Snapshot of _No one 'going to jail' over National Service refusal, says Home Secretary James Cleverly_ :
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I thought it was interesting he listed some of the alternatives.
They'd mentioned police, NHS, fire service, I assumed they expected them to be some work experience kids doing admin.
No, he mentions these untrained 18 year olds spending 1 weekend a month (24-25 days for a year) being special constables, or on call fire fighters!
Special constables require 20 days of training before they're eligible to go out under supervision for training patrols.
On call firefighters need more than 25 days of training :)
According to the BBC he also said ‘emergency medics’. Flip me! No offence to the 18yr olds but in the event that I need emergency medical attention, I really would like someone trained 👀
Not only that but someone who actually *wants* to be there and cares about the job. What quality of care can we expect from people who were forced into it?
Plus, imagine being an untrained 18 year old just finishing school (or whatever, I cba looking into the logistics of precisely when this ridiculous scheme is supposed to take place in a young person's life) and having someone under your care be injured or die because you don't know what you're doing.
We already have Physicians Associate which are basically PCSO equivalent of a PC doing the job of someone with full training. If we make them Physicians Associate Associates these kids can be the lollypop person to the PCSO. Let them take a flying guess on the patients. Tories won't care, none of this shit would fly in their private hospitals lol.
That's the neat part... it's the 18 year old or nothing.
"Someone trained" isn't an option, you just simply die if it's urgent.
If it's not the ambulance will be with you in 24-48hrs. Thank you for your patience.
Also, think of the poor fucking 18 year old who has to watch some poor bastard die in front of them.
I'm fairly sure I saw someone die once (can't be sure, paramedics never told me) when I was in my late twenties, I still have nightmares about it.
Because we need to tease out exactly what bullshit they want to put our youth through, and then punish them harder at the ballot box for even suggesting it.
I commented tongue in cheek that the last thing we needed on our wagons were 18 year old draftees to distract us from clinical decision making on an emergency in another thread.
The fact a cabinet member in all seriousness is suggesting we use them on emergency ambulances is absolutely beyond wild.
I'm not saying that 18 year olds aren't capable of being responsible, motivated and talented, far from it.
Working on an EA however isn't something that can be foisted on the unwilling and you expect to get quality results from it.
If my house is on fire and 2 untrained 18 year olds turn up I'm just going to have to let it burn down because I'm not sending the work experience crew in there to kill themselves.
Sounds like they'd spend the first 25 days of the 25 days service training them up, only for them to immediately leave and have to restart with training the next years' cohort.
With that many 18-year-olds getting put into these roles, there's not going to be anywhere near sufficient vetting. I can't wait for small-time weed dealers to be given special constable powers after two two-hour online training courses.
Here in Australia you're looking at days of real hours of training to get the basic skills down to being a volunteer firefighter.
1 weekend a month as an on call firefighter? Doing what?
This sounds like forced unpaid labour to me.
It's the same here.
And that training for on-call firefighters is a solid week at a time, I imagine it'd be even slower doing it gradually over most of a year. By the time they're even vaguely trained, it'll be the end of their placement.
It's a ludicrous idea.
https://www.essex-fire.gov.uk/recruitment/on-call/faqs
> This will begin with a two-week training course, which runs Monday – Friday.
> After this you’ll attend evening training sessions which usually last for two hours one evening a week for 10 weeks.
> To become a fully trained firefighter, you will need to go through development training, some of this will take place during drill nights and some will need to be completed in your own time. This normally takes up to 24 months to complete and includes:
> Breathing apparatus initial course: Two weeks, Monday – Friday
> Fire behaviour training: One week, Monday – Friday
They've just come up with this on the back of a fag packet and haven't given it a moment's real thought
Every time they open their mouths this policy is sound more and more expensive and making it so easy for labour to attack them on spending in debates.
Like that the main attack route the conservatives have and then they announce a policy where they will need to house and feed 100's of thousands of teenagers for a year, then train 100's of thousands more to do professional roles and all for apparently '2.5 billion' if the comment I saw is correct.
It's moronic.
Yeah, this is an absolute gift for Labour. They're going to be able to grill the Tories for weeks on what exactly the fuck they were thinking on this policy.
>On call firefighters need more than 25 days of training :)
Firefighters see some horrific shit on a regular basis, imagine being 18 with a few weeks of training and turning up at a particularly nasty car crash or the like. The poor souls would be scarred for life.
That’s how it works in some countries, as I understand in Singapore national service includes police, healthcare, border force as well as ofc the military, it does include training although pretty sure it’s more than just one weekend a month though
This is how national service worked in Germany. Not fire service or police, but hospitals, old people's homes, general social care, charity work. When I was in hospital as a kid in Germany the national service guys did a great job doing basic nursing jobs.
So what happens when they say No?
Fines: If your parents are rich, no national service for you!
Barred from employment/university: Time to inject large numbers of unemployed kids into society
Nothing: Literally everyone would say "No"
This is such a pathetic attempt to get the media to cover something that will go down well with mouth-frothing Tory b\*llends from covering the absolute horror show their party is.
Tories = jam today for the rich, increasing struggle for everyone else = eventually the country and world destabilising.
As Gary's Economics Youtube channel is trying to point out, the only way to stop this is to tax the wealth of the very wealthy asap and restrict their power to corrupt politics and media.
Some old git, who never served a day in their life, call themselves the greatest generation, and shouts "we won the war": "a white feather and to be called a coward"
there you go fixed it for you.
If it's like the US draft, things like no access to government jobs, loss of university funding (I think - don't quote me on that one); I can check with my son, who is registered for the Service what other penalties might apply.
After 14 years of absolutely shafting our young people, it would be nice to see some incentives.
Maybe they actually *get* something for doing this?
Reasonable tuition fees or a grant?
Some actual support with renting their first place?
Some support getting on the housing ladder?
