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.
(+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.
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.
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.
Rishi Sunak as Robert Graves's Claudius?
"Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out"
R Sunak’s first policy announcement- the return of national service- shows he has no sense of the state of the country he seeks to rule…and no political imagination to compensate for his blindness.
@sundersays It is not a serious plan so the details are all tbc in a royal commission. It is a pitch to a particular electoral segment, who like this headline, from a governing party hoping to mitigate the scale of defeat.
@rafaelbehr Royal commission is the tell that this was cooked up by hacks. It's such a leader writer's device for making a vague unworkable notion sound like a call to action.
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.
Agreed.
I was nervous, based partly on re-reading the histories of 1992, 2017, and 2019.
But they are calming my fears.
And reaction from moderate Conservatives is reassuring in the long-term. The country needs a sensible centre-right Party. They will come back to governance some day.
@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!
That makes no sense at all. The Telegraph piece is a news report, not a leader or opinion piece in favour of the policy. Does he think the paper should airbrush history when reporting the news?
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 ?
This Government doesn't do details. But, at a guess, I would imagine that the victims would be expected to attend whether they had actual jobs to hold down or not, they wouldn't get compensated for the lost income, and that some financial mechanism would be created to punish them for not turning up - fines, or deduction of a surcharge directly through PAYE as per the mechanism for student loan repayment. Essentially it's a system of state-mandated forced labour.
Grouping refusers with social security claimants as scroungers who deserve a good beating is, after all, sound politics for the Tories (and any of their rivals competing for the votes of the reactionary elderly and other pitiless social conservatives.)
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.)
I suspect that Casino is right, that the problem this announcement is intended to solve is 'some voters are wavering between Conservative and Reform' and this announcement may pull them towards Team Rishi. But that's all it solves, and with flip knows what knock-on effects.
It certainly doesn't solve the public service problems- twelve weekends "volunteering" or one year military training isn't enough to make a teenager a net gain to their not-employer.
There are some real benefits to things like NCS- mix young people up, get different groups working together, develop soft skills, maybe even get some nice things done. But, as someone working with the target market, it's never gone mainstream.
And its funding has been cut massively in recent years.
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 policy is struggling with the over 45s. Wall to wall ridicule in mail and Telegraph comments
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.
Young people already have “access to practical service/volunteering opportunities”.
By the way, community service is inbuilt into the IB. It could also be part of A levels and ‘Citizenship’ qualifications were briefly all the rage. Community involvement can be part of the school curriculum with some creativity and less adherence to chalk-and-talk teaching of the type advocated (ironically) by Michael Gove and Rishi Sunak.
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 policy is struggling with the over 45s. Wall to wall ridicule in mail and Telegraph comments
Fortysomethings and fiftysomethings have teenaged children.
So, how long before Dishy Rishi starts flying flags about re-introducing capital punishment?
I think it's going to kick off about not prosecuting paedophiles/releasing them early from jail. Rishi then says OK let's do some blue sky thinking about reducing the prison population.
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
It's not just his opponents though, this time.
I have a plan! And here's the back of a fag packet that I wrote it on.
For all sorts of reasons encouraging civic duty is to be lauded. We are possibly on the cusp of WW3 so mobilising a reservist army might make sense.
But this is just knee jerk backs against the wall stuff. Rishi " what can we do next?" Dowden "reintroduce conscription!". Jenrick "strafe the boats". Braverman "execute socialist traitors, and anyone else I don't like". It's all just performative nonsense.
Morning all, a boringly as you were Deltapoll to wake us up Labour lead by twenty-two points in our poll for the Mail on Sunday. Con 23% (-) Lab 45% (-) Lib Dem 9% (-1) Reform 10% (-2) SNP 3% (-) Green 6% (+1) Other 3% (-) Fieldwork: 23rd-25th May 2024 Sample: 1,517 GB adults (Changes from 17th-20th May 2024)
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 policy is struggling with the over 45s. Wall to wall ridicule in mail and Telegraph comments
Fortysomethings and fiftysomethings have teenaged children.
