidates short? Oh...
The problem with Rishi going hard right to woo REFORM voters is that nobody believes it.
If this was coming from Sue-Ellen, then fair enough, people would probably buy it, but from Rishi? Nobody really believes he believes in this shit.
Rishi's best (only) strategy was to go for quiet, mild mannered competence, but he blew that long ago. Now he's just doubling down on all his mistakes.
People about to start FE or uni don't necessarily have free time. Most 68 year olds do.
So does this mean that HMG/MoD will be issuing ammunition boots with the flap over Velcro to save bending down and tying shoelaces before presenting for 7.00am drill practice?
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
Hmmm.
Ignoring the bits after words 1-6, how is Putin going to get to Moldova?
OT: Roland Rat in the steering wheel of a Ford Focus, which came from I know not where today.
You will never unsee it.
You've just ruined my car.
If it's any consolation, I came across quite a cool Raleigh advert that I had not seen before. A small resistance to the IDS culture war. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oltX2dxHYDE
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.
Eighteen year olds get to choose between 12months in the army or 6weeks as a Tory election candidate
A snap announcement certainly wrong footed those in charge of political party machinery. Genius! Wait, did you say the Tories are 190 candidates short? Oh...
If the Tories are struggling to get 190 candidates, not sure how they will persuade half a million 18 year olds to join the army or do a bit of "volunteering"
Comments
I mean he must have thought at the very least the Tories have hired some half decent people to run the campaign and come up with policy, I might have a few tricky days over the campaign as I have to react to half decent ideas from them and I have to try and work out how to defend myself against why we aren't doing that.
Parody Rishi Sunak
@Parody_PM
·
13m
Oh fuck off! How am I supposed to out parody that?
My nephew is in the army. It's all he ever wanted to do. They have been paying him since he was 15. They paid him as he finished school. They paid him through university. He did his stint at Sandhurst and was commissioned. Made it to Afghanistan in time to fly home again. Now that he is a full Captain, after all those years of training, he is leaving as soon as possible because the army are "wasting his talents"
I'm not arguing that. My point is this: something LIKE this coming for the UK sooner rather than later? Absent black swans I am not allowed to talk about, we need tens of thousands of extra soldiers ready to fight. Putin really means this war against the West and so does Xi, they want to de-dollarise the world economy, they want to destabilise the West in every way possible (see Woke and Boeing) they are trying to destroy us, using our own technology and liberality, it is obvious
We are at war. War needs fighters
Also, I am not sure it is THAT bad an electoral strategy for Sunak. Polls show the Tories are headed for epochal and maybe existential defeat. What has he got to lose? Nothing. Why not tell the people the truth: bad shit is coming
It will probably hurt Rishi more when Akshata says the same thing to him.
The new DLC is also excellent.
So basically, it's a tax on being young.
Sunak allies insist the national service plan has been worked on for weeks, is “extremely detailed” and is only one of a raft of proposals that underpin the election slogan “bold action”. One said:
“This has not been put together in a rush, rather been considerable work over a long period of time”.
Another said: “policy work on this is extremely detailed. Three weeks ago the short was 35 pages.”
https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1794499476041720202
Grand Final day and his opponent appears to have had a nervous breakdown.
Peace and blessings to Rishi.
To be fair, recruitment for the services is a(nother) shitshow after being contracted out.
As is Pilot Training I think, after David Cameron iirc tied it down to an as-cheap-as-possible model locking in exactly what we needed THEN, which now cannot be expanded without extreme difficulty.
Why did he choose that name? NapoLEON. He knew. He knew deep inside
Cost of abolishing tuition fees whilst maintaining student numbers: £10.38 bn (according to London Economics for UCU earlier this month)
So, pretty much a wash.
I think we might be able to arm-twist a few more professional and long-term recruits with that.
We agree i think on the ends - we have to bulk our military because Russia is planning total war and Trump isn't going to save europe. We are disagreeing over whether Sunak's barely thought out plan is the answer.
@tc1415
This is a totally moronic policy and whoever has decided it should be in our manifesto should be fired out of a cannon.
You will never unsee it.
Good job all PBers ride Triumph Motorcycles or drive prestige German.
800 hours of "compulsory volunteering" for young people. A lorry driver killed a cyclist in Glasgow and got 100.
This sounds like policy made by AI trained exclusively on copies of the Daily Telegrah. but worst of all it costs £2.5bn, I repeat £2.5bn, for most 18yos to do a glorified Duke of Edinburgh award?
Even people who like national service as an idea - and I'm not intrinsically opposed - will hate this.
Politicians should be working on policies to reward this generation of youngsters for their service and sacrifices during lockdown, not coming up with ways to punish them further...
All in my opinion, of course.
Which is still more than the lorry driver.
*Conviction overturned on appeal, but had it stood...
It's actually my generation and above.
The options are not exactly equal though are they? A year on patrol in a warzone or a few bob-a-job weekends?
And someone liked your post!!!!
Rishi needs help to sell this as not a disaster, and if Guido is any indication he won't find it among the Reform minded alternative media, so will any traditional media go to bat for him on this to reassure the old fogeys it is to appeal to?
Paul Mason
@paulmasonnews
Sunak's "National Service" plan requires a Royal Commission and 5 years to implement - meanwhile our armed forces have the lowest morale and satisfaction rates for decades: pay them well, honour their service and incentivise reserve participation ... you can't fly an F-35 one weekend a month!
Even among the papers, Sunak is pretty much down to the Telegraph and even they gave a nice write up of Starmer today.
"Trotsky has sent a silly letter, we will neither print it nor reply"
Not sure about the Comment pages yet.
Edit - It was Challenger 2. Apparently the turret was the wrong thickness.
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
Alex Wickham
@alexwickham
·
1h
As
@BloombergUK
reported 2 days ago the Sunak strategy is to go very hard after Reform votes in the first 2 weeks to narrow the gap with Labour — that’s what the National Service policy is about — whether it works is another question
https://x.com/alexwickham/status/1794480686566437113
But isn't this actually a claim to be related to Miss @Cyclefree and her 17 co-owners of whatever that picture was?
Krishna Sunak is13. If this scheme is to go into operation in 5 years, she'll be in the first cohort. What does she think about it?
"there goes my vote for the Tories. As a mum of 3 - I do not want my kids being forced to do that"
"So our young do national service, while illegal migrants get housed and given benefits."
"The final nail in the coffin. I am one of the ‘anyone but Labour’ voters. Was seriously considering a Tory vote, but this latest policy will direct my vote to Reform."
"6000 ex British servicemen are living on the streets in the uk today while we feed and house illegals, how about looking after them, I wouldn’t fight for this country again. "
I only play WW2 era stuff because the playerbase that dick around in the modern tiers are truly horrendous human beings.
It will be ECHR and death penalty almost certainly.
(seriously, it worked for us, apparently it mimics the amniotic whoosh of the womb)
I've heard that putting the bambino in the back of a car can do the same
If he invades Finland he'll know about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oltX2dxHYDE
Reminds me of that classic Peter Kay John Smiths sketch about the cupboard monsters.
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
If this was coming from Sue-Ellen, then fair enough, people would probably buy it, but from Rishi? Nobody really believes he believes in this shit.
Rishi's best (only) strategy was to go for quiet, mild mannered competence, but he blew that long ago. Now he's just doubling down on all his mistakes.
Ignoring the bits after words 1-6, how is Putin going to get to Moldova?
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.