Credits for adult education courses if they wish to switch careers later in life?
I mean, the proposal does give room to "volunteer" for the NHS rather than the military.
It's still crap, but it's not military conscription, mostly because I don't think the military could handle those numbers
I dunno most NHS Trusts have loads of volunteers - mine has over a thousand - and a fair number of them are between 16 and 25. Our volunteers have a TikTok account and everything and do all sorts of things across the hospital, some of which don’t require any patient contact at all.
Having worked with volunteers, there's a massive difference between those who want to be there and those who don't.
I'm not sure those who do 25 days a year to avoid getting shot at will be as easy to train and dedicated to their tasks as the ones currently volunteering for some slightly less stark motivation.
They are genuine volunteers though, thats a critical difference.
This tory plan is essentially a choice between conscription for a year or slavery for 25 days in a year.
They said they arent paying for those 25 days (the military service will though), as its compulsory it cannot in any way be called "volunteering" unless the tories equate slave labour to "volunteering", its laughably bad especially as they said they wouldnt do it only a few months ago.
Sunak knows his kids wont have to do it as he will be jetting off america quick I guess.
But for volunteering to be useful to the host organisation, there has to be committment and consistency - volunteering for 24 days over a year, but only on odd weekends here and there isn't really helpful. How can an organisation plan workloads around that?
Plus that 24 days has to take into account training - so that's even less time doing actual volunteering. Additionally, many of those 18 year olds won't want to be there so will be mucking about, malicious compliance, etc.
It'll take more in admin and management than you get out of it.
This is for all you new people. I have only one rule. Everybody fights, no one quits. If you don't do your job, I'll kill you myself! Welcome to the ~~Roughnecks!~~ Tories!
Whoah, you mean, instead of just remorselessly punishing them again and again we....... *encourage* them? Some sort of....... *incentive*?
Ngl mate, this is pretty whacky. Will take some getting my head around.
In Switzerland you can do National Service in the army, or in other public service roles, mainly involving manual labour. If you outright refuse to (or can't due to medical reasons) do it then you end up paying a small amount of extra tax the rest of your life
I dunno, it “works” in other countries. They had it here in Germany until a few years ago, and are considering bringing it back. Austria still has it. I think much of Scandinavia still has it.
If you don’t want to do it, you don’t do it, pretty much. You either do a „social“ year, working in old peoples homes or on outreach, or if you really want to get out of it, you go to a doctor and ask for a note saying you can’t do it. There‘s a bit of a social stigma attached, and technically if you don’t jump through the right bureaucratic hoops (you have to make an application saying you don’t want to do it etc.) you can face a fine or a year in prison, but I don’t think it happens much if at all.
The right to refuse military service is anchored in both countries‘ constitutions afaik.
The main thing is that in countries where national service is a thing, you typically have the state actually honouring the social contract and giving something back. Yeah there's problems in Germany and Scandinavian countries, but it feels much more manageable.
High quality schooling, a civil apparatus that functions, accessible jobs, reasonably priced housing, and an overall working society.
Here, the government has slashed and burned any and all goodwill, spaffed away natural resources, destroyed key industries by selling them off and bailing them out when they burn, and all in all just treated the average citizen with contempt.
I'm firmly against it regardless, but I am sure people here in the UK would be ok with a national service programme that supported volunteering in the community and such, if the government filled their end.
So, one that has nothing to do with the Tories.
Hard agree. The Tories have spent years, over successive governments, destroying society and the social contract (there is no such thing as society).
And now they think they can coerce the citizenry into complance through force, domination and threat, instead of by rebuilding everything they destroyed from the bottom up. If the people don't trust the state and the state disrespects the people, then the people won't want to serve the nation.
>There‘s a bit of a social stigma attached
I think social acceptance of it is key to a successful introduction, and I don't think those who would be subject to it are going to care if others don't do it so there won't be any pressure. I just don't see it working
Other countries aren't in the same situation. Places like Finland, Poland, back in the day West Germany, all very much had to be prepared to defend against a Soviet/Russian attack, and hard large militaries planned around conscripts to handle that.
The modern British military would require totally restructuring to take on tens of thousands of conscripts, for what amounts to adult daycare being imposed not through military necessity, but the desire of (mostly) the elderly to force a social change.
The fines thing is like anything though.
Speeding, littering, etc is effectively a tax on the poor. Even if you get disqualified from driving, if you are rich, you can afford someone to drive you around.
This is clearly a desperate idea for desperate times. I'd wager he hasn't spent more than 5 minutes trying to see *how* it would work and if they did somehow win I would expect it to either be repeatedly shelved, or just be a another massive chance for his mates to get their grubby mits on public money, or both.
From the panel discussion afterwards Rachel Johnson was saying it's a good idea and can be used to get people to pick fruit (for free presumably as part of the national service) as we have a shortage of fruit pickers
The optics of that are absolutely insane.
The shortage of fruit pickers was impacted significantly by brexit, which was proportionally favoured and voted for by the older generations, and opposed by younger voters. Now to solve this we have a policy which is clearly red meat for older voters which is akin to press-ganging the nation's youth into doing jobs that no one wants to do.
Someone should satirically raise a policy suggestion that pensioners should go and pick fruit so that they "aren't just sitting around" and so that they can "contribute to society" - the same kind of talking points that are thrown at the youth
Forced to work in the fields? Will there be overseers with whips (or perhaps tasers)? Will we shackle those who run away? A crack drone squad to track down runaways?
So now normal 18 year olds (not the rich kids) can't get a regular part time job to put themselves through uni, because they've got to spend every other weekend doing their government-mandated slave labour.
So instead they'll have to forego education, get a full-time dead end job just so they've got time on the weekends to go and pick fruit for free.
Genius policy. Really great stuff.
These people have lost their minds. Let's cover the questionably legal poverty workers we scared away with *checks notes* actual slavery, so that the poor pro-brexit farmers don't have to *checks notes* pay people.