We do. Thank you for making the important point. The idea of my 18 year old going into compulsory National Service is just beyond hideous.
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.
Agreed.
I was nervous, based partly on re-reading the histories of 1992, 2017, and 2019.
But they are calming my fears.
And reaction from moderate Conservatives is reassuring in the long-term. The country needs a sensible centre-right Party. They will come back to governance some day.
There is no guarantee that anything resembling the moderate right will emerge from this episode. The Conservative Party can become almost as extreme as it likes, and brand recognition combined with the electoral system will at least preserve it as the main opposition.
Indeed, I'd go as far as to say that the centre-right in British politics has already undergone Pasokification - courtesy of the complete destruction of the orange book liberals, followed swiftly by the filleting of the one nation wing of the Tory party during the Brexit process and the ascent of Boris Johnson. There is no reason at all to suppose that the very extreme and elderly Tory membership will miraculously embrace moderation after a chastening defeat - they're more likely to seek a unite the right merger with RefUK, with policies and a leadership chosen to facilitate this - and there is effectively zero chance of the Conservatives being replaced by a challenger party.
Morning all, a boringly as you were Deltapoll to wake us up Labour lead by twenty-two points in our poll for the Mail on Sunday. Con 23% (-) Lab 45% (-) Lib Dem 9% (-1) Reform 10% (-2) SNP 3% (-) Green 6% (+1) Other 3% (-) Fieldwork: 23rd-25th May 2024 Sample: 1,517 GB adults (Changes from 17th-20th May 2024)
The swingback starts … oh.
No, joking aside, we need to see a batch of polls over at least a week. And I’m very suspicious of bank holiday polling too, something I’ve said on here from the get-go.
Let’s see if there are any signs of movement a week or so from now.
I mean, all of this needs supervision. And training.
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.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the Army would oppose this. Last thing it needs is a bunch of reluctant recruits.
They would need a lot of Senior NCOs to look after the welfare, training and discipline of Rishi's Wagners.
The biggest retention issue with and hence shortage of the Army has is... Senior NCOs.
I'm not sure how it would work with the RAF and RN as they have a much higher proportion of roles that need hard won technical skills and experience. The vast majority of them will be simply be useless eaters. A net negative to whichever branch is unlucky enough to have them.
If you're going to do it then the Zionist Entity's policy of 32 months makes a lot more sense because they probably get more or less useful personnel for the second half of that period.
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.
You'd think the Times might have just noticed Covid, the invasion of Ukraine, the consequent cost of living crisis...
I suppose the difference is COVID and the invasion of Ukraine weren't government policies. People blame Conservatives for bad stuff that they imposed on us, like Brexit.
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
It's not just his opponents though, this time.
I have a plan! And here's the back of a fag packet that I wrote it on.
For all sorts of reasons encouraging civic duty is to be lauded. We are possibly on the cusp of WW3 so mobilising a reservist army might make sense.
But this is just knee jerk backs against the wall stuff. Rishi " what can we do next?" Dowden "reintroduce conscription!". Jenrick "strafe the boats". Braverman "execute socialist traitors, and anyone else I don't like". It's all just performative nonsense.
And, yet, everyone is talking about him and the Conservatives today, and not Labour, and it will force the latter to respond.
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.
No, because centre-right voters don't think as you do.
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.
No, because centre-right voters don't think as you do.
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.
No, because centre-right voters don't think as you do.
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.
And Sunak recently cut the funding to that scheme.
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 policy is struggling with the over 45s. Wall to wall ridicule in mail and Telegraph comments
Fortysomethings and fiftysomethings have teenaged children.
We do. Thank you for making the important point. The idea of my 18 year old going into compulsory National Service is just beyond hideous.
There is a hidden issue under this as well. For the first time for decades mothers, partners and others are starting to ask: Will my son/husband etc be of an age to be called up (and stand a decent chance of death or injury) when the Russians arrive in Finland/Poland/Estonia.
We are not used to this, and 2024 is, culturally, far from 1939.
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
It's not just his opponents though, this time.