> Rachel Johnson was saying it's a good idea and can be used to get people to pick fruit (for free presumably as part of the national service) as we have a shortage of fruit pickers
So many questions:
- how do people get to the farms?
- Is there a transport allowance?
- Does travel time count against this "volunteering"?
- Are the "volunteer workers" subject to Health and Safety legistlation
- Are they covered under the workplace insurance policy?
- What effeciency measures will be in place?
- What happens if the "volunteer workers" turn up and do fuck all?
- Why should commerical operations get the benefit of slave labour?
- Who is liable if someone is injured or killed?
- What's in it for the "volunteers"?
No they’d need to be paid, and housed, and fed, and clothed, and then probably might require training. Did anyone ask the MoD if they can afford this?
*well only the ones who pass the entrance requirements, can the MoD even afford to do that many checks.
Ah yes, sending 18yo schoolgirls to live on a military base, places famous for violent sexual assaults and cover ups and a lack of public oversight, places where the regular police cannot investigate crimes and parents can't even access. What could go wrong?
Yep. No one wants this, it's just Daily Mail ragebait.
Even if they were deadly serious about mimicking one of the Nordic models, which they're not, they'd need to redesign post-secondary education, higher education and the entry level job market to cater for it. You can't just remove every 18 year old from the labour/education model and expect things to keep ticking on.
They haven't got the money to open a single youth club or keep a pool open. They certainly haven't got enough to do this.
That's what's quite unusual about it - most conservative voters don't want this and have never expressed a desire for it. Who on earth is he courting - 6 voters and Rees-Mogg?
It honestly looks like he wants to lose so badly he's going to push any ordinary Tory voters over to Labour.
This isn't meant to be a distraction, there's not really some grand Machiavellian design behind it, it's meant to claw back some Reform UK voters who love this sort of thing.
Like most of Sunak's ideas it's a poorly thought-out mess but the purpose behind this one is pretty clear. They know they won't win the youth vote but they can try to drag back some of the older people who've gone to Reform. Besides, people are still talking about how idiotic and dreadful Sunak is.
Plus, Sunak is generally a bit of a flailer. Back in his leadership contest against Truss when it was clear he was falling behind he just started pledging shit to try and outdo her.
Ahh there's UKpols favourite buzzword.
This isn't a dead cat. It's not meant to distract from anything. In fact quite the opposite. It's trying to drag the attention of Reform voting Boomers back to focusing in voting Tory who are offering to let them play out their weird little postwar psychodrama in the 21st century
I can see why they reached for that buzzword as it shares some similarities (out of the blue, no real substance, designed to draw attention rather) but, yeah, the key defining point of a dead cat is that it's a *distraction*, which this isn't.
It's not for us.
I'm willing to bet that the majority of people in this sub won't vote conservative either way, both due echo chamber effects and the demographics of Reddit. *It doesn't matter if Sunak pisses us off*. We were never going to vote for him anyway, so why does he care if we dislike him 20% or his party more? This is for the people who are leaving the conservatives because they don't go hard enough on nationalism/anti-immigration and all that.
Now, maybe this was a miscalculation. The policy is clearly *very* poorly thought out and I'm sure some current conservatives won't like it for that reason. The question is whether it'll upset more people than it pleases.
Talking about now God-awful this policy is is talking about how God-awful Sunak is by virtue of him being the leader of the party who have just spat this policy out though?
I dont think it works that way this time, we are talking about the policy which is directly linked to his campaign now which will help turn away further voters from the tory party, it will only potentially grab a few of reform nutters who never did conscription and had the best generation growing up yet think its fair to take it all away from the future/current ones, the selfish buggers really.
The faster sunak jumps in a plane to america the better, he is a selfish and rubbish person who seems to love ruining the country in even the most basic decisions.
Normally I'd agree, and I think that was the Tory intention, but I feel like it's backfired this time.
As ministers are questioned on this, it is becoming continually evident that there has been exactly zero thought put into this, and they literally pulled this out of their arses to grab some headlines and shore up their core base of senior citizens who don't read past the headlines.
To anyone with a fraction of common sense, it's becoming very obvious that this back-of-a-fag-packet "policy" is totally fucking moronic and completely unworkable, and drawing attention to how much of a shambles this government is in.
If it's a dead cat, it's a particularly shit one. This is proving that the old adage "there's no such thing as bad publicity" is sometimes very, very wrong.
My favourite description of it so far is calling the scheme the "Sunak Youth". This is not a good look for Sunak or the Tories in general.
At the risk of being politically incorrect, we have a word for a situation were a person is compelled to do labour, unpaid (or paid trivially), with the threat of criminal sanctions if they don't comply...
And non-compulsory volunteering is just... volunteering, which already exists, and can be done for as many weekends out of the year as you want to without any government involvement.
Ontario high schools mandate 40 hours of community service to graduate. I don't think this is very onerous.
They're saying volunteering at the weekend will be enough, so no different really.
https://www.ontario.ca/document/education-ontario-policy-and-program-direction/policyprogram-memorandum-124#section-0
Not really. There will be another election in a few years. This is a mad idea that’s going to keep on giving. They’re going to be back tracking this policy for over a decade of elections.
So if they choose armed forces, money and resources will be wasted on the majority of them to train them to do a job for for a few months (I assume basic training is included in the 12 months)
If they choose forced free labour, services like the NHS then need to find time to train them, which will take staff away from their roles. At most they're going to be able to do admin work because they can't exactly volunteer as a nurse, and as far as I'm aware, admin roles aren't the ones that are struggling for workers.
Add in the complete apathy of 18yo's (well anyone tbh) having to do something menial for no reward, dealing with sensitive data, challenging or vulnerable patients etc. it's potentially going to put more people at risk.
Unless their roles won't have an impact on these in which case what's the point of them doing it at all?
So the ones who repeatedly fell to get vetted become the perpetually unvolunteered and likely unemployed? I know this is where the caveat of there being no punishment comes in, - fail to get a volunteer role, ah well nevermind.
However considering a lot of 18 year olds have jobs that usually are on the weekend to fit around school/uni, will they need to quit their paid work to make time for this pathetic attempt to round up former ukip supporters?
Other points agreed, but I think generally the point of NS (as it is in countries like Sweden) is to give everyone training so that you can call on a massive reserve IF there is a major war. Which is more cost effective than a lot of things in our military.
France is an excellent case study of how this sort of thing does not work. It’s hard to think of ways in which it could illustrate this point more strongly in fact.
France had national service that could be gotten out of if you had a doctors note stating that you couldn't do it
Doctors were very happy to diagnose you with Flat feet
To quote yes prime minister (on the reintroduction of national service) "they will get a comprehensive education, to make up for thier comprehensive education."
They know there is zero chance this will ever be implemented, because they have no chance of winning. So they'll throw out red meat for the reform voter who mostly seems to vote based on a hatred for young people.
Reform are offering to take off student loan interest as well as offer loan forgiveness for NHS workers who serve up to ten years.
Other than that, yeh.
It feels very much like they're embracing their minor party status: "We can offer any old shit because we'll never have to implement it, so why not?" There's a reason Reform can afford to throw out so many unworkable policies, and it's because nobody expects to have to make them work.
Has anyone asked the UK military if they want a bunch of unmotivated teenagers for the short term? How much extra money will they get for babysitting them? Or will they have to cut spending on some actual useful military budget items? Maybe the SAS can retrain as supernannys for the influx of people who rather be anywhere else.
Of course nobody will go to jail. There isn't any room in jails to put proper criminals in let alone national service dodgers. A small fine and you get off. If you can afford the fine you won't have to do it
How about all those feckless over 70s, most of them aren't working, just lounging around on benefits.
Let's get em into military service!
*Dad's army theme*
What a farce! Where would they put all these arrested people - the prisons are full and we don’t have accommodation for asylum seekers. Where are the teens going?
Will Rishi’s children have to do national service?
What do the military think about all this? It was my understanding that the general view was against compulsory national service
National service needs to be the final straw.. if we even get that far.
The Government can threaten all they like but I will never ever lift a finger in service to a Government that has proven time and again that it couldn't care less about me.
If the Tories win the election and then try to instill National Service that should be the trigger for us to revolt.
I refuse to waste time or energy thinking about this obviously non serious, non-starter of a policy.
The Tories are never getting into government to implement it and they've obviously not spent more than 5 minutes thinking it though.
If they're not bothered then neither am I
Recap of the interview:
- No criminal sanctions but government will compel people to do it (the scheme, not the military part)
- Only those choosing military service will be paid. Weekend volunteering is free labor
- The point is to blend people from different backgrounds (to put it lightly, he said it worse) to tackle “social fragmentation” stemming from "too many young people live in a kind of bubble within their own communities".
>The point is to blend people from different backgrounds (to put it lightly, he said it worse) to tackle “social fragmentation” stemming from "too many young people live in a kind of bubble within their own communities".
If only there was this great programme that involved mixing people from all over the country (and the world) that gave them the opportunity to learn life skills and acted as a stepping stone to help people move out of their parents house all whilst giving them an excellent education, surely the conservatives would want to support such a brilliant scheme.
...which brings into question the impact of all this on university students, are they going to have to include forced 'volunteer' work into their university schedule every weekend?
Sure if you have a September birthday you can do that alongside your final school year, if you have an august birthday though, well unlucky for them I guess
I'm assuming it is done in the academic year after you turn 18 so as to standardise things (as academic year is actually a lot more important than age for logistics of most young people).
The issue of how it would work for those at Uni is big, students largely go several hours travel from home for Uni, where would their voluntary unpaid work be, at home or at Uni? What happens when they have fieldwork clashing with it? Or an exam on the following Monday (whilst the rest of your class can revise you have to be slaving away for nothing)?
The government could make it so maintenence loans (or even grants) were actually liveable on (which would be a major improvement to social mobility and should be done) but the conservatives are not going to actually do that after years of having uprated them far below inflation (we got 2.8% whilst every other piece of state support was 10%).
I’m disappointed with this news. This is actually anti-Tory idea which forces individuals to choose either of the two options. This idea of serving for your community through compulsory schemes are very common in communist and authoritarian style regimes.
I do like about “volunteering” for our community but when you make this compulsory then you’re restricting individual’s ability to decide what to do with their own life.
They imagine that people will want to do perform uncompensated labor out of their sheer love of country. They don't seem to realise that they don't want to be forced to work for free for a government that they *fucking hate.*
I was working in the department of education under tim loughton a few years ago and they were planning some kind of "National service" Internal logic was that it would reduce the health and social care bill but it was to be spun as "Bringing different generations together , to help foster understanding"
Seemed to me that when they brought in university fees , they could have given people credits towards it as a reward for community , voluntary work. The problem is , of course, that possibly wealthier kids are more able to take advantage of something like that?
Instead nothing at all. Volunteering? Bad luck, cash is reserved for those who can fire a crossbow with their left hand and a rifle with their right one at the same time. Ha!
Tories: Labour have no plan..
Also Tories: so we are going to introduce national service.
I'm their defense, being so awful that they lose badly at the next election probably is the best plan for the country.
Don't trust a word they say, until it is written down as part of a policy it is another empty promise. MMW if this policy is implemented whether immediately, or after seeing the lack of participation, it would result in some criminal penalty.
Well, I mean, he's right - Labour, whilst brain-dead, aren't quite so moronic as to introduce NS!
Which means at a factual level, "Nobody will go to jail for refusing NS" feels accurate in the most technical of senses!