I have a plan! And here's the back of a fag packet that I wrote it on.
For all sorts of reasons encouraging civic duty is to be lauded. We are possibly on the cusp of WW3 so mobilising a reservist army might make sense.
But this is just knee jerk backs against the wall stuff. Rishi " what can we do next?" Dowden "reintroduce conscription!". Jenrick "strafe the boats". Braverman "execute socialist traitors, and anyone else I don't like". It's all just performative nonsense.
And, yet, everyone is talking about him and the Conservatives today, and not Labour, and it will force the latter to respond.
That'll do him nicely.
The all publicity is good publicity argument.
Theresa May's dementia tax says hi.
Though, to be honest, this madcap idea is probably a small net positive for the Tories. A core vote strategy must be assumed to be the least bad option when you have no chance of winning converts, and the Tory core is large.
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.
You searching the Internet for comments by anonymous Internet users that confirm what you already want to believe proves nothing.
This policy will have been focus grouped and tested to death first, and those people don't all sit up in troll farms overnight.
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
It's not just his opponents though, this time.
I have a plan! And here's the back of a fag packet that I wrote it on.
For all sorts of reasons encouraging civic duty is to be lauded. We are possibly on the cusp of WW3 so mobilising a reservist army might make sense.
But this is just knee jerk backs against the wall stuff. Rishi " what can we do next?" Dowden "reintroduce conscription!". Jenrick "strafe the boats". Braverman "execute socialist traitors, and anyone else I don't like". It's all just performative nonsense.
And, yet, everyone is talking about him and the Conservatives today, and not Labour, and it will force the latter to respond.
That'll do him nicely.
The all publicity is good publicity argument.
Theresa May's dementia tax says hi.
Though, to be honest, this madcap idea is probably a small net positive for the Tories. A core vote strategy must be assumed to be the least bad option when you have no chance of winning converts, and the Tory core is large.
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 ?
If you ask the military if they’d rather have this scheme or the same money spent on something else, they’ll say something else.
If you ask the NHS if they’d rather have this scheme or the same money spent on something else, they’ll say something else.
If you ask the police if they’d rather have this scheme or the same money spent on something else, they’ll say something else.
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.
No, because centre-right voters don't think as you do.
Centre-right voters think Richi is an idiot
Gentle tip: repeatedly calling him "Richi" is deeply childish, as well as boring.
Dropping big ideas suddenly in an election campaign does have a precedent. See Theresa May's splendid success following this approach.
Mr Dancer, Theresa May’s bombshell idea at least had the virtue of trying to answer a well defined problem. I’m not sure what problem Sunak thinks he’s identified that this policy solves.
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.
No, because centre-right voters don't think as you do.
Centre-right voters think Richi is an idiot
Gentle tip: repeatedly calling him "Richi" is deeply childish, as well as boring.
I mean, all of this needs supervision. And training.
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.
Where does all this performative rubbish to lick the balls of Reform voters end? I say pledging the televised execution of baby murdering nurses. Beat that!
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.
No, because centre-right voters don't think as you do.
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.
And Sunak recently cut the funding to that scheme.
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
It's not just his opponents though, this time.
I have a plan! And here's the back of a fag packet that I wrote it on.
For all sorts of reasons encouraging civic duty is to be lauded. We are possibly on the cusp of WW3 so mobilising a reservist army might make sense.
But this is just knee jerk backs against the wall stuff. Rishi " what can we do next?" Dowden "reintroduce conscription!". Jenrick "strafe the boats". Braverman "execute socialist traitors, and anyone else I don't like". It's all just performative nonsense.
And, yet, everyone is talking about him and the Conservatives today, and not Labour, and it will force the latter to respond.
That'll do him nicely.
The all publicity is good publicity argument.
Theresa May's dementia tax says hi.
Though, to be honest, this madcap idea is probably a small net positive for the Tories. A core vote strategy must be assumed to be the least bad option when you have no chance of winning converts, and the Tory core is large.
May was well ahead, Sunak is well behind.
He has to disrupt. This has disrupted.