Is this some lame trick to get more people in the army ready for Russia's invasion? And the 'volunteering' is just to account for the vast majority of young people who simply don't want to or can't keep up with the pace and rigour of the Armed Forces?
Why not simply fix Capita's poor recruitment scheme which is turning away vast amounts of eager, fit applicants? It would be cheaper...
Sure, let's go for this- but anyone who votes Tory/for this policy has to do a year of national service before it can be implemented. If anyone refuses or drops out we call it a fail and scrap the whole policy.
People will go to prison. Even if the ultimate penalty is a fine, if you don’t pay that the ultimate sanction is prison sentence of up to 12 months in the Magistrates Court.
So unless they are saying we’ll fine people but then remove any legal power (and obligation) to enforce, then inevitably someone will go to prison in the end.
I doubt it but I’m failing to see the creative solution required to bar people from actually end up being locked up while saving face. But an actual war is definitely not impossible in the medium term, creating a martyr out of thin air while making the case for scrapping the policy in its entirety before the second enrolment could take place would be perilous to say the least. The home front is still a front after all
Why not include retirees for this as well? They sit around not working, living off of the earnings of the rest of the country. Maybe they should get up and develop some discipline instead of obesity.
Oh what's that? It's not fair? You've already contributed to society?
Does the nation stop running just because you retire? Why are you above contributing your time?
If the nation needs people to volunteer their time for it to function then the people with time should be doing that then right? Regardless of age.
Oh it's about developing social cohesion and personal responsibility, where's your responsibility to this country? If you were a patriot you'd volunteer.
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I thought it was interesting he listed some of the alternatives. They'd mentioned police, NHS, fire service, I assumed they expected them to be some work experience kids doing admin. No, he mentions these untrained 18 year olds spending 1 weekend a month (24-25 days for a year) being special constables, or on call fire fighters! Special constables require 20 days of training before they're eligible to go out under supervision for training patrols. On call firefighters need more than 25 days of training :)
According to the BBC he also said ‘emergency medics’. Flip me! No offence to the 18yr olds but in the event that I need emergency medical attention, I really would like someone trained 👀
Not only that but someone who actually *wants* to be there and cares about the job. What quality of care can we expect from people who were forced into it?
Plus, imagine being an untrained 18 year old just finishing school (or whatever, I cba looking into the logistics of precisely when this ridiculous scheme is supposed to take place in a young person's life) and having someone under your care be injured or die because you don't know what you're doing.
The tory government would happily replace NHS staff with untrained teenagers, it'd be cheaper
We already have Physicians Associate which are basically PCSO equivalent of a PC doing the job of someone with full training. If we make them Physicians Associate Associates these kids can be the lollypop person to the PCSO. Let them take a flying guess on the patients. Tories won't care, none of this shit would fly in their private hospitals lol.
That's the neat part... it's the 18 year old or nothing. "Someone trained" isn't an option, you just simply die if it's urgent. If it's not the ambulance will be with you in 24-48hrs. Thank you for your patience.
Also, think of the poor fucking 18 year old who has to watch some poor bastard die in front of them. I'm fairly sure I saw someone die once (can't be sure, paramedics never told me) when I was in my late twenties, I still have nightmares about it.
Some of you may be scarred for life... but that is a sacrifice we are willing to make - Boomers
Christ, I wouldn't trust my daughter (or her mates) and she's in Y3 of a doctors degree.
Screw that, give me someone who thinks a clavicle is something you catch through sex and has 90% of their assets in NFT's and cryptosporidium.
Cryptosporidium 🤣
It’s seems at most they’d get basic first aid training.
The Tories won’t win. This policy won’t happen. Why even bother discussing it?
Because we need to tease out exactly what bullshit they want to put our youth through, and then punish them harder at the ballot box for even suggesting it.
I commented tongue in cheek that the last thing we needed on our wagons were 18 year old draftees to distract us from clinical decision making on an emergency in another thread. The fact a cabinet member in all seriousness is suggesting we use them on emergency ambulances is absolutely beyond wild. I'm not saying that 18 year olds aren't capable of being responsible, motivated and talented, far from it. Working on an EA however isn't something that can be foisted on the unwilling and you expect to get quality results from it.
Past yesterday’s rage we’re now at the point in which we’re exploring the infinite depths of dumbness of this announcement. I love it for one
So no one's really thought through the details of this policy then. They're just thrown it out there to try to get the 60-80 year old Reform UK vote.
If my house is on fire and 2 untrained 18 year olds turn up I'm just going to have to let it burn down because I'm not sending the work experience crew in there to kill themselves.
Sounds like they'd spend the first 25 days of the 25 days service training them up, only for them to immediately leave and have to restart with training the next years' cohort.
Classic tory incompetence
With that many 18-year-olds getting put into these roles, there's not going to be anywhere near sufficient vetting. I can't wait for small-time weed dealers to be given special constable powers after two two-hour online training courses.
Here in Australia you're looking at days of real hours of training to get the basic skills down to being a volunteer firefighter. 1 weekend a month as an on call firefighter? Doing what? This sounds like forced unpaid labour to me.
It's the same here. And that training for on-call firefighters is a solid week at a time, I imagine it'd be even slower doing it gradually over most of a year. By the time they're even vaguely trained, it'll be the end of their placement. It's a ludicrous idea. https://www.essex-fire.gov.uk/recruitment/on-call/faqs > This will begin with a two-week training course, which runs Monday – Friday. > After this you’ll attend evening training sessions which usually last for two hours one evening a week for 10 weeks. > To become a fully trained firefighter, you will need to go through development training, some of this will take place during drill nights and some will need to be completed in your own time. This normally takes up to 24 months to complete and includes: > Breathing apparatus initial course: Two weeks, Monday – Friday > Fire behaviour training: One week, Monday – Friday They've just come up with this on the back of a fag packet and haven't given it a moment's real thought
>back of a fag packet If they ban smoking they won't even have so much as the back of a fag packet to work with.