But which way? It could unite enough of the right to make the incoming defeat not-too-bad, or it could collapse what little support the Conservatives have left. After all, 'we must do something dramatic/this is something dramatic/we must do this' is famously bad logic.
@DeltapollUK 🚨New Voting Intention🚨 Labour lead by twenty-two points in our poll for the Mail on Sunday. Con 23% (-) Lab 45% (-) Lib Dem 9% (-1) Reform 10% (-2) SNP 3% (-) Green 6% (+1) Other 3% (-) Fieldwork: 23rd-25th May 2024 Sample: 1,517 GB adults (Changes from 17th-20th May 2024)
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
It's not just his opponents though, this time.
I have a plan! And here's the back of a fag packet that I wrote it on.
For all sorts of reasons encouraging civic duty is to be lauded. We are possibly on the cusp of WW3 so mobilising a reservist army might make sense.
But this is just knee jerk backs against the wall stuff. Rishi " what can we do next?" Dowden "reintroduce conscription!". Jenrick "strafe the boats". Braverman "execute socialist traitors, and anyone else I don't like". It's all just performative nonsense.
And, yet, everyone is talking about him and the Conservatives today, and not Labour, and it will force the latter to respond.
That'll do him nicely.
I think this is right, and it's a necessary step for Sunak to try to shift the polls.
It's a big roll of the dice that seems to have landed on 1 not 6. I'm with @numbertwelve in that I don't think it would actually be the worst idea if it was framed (and implemented) differently. In particular I think it was @ToryJim who said that labelling it National Service is the suicidal part.
But you can see why the apparently incompetent team advising Sunak have used this label - it is primarily an idea to grab the oxygen today, not a thought-through policy.
Like Rwanda, like so much this government does, I don't think it's the actual idea that is farcical, more the implementation of it.
I mean, all of this needs supervision. And training.
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.
As I posted last night, this proposal is gift week for Tory spivs. We would need to manage these compulsory volunteers. Ensure they turn up. Find them something to do. And that is Good News if you a Tory.
The party handed out £107m contracts without tender to companies founded days earlier by Tories. No questions asked and in many cases no usable PPE supplied.
The National Service scheme will hand out literal billions in management fees. All disappearing into the right people’s pockets as this corrupt party once again finds a way to line the pockets of its friends and patrons with our money.
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
It's not just his opponents though, this time.
I have a plan! And here's the back of a fag packet that I wrote it on.
For all sorts of reasons encouraging civic duty is to be lauded. We are possibly on the cusp of WW3 so mobilising a reservist army might make sense.
But this is just knee jerk backs against the wall stuff. Rishi " what can we do next?" Dowden "reintroduce conscription!". Jenrick "strafe the boats". Braverman "execute socialist traitors, and anyone else I don't like". It's all just performative nonsense.
And, yet, everyone is talking about him and the Conservatives today, and not Labour, and it will force the latter to respond.
That'll do him nicely.
The all publicity is good publicity argument.
Theresa May's dementia tax says hi.
Though, to be honest, this madcap idea is probably a small net positive for the Tories. A core vote strategy must be assumed to be the least bad option when you have no chance of winning converts, and the Tory core is large.
May was well ahead, Sunak is well behind.
He has to disrupt. This has disrupted.
But which way? It could unite enough of the right to make the incoming defeat not-too-bad, or it could collapse what little support the Conservatives have left. After all, 'we must do something dramatic/this is something dramatic/we must do this' is famously bad logic.
It could not collapse it because what's left of Conservative v Reform voting intention is solidly right-wing. And it's about rallying the former and the latter to the former.
What you're seeing here is the noise of the 60%+ who aren't and are highly motivated to scream and shout about it.
Dropping big ideas suddenly in an election campaign does have a precedent. See Theresa May's splendid success following this approach.
Mr Dancer, Theresa May’s bombshell idea at least had the virtue of trying to answer a well defined problem. I’m not sure what problem Sunak thinks he’s identified that this policy solves.
It actually was a good policy for funding Social Care.