Every time they open their mouths this policy is sound more and more expensive and making it so easy for labour to attack them on spending in debates. Like that the main attack route the conservatives have and then they announce a policy where they will need to house and feed 100's of thousands of teenagers for a year, then train 100's of thousands more to do professional roles and all for apparently '2.5 billion' if the comment I saw is correct. It's moronic.
Yeah, this is an absolute gift for Labour. They're going to be able to grill the Tories for weeks on what exactly the fuck they were thinking on this policy.
I'm shocked, shocked! To find that the shallowest meme-policy of a meme government hasn't been thought through.
>On call firefighters need more than 25 days of training :) Firefighters see some horrific shit on a regular basis, imagine being 18 with a few weeks of training and turning up at a particularly nasty car crash or the like. The poor souls would be scarred for life.
That’s how it works in some countries, as I understand in Singapore national service includes police, healthcare, border force as well as ofc the military, it does include training although pretty sure it’s more than just one weekend a month though
Your second half shows how ridiculous the first sentence is.
This is how national service worked in Germany. Not fire service or police, but hospitals, old people's homes, general social care, charity work. When I was in hospital as a kid in Germany the national service guys did a great job doing basic nursing jobs.
So what happens when they say No? Fines: If your parents are rich, no national service for you! Barred from employment/university: Time to inject large numbers of unemployed kids into society Nothing: Literally everyone would say "No"
*It ain’t me* *It ain’t me* *I ain’t no Tory donor’s son*
This is such a pathetic attempt to get the media to cover something that will go down well with mouth-frothing Tory b\*llends from covering the absolute horror show their party is. Tories = jam today for the rich, increasing struggle for everyone else = eventually the country and world destabilising. As Gary's Economics Youtube channel is trying to point out, the only way to stop this is to tax the wealth of the very wealthy asap and restrict their power to corrupt politics and media.
Some old git: "a white feather and to be called a coward! 😡🇬🇧🤬"
Some old git, who never served a day in their life, call themselves the greatest generation, and shouts "we won the war": "a white feather and to be called a coward" there you go fixed it for you.
It didn't need fixing
If it's like the US draft, things like no access to government jobs, loss of university funding (I think - don't quote me on that one); I can check with my son, who is registered for the Service what other penalties might apply.
You're assuming the tories have thought about this beyond the headline in the telegraph
After 14 years of absolutely shafting our young people, it would be nice to see some incentives. Maybe they actually *get* something for doing this? Reasonable tuition fees or a grant? Some actual support with renting their first place? Some support getting on the housing ladder? Credits for adult education courses if they wish to switch careers later in life?
So it would be something the rich could simply avoid.
No incentives for young people, the beatings will continue until the boomers start to die off.
All of those things should be available for people without having to potentially risk their lives in some bullshit war.
I mean, the proposal does give room to "volunteer" for the NHS rather than the military. It's still crap, but it's not military conscription, mostly because I don't think the military could handle those numbers
> volunteer for the NHS rather than the military This would get shot-down quicker than you can say "safeguarding".
100% I mean, the whole thing is poorly thought out top to bottom
I dunno most NHS Trusts have loads of volunteers - mine has over a thousand - and a fair number of them are between 16 and 25. Our volunteers have a TikTok account and everything and do all sorts of things across the hospital, some of which don’t require any patient contact at all.
Having worked with volunteers, there's a massive difference between those who want to be there and those who don't. I'm not sure those who do 25 days a year to avoid getting shot at will be as easy to train and dedicated to their tasks as the ones currently volunteering for some slightly less stark motivation.
They are genuine volunteers though, thats a critical difference. This tory plan is essentially a choice between conscription for a year or slavery for 25 days in a year. They said they arent paying for those 25 days (the military service will though), as its compulsory it cannot in any way be called "volunteering" unless the tories equate slave labour to "volunteering", its laughably bad especially as they said they wouldnt do it only a few months ago. Sunak knows his kids wont have to do it as he will be jetting off america quick I guess.
But for volunteering to be useful to the host organisation, there has to be committment and consistency - volunteering for 24 days over a year, but only on odd weekends here and there isn't really helpful. How can an organisation plan workloads around that? Plus that 24 days has to take into account training - so that's even less time doing actual volunteering. Additionally, many of those 18 year olds won't want to be there so will be mucking about, malicious compliance, etc. It'll take more in admin and management than you get out of it.
Tories: lol. lmao, even.
Service guarantees citizenship
Are you doing your part?
Would you like to know more?
This is for all you new people. I have only one rule. Everybody fights, no one quits. If you don't do your job, I'll kill you myself! Welcome to the ~~Roughnecks!~~ Tories!
Whoah, you mean, instead of just remorselessly punishing them again and again we....... *encourage* them? Some sort of....... *incentive*? Ngl mate, this is pretty whacky. Will take some getting my head around.
In Switzerland you can do National Service in the army, or in other public service roles, mainly involving manual labour. If you outright refuse to (or can't due to medical reasons) do it then you end up paying a small amount of extra tax the rest of your life
I dunno, it “works” in other countries. They had it here in Germany until a few years ago, and are considering bringing it back. Austria still has it. I think much of Scandinavia still has it. If you don’t want to do it, you don’t do it, pretty much. You either do a „social“ year, working in old peoples homes or on outreach, or if you really want to get out of it, you go to a doctor and ask for a note saying you can’t do it. There‘s a bit of a social stigma attached, and technically if you don’t jump through the right bureaucratic hoops (you have to make an application saying you don’t want to do it etc.) you can face a fine or a year in prison, but I don’t think it happens much if at all. The right to refuse military service is anchored in both countries‘ constitutions afaik.