This was from earlier this year, when the head of the army was publicly slapped down because Number 10 thought suggesting the need for #nationalservice was alarmist 🤷♂️
Do his Spads hate him and want to make him look bad?
You cannot help but wonder.
A market on Will Sunak be an MP on say 1 January 2025 would be interesting. It does look very like a "So long, suckers!" strategy.
His seat isn’t actually rock solid safe. I mean, he’ll probably get back easily but it’s not a total shoo-in if things go badly. Electoral Calculus predict 37% Con to 31% Lab and the recent mayoral election will have given a small pause for thought. https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/calcwork23.py?postcode=DL10+4LD
Didn’t Chris Patten famously lose in 1997 because he was so nationally focused that he forgot about Bath?
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.
No, because centre-right voters don't think as you do.
This may attract voters on the right-wing fringe, but it's going to be poison for voters anywhere near the centre.
I mean, all of this needs supervision. And training.
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.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the Army would oppose this. Last thing it needs is a bunch of reluctant recruits.
Military service will be voluntary. The reluctant ones will be doing the compulsory alternative service, like in the NHS. So you should say: I think the NHS would oppose this. Last thing it needs is a bunch of reluctant recruits.
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.
No, because centre-right voters don't think as you do.
Do you actually think this a good idea?
I have no problem with it.
I can see merits in an 18-55 reservist force, but not in the 1950s National Service model.
This policy will have been focus grouped and tested to death first, and those people don't all sit up in troll farms overnight.
The Dementia Tax says hi, again
Wasn't focus grouped. Theresa May didn't talk to or confide in anyone.
We only found that out afterwards. Very likely to be true of Rishi too. I think he has gone rogue and the calling of the election was a "f*** you" to his party for wanting rid of him
I see Rishi has really got under the skin of his opponents with his National Service policy.
Perhaps they doth protest too much.
It's not just his opponents though, this time.
I have a plan! And here's the back of a fag packet that I wrote it on.
For all sorts of reasons encouraging civic duty is to be lauded. We are possibly on the cusp of WW3 so mobilising a reservist army might make sense.
But this is just knee jerk backs against the wall stuff. Rishi " what can we do next?" Dowden "reintroduce conscription!". Jenrick "strafe the boats". Braverman "execute socialist traitors, and anyone else I don't like". It's all just performative nonsense.
And, yet, everyone is talking about him and the Conservatives today, and not Labour, and it will force the latter to respond.
That'll do him nicely.
I think this is right, and it's a necessary step for Sunak to try to shift the polls.
It's a big roll of the dice that seems to have landed on 1 not 6. I'm with @numbertwelve in that I don't think it would actually be the worst idea if it was framed (and implemented) differently. In particular I think it was @ToryJim who said that labelling it National Service is the suicidal part.
But you can see why the apparently incompetent team advising Sunak have used this label - it is primarily an idea to grab the oxygen today, not a thought-through policy.
Like Rwanda, like so much this government does, I don't think it's the actual idea that is farcical, more the implementation of it.
The main Tory message that is repeated in every interviews seems to be "Only we have a plan. It is starting to work. Don't risk change with the other lot now".
This seemingly random significant change coming out of nowhere just reminds everyone that actually, they haven't had a plan bar getting Brexit "done" since 2016.
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.
Agreed.
I was nervous, based partly on re-reading the histories of 1992, 2017, and 2019.
But they are calming my fears.
And reaction from moderate Conservatives is reassuring in the long-term. The country needs a sensible centre-right Party. They will come back to governance some day.
There is no guarantee that anything resembling the moderate right will emerge from this episode. The Conservative Party can become almost as extreme as it likes, and brand recognition combined with the electoral system will at least preserve it as the main opposition.
Indeed, I'd go as far as to say that the centre-right in British politics has already undergone Pasokification - courtesy of the complete destruction of the orange book liberals, followed swiftly by the filleting of the one nation wing of the Tory party during the Brexit process and the ascent of Boris Johnson. There is no reason at all to suppose that the very extreme and elderly Tory membership will miraculously embrace moderation after a chastening defeat - they're more likely to seek a unite the right merger with RefUK, with policies and a leadership chosen to facilitate this - and there is effectively zero chance of the Conservatives being replaced by a challenger party.
Except that ‘movement Tory’ boomer generation is dying out, and the GenX and Millennials following behind have a different political outlook. That’s not to say that they would never vote Tory, but the voting Tory as an aspirational life choice thing that has characterised the Boomer generation is on the way out.
In a Tory q&a about today's policy - they don't rule out arresting people if they don't take up national service. They talk about the commission exploring an "appropriate incentives regime".
Comments
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.
"Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out"
R Sunak’s first policy announcement- the return of national service- shows he has no sense of the state of the country he seeks to rule…and no political imagination to compensate for his blindness.
It is not a serious plan so the details are all tbc in a royal commission. It is a pitch to a particular electoral segment, who like this headline, from a governing party hoping to mitigate the scale of defeat.
@rafaelbehr
Royal commission is the tell that this was cooked up by hacks. It's such a leader writer's device for making a vague unworkable notion sound like a call to action.
I was nervous, based partly on re-reading the histories of 1992, 2017, and 2019.
But they are calming my fears.
And reaction from moderate Conservatives is reassuring in the long-term. The country needs a sensible centre-right Party. They will come back to governance some day.
Grouping refusers with social security claimants as scroungers who deserve a good beating is, after all, sound politics for the Tories (and any of their rivals competing for the votes of the reactionary elderly and other pitiless social conservatives.)
It certainly doesn't solve the public service problems- twelve weekends "volunteering" or one year military training isn't enough to make a teenager a net gain to their not-employer.
There are some real benefits to things like NCS- mix young people up, get different groups working together, develop soft skills, maybe even get some nice things done. But, as someone working with the target market, it's never gone mainstream.
And its funding has been cut massively in recent years.
But how does its reception compare with other daft ideas to come out from any of the main parties? Are there other infamous contenders?
(Not the Greens obvs who are notorious for it.)
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu/status/1794493362286088565
I have a plan! And here's the back of a fag packet that I wrote it on.
For all sorts of reasons encouraging civic duty is to be lauded. We are possibly on the cusp of WW3 so mobilising a reservist army might make sense.
But this is just knee jerk backs against the wall stuff. Rishi " what can we do next?" Dowden "reintroduce conscription!". Jenrick "strafe the boats". Braverman "execute socialist traitors, and anyone else I don't like". It's all just performative nonsense.
Labour lead by twenty-two points in our poll for the Mail on Sunday.
Con 23% (-)
Lab 45% (-)
Lib Dem 9% (-1)
Reform 10% (-2)
SNP 3% (-)
Green 6% (+1)
Other 3% (-)
Fieldwork: 23rd-25th May 2024
Sample: 1,517 GB adults
(Changes from 17th-20th May 2024)
https://x.com/MichaelTakeMP/status/1794620067579314337?t=E7dHAWJB0Q2ky1Ut-ASMVQ&s=19
Indeed, I'd go as far as to say that the centre-right in British politics has already undergone Pasokification - courtesy of the complete destruction of the orange book liberals, followed swiftly by the filleting of the one nation wing of the Tory party during the Brexit process and the ascent of Boris Johnson. There is no reason at all to suppose that the very extreme and elderly Tory membership will miraculously embrace moderation after a chastening defeat - they're more likely to seek a unite the right merger with RefUK, with policies and a leadership chosen to facilitate this - and there is effectively zero chance of the Conservatives being replaced by a challenger party.
No, joking aside, we need to see a batch of polls over at least a week. And I’m very suspicious of bank holiday polling too, something I’ve said on here from the get-go.
Let’s see if there are any signs of movement a week or so from now.
The biggest retention issue with and hence shortage of the Army has is... Senior NCOs.
I'm not sure how it would work with the RAF and RN as they have a much higher proportion of roles that need hard won technical skills and experience. The vast majority of them will be simply be useless eaters. A net negative to whichever branch is unlucky enough to have them.