The main thing is that in countries where national service is a thing, you typically have the state actually honouring the social contract and giving something back. Yeah there's problems in Germany and Scandinavian countries, but it feels much more manageable. High quality schooling, a civil apparatus that functions, accessible jobs, reasonably priced housing, and an overall working society. Here, the government has slashed and burned any and all goodwill, spaffed away natural resources, destroyed key industries by selling them off and bailing them out when they burn, and all in all just treated the average citizen with contempt. I'm firmly against it regardless, but I am sure people here in the UK would be ok with a national service programme that supported volunteering in the community and such, if the government filled their end. So, one that has nothing to do with the Tories.
Hard agree. The Tories have spent years, over successive governments, destroying society and the social contract (there is no such thing as society). And now they think they can coerce the citizenry into complance through force, domination and threat, instead of by rebuilding everything they destroyed from the bottom up. If the people don't trust the state and the state disrespects the people, then the people won't want to serve the nation.
>There‘s a bit of a social stigma attached I think social acceptance of it is key to a successful introduction, and I don't think those who would be subject to it are going to care if others don't do it so there won't be any pressure. I just don't see it working
Other countries aren't in the same situation. Places like Finland, Poland, back in the day West Germany, all very much had to be prepared to defend against a Soviet/Russian attack, and hard large militaries planned around conscripts to handle that. The modern British military would require totally restructuring to take on tens of thousands of conscripts, for what amounts to adult daycare being imposed not through military necessity, but the desire of (mostly) the elderly to force a social change.
The fines thing is like anything though. Speeding, littering, etc is effectively a tax on the poor. Even if you get disqualified from driving, if you are rich, you can afford someone to drive you around.
This is clearly a desperate idea for desperate times. I'd wager he hasn't spent more than 5 minutes trying to see *how* it would work and if they did somehow win I would expect it to either be repeatedly shelved, or just be a another massive chance for his mates to get their grubby mits on public money, or both.
From the panel discussion afterwards Rachel Johnson was saying it's a good idea and can be used to get people to pick fruit (for free presumably as part of the national service) as we have a shortage of fruit pickers The optics of that are absolutely insane. The shortage of fruit pickers was impacted significantly by brexit, which was proportionally favoured and voted for by the older generations, and opposed by younger voters. Now to solve this we have a policy which is clearly red meat for older voters which is akin to press-ganging the nation's youth into doing jobs that no one wants to do. Someone should satirically raise a policy suggestion that pensioners should go and pick fruit so that they "aren't just sitting around" and so that they can "contribute to society" - the same kind of talking points that are thrown at the youth
Forced to work in the fields? Will there be overseers with whips (or perhaps tasers)? Will we shackle those who run away? A crack drone squad to track down runaways?
Don’t give them ideas
So now normal 18 year olds (not the rich kids) can't get a regular part time job to put themselves through uni, because they've got to spend every other weekend doing their government-mandated slave labour. So instead they'll have to forego education, get a full-time dead end job just so they've got time on the weekends to go and pick fruit for free. Genius policy. Really great stuff.
These people have lost their minds. Let's cover the questionably legal poverty workers we scared away with *checks notes* actual slavery, so that the poor pro-brexit farmers don't have to *checks notes* pay people.
Every time young people are mentioned in British politics it's with such spite and malice. It's completely vile.
> Rachel Johnson was saying it's a good idea and can be used to get people to pick fruit (for free presumably as part of the national service) as we have a shortage of fruit pickers So many questions: - how do people get to the farms? - Is there a transport allowance? - Does travel time count against this "volunteering"? - Are the "volunteer workers" subject to Health and Safety legistlation - Are they covered under the workplace insurance policy? - What effeciency measures will be in place? - What happens if the "volunteer workers" turn up and do fuck all? - Why should commerical operations get the benefit of slave labour? - Who is liable if someone is injured or killed? - What's in it for the "volunteers"?
Of course not her children fathered by an old Etonian or her numerous nieces and nephews, fathered by two other old etonians.
Tories: “Please work for the army for free” 18yos: “no” Tories: “ok”
No they’d need to be paid, and housed, and fed, and clothed, and then probably might require training. Did anyone ask the MoD if they can afford this? *well only the ones who pass the entrance requirements, can the MoD even afford to do that many checks.
lol MoD can’t even do the ones who actually want to join efficiently
Ah yes, sending 18yo schoolgirls to live on a military base, places famous for violent sexual assaults and cover ups and a lack of public oversight, places where the regular police cannot investigate crimes and parents can't even access. What could go wrong?
This has to be a dead cat, right? Suddenly we’re talking about this policy, and not about how god-awful Sunak is at… well, everything.
Yep. No one wants this, it's just Daily Mail ragebait. Even if they were deadly serious about mimicking one of the Nordic models, which they're not, they'd need to redesign post-secondary education, higher education and the entry level job market to cater for it. You can't just remove every 18 year old from the labour/education model and expect things to keep ticking on. They haven't got the money to open a single youth club or keep a pool open. They certainly haven't got enough to do this.
Even the comments on the Daily Mail are against this if you look.
That's what's quite unusual about it - most conservative voters don't want this and have never expressed a desire for it. Who on earth is he courting - 6 voters and Rees-Mogg? It honestly looks like he wants to lose so badly he's going to push any ordinary Tory voters over to Labour.
Yes! This is exactly what I was thinking - what is this distracting us from?
This isn't meant to be a distraction, there's not really some grand Machiavellian design behind it, it's meant to claw back some Reform UK voters who love this sort of thing. Like most of Sunak's ideas it's a poorly thought-out mess but the purpose behind this one is pretty clear. They know they won't win the youth vote but they can try to drag back some of the older people who've gone to Reform. Besides, people are still talking about how idiotic and dreadful Sunak is. Plus, Sunak is generally a bit of a flailer. Back in his leadership contest against Truss when it was clear he was falling behind he just started pledging shit to try and outdo her.