If you're going to do it then the Zionist Entity's policy of 32 months makes a lot more sense because they probably get more or less useful personnel for the second half of that period.
Seems fair to me.
That'll do him nicely.
All Labour has to say is "We don't think this is a good idea"
And the public agree with them
Is he trying to lose on purpose?
Do his Spads hate him and want to make him look bad?
You cannot help but wonder.
I mean, if you stand up and say you like shagging goats everyone will also be talking about you ...
Nigel Farage
@Nigel_Farage
Does anyone really think that Sunak believes in National Service? This is more Tory lies.
He is following focus groups instead of being a leader.
A diminished armed forces could not carry it out & many that he’s allowed into our country would refuse to do it in the first place.
We are not used to this, and 2024 is, culturally, far from 1939.
Theresa May's dementia tax says hi.
Though, to be honest, this madcap idea is probably a small net positive for the Tories. A core vote strategy must be assumed to be the least bad option when you have no chance of winning converts, and the Tory core is large.
This policy will have been focus grouped and tested to death first, and those people don't all sit up in troll farms overnight.
He has to disrupt. This has disrupted.
If you ask the NHS if they’d rather have this scheme or the same money spent on something else, they’ll say something else.
If you ask the police if they’d rather have this scheme or the same money spent on something else, they’ll say something else.
https://x.com/ProfTimBale/status/1794626380954759244?t=U5-pBlrD5w8GIzlOSUYQHA&s=19
They might well have been brought up on Commando comics and airfix models but it doesn't mean that they wanted to be conscripted.
There's absolutely nothing they could say, do or think that you'd give them credit for. At all.
Phew, Freudian slip edited just in time!
Who'd have thought?
🚨New Voting Intention🚨
Labour lead by twenty-two points in our poll for the Mail on Sunday.
Con 23% (-)
Lab 45% (-)
Lib Dem 9% (-1)
Reform 10% (-2)
SNP 3% (-)
Green 6% (+1)
Other 3% (-)
Fieldwork: 23rd-25th May 2024
Sample: 1,517 GB adults
(Changes from 17th-20th May 2024)
p.s. @Scott_xP whereabouts was that Saigon-take cartoon published?
I still don’t like it, but it is nowhere near as bad as some have made out.
https://x.com/mattholehouse/status/1794474262872445280?s=61
It's a big roll of the dice that seems to have landed on 1 not 6. I'm with @numbertwelve in that I don't think it would actually be the worst idea if it was framed (and implemented) differently. In particular I think it was @ToryJim who said that labelling it National Service is the suicidal part.
But you can see why the apparently incompetent team advising Sunak have used this label - it is primarily an idea to grab the oxygen today, not a thought-through policy.
Like Rwanda, like so much this government does, I don't think it's the actual idea that is farcical, more the implementation of it.
https://x.com/samfr/status/1794484909689487486?s=61
The party handed out £107m contracts without tender to companies founded days earlier by Tories. No questions asked and in many cases no usable PPE supplied.
The National Service scheme will hand out literal billions in management fees. All disappearing into the right people’s pockets as this corrupt party once again finds a way to line the pockets of its friends and patrons with our money.
What you're seeing here is the noise of the 60%+ who aren't and are highly motivated to scream and shout about it.
I defended it on here at the time.
This was from earlier this year, when the head of the army was publicly slapped down because Number 10 thought suggesting the need for #nationalservice was alarmist 🤷♂️
https://x.com/jonsopel/status/1794629513017438673
Cut-through.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/calcwork23.py?postcode=DL10+4LD
Didn’t Chris Patten famously lose in 1997 because he was so nationally focused that he forgot about Bath?
Quite a powerful one that.
Right through Tory votes
This seemingly random significant change coming out of nowhere just reminds everyone that actually, they haven't had a plan bar getting Brexit "done" since 2016.
In a Tory q&a about today's policy - they don't rule out arresting people if they don't take up national service. They talk about the commission exploring an "appropriate incentives regime".
Not a big deal.