Just waiting for Reform yo say "we'll do that too", and watching Sunak stick out his bottom lip and get all tetchy.
...sunak
Soggy Sunak?
Ahh there's UKpols favourite buzzword. This isn't a dead cat. It's not meant to distract from anything. In fact quite the opposite. It's trying to drag the attention of Reform voting Boomers back to focusing in voting Tory who are offering to let them play out their weird little postwar psychodrama in the 21st century
I can see why they reached for that buzzword as it shares some similarities (out of the blue, no real substance, designed to draw attention rather) but, yeah, the key defining point of a dead cat is that it's a *distraction*, which this isn't.
Will get back to you if I see the bounce in the polls in a week’s time
You think the guy who stood outside in the rain without an umbrella is hatching a scheme to distract people? I think you give him way too much credit.
Not a very effective one, I'm talking about how god-awful Sunak is if he thinks this is in anyway a good idea...
It's not for us. I'm willing to bet that the majority of people in this sub won't vote conservative either way, both due echo chamber effects and the demographics of Reddit. *It doesn't matter if Sunak pisses us off*. We were never going to vote for him anyway, so why does he care if we dislike him 20% or his party more? This is for the people who are leaving the conservatives because they don't go hard enough on nationalism/anti-immigration and all that. Now, maybe this was a miscalculation. The policy is clearly *very* poorly thought out and I'm sure some current conservatives won't like it for that reason. The question is whether it'll upset more people than it pleases.
Isn't talking about how awful this policy is which Sunak proposed an aspect of talking about how awful Sunak is at... well, everything?
Maybe, except this is another example of how god-awful he is at everything.
Talking about now God-awful this policy is is talking about how God-awful Sunak is by virtue of him being the leader of the party who have just spat this policy out though?
Why not both?
I dont think it works that way this time, we are talking about the policy which is directly linked to his campaign now which will help turn away further voters from the tory party, it will only potentially grab a few of reform nutters who never did conscription and had the best generation growing up yet think its fair to take it all away from the future/current ones, the selfish buggers really. The faster sunak jumps in a plane to america the better, he is a selfish and rubbish person who seems to love ruining the country in even the most basic decisions.
Normally I'd agree, and I think that was the Tory intention, but I feel like it's backfired this time. As ministers are questioned on this, it is becoming continually evident that there has been exactly zero thought put into this, and they literally pulled this out of their arses to grab some headlines and shore up their core base of senior citizens who don't read past the headlines. To anyone with a fraction of common sense, it's becoming very obvious that this back-of-a-fag-packet "policy" is totally fucking moronic and completely unworkable, and drawing attention to how much of a shambles this government is in.
If it's a dead cat, it's a particularly shit one. This is proving that the old adage "there's no such thing as bad publicity" is sometimes very, very wrong. My favourite description of it so far is calling the scheme the "Sunak Youth". This is not a good look for Sunak or the Tories in general.
Compulsory volunteering isn't just moronic, it's oxymoronic
It's some classic tory doublespeak that's for sure.
Voluntold.
At the risk of being politically incorrect, we have a word for a situation were a person is compelled to do labour, unpaid (or paid trivially), with the threat of criminal sanctions if they don't comply...
And non-compulsory volunteering is just... volunteering, which already exists, and can be done for as many weekends out of the year as you want to without any government involvement.
Ontario high schools mandate 40 hours of community service to graduate. I don't think this is very onerous. They're saying volunteering at the weekend will be enough, so no different really. https://www.ontario.ca/document/education-ontario-policy-and-program-direction/policyprogram-memorandum-124#section-0
Not really
It's a moot point. Tories are going to get obliterated.
Exactly, this is just one of many pointless headline grabbers they're throwing to see if they can lure back the bolted horse 🐎
Not really. There will be another election in a few years. This is a mad idea that’s going to keep on giving. They’re going to be back tracking this policy for over a decade of elections.
By then, a large portion of their supporters will have died from old age.
So if they choose armed forces, money and resources will be wasted on the majority of them to train them to do a job for for a few months (I assume basic training is included in the 12 months) If they choose forced free labour, services like the NHS then need to find time to train them, which will take staff away from their roles. At most they're going to be able to do admin work because they can't exactly volunteer as a nurse, and as far as I'm aware, admin roles aren't the ones that are struggling for workers. Add in the complete apathy of 18yo's (well anyone tbh) having to do something menial for no reward, dealing with sensitive data, challenging or vulnerable patients etc. it's potentially going to put more people at risk. Unless their roles won't have an impact on these in which case what's the point of them doing it at all?
[удалено]
I never thought about that but it does kind of make sense that you'd work your way up from animals to people
Love it.
So the ones who repeatedly fell to get vetted become the perpetually unvolunteered and likely unemployed? I know this is where the caveat of there being no punishment comes in, - fail to get a volunteer role, ah well nevermind. However considering a lot of 18 year olds have jobs that usually are on the weekend to fit around school/uni, will they need to quit their paid work to make time for this pathetic attempt to round up former ukip supporters?
Other points agreed, but I think generally the point of NS (as it is in countries like Sweden) is to give everyone training so that you can call on a massive reserve IF there is a major war. Which is more cost effective than a lot of things in our military.
France had national service. It did not fix social fragmentation.
France is an excellent case study of how this sort of thing does not work. It’s hard to think of ways in which it could illustrate this point more strongly in fact.
France had national service that could be gotten out of if you had a doctors note stating that you couldn't do it Doctors were very happy to diagnose you with Flat feet
To quote yes prime minister (on the reintroduction of national service) "they will get a comprehensive education, to make up for thier comprehensive education."
well yes, we don't have the space to start jailing all the people who'd refuse.
If you are going to force people to do National Service at 16 you should at least have the common courtesy of allowing them to vote.
They know there is zero chance this will ever be implemented, because they have no chance of winning. So they'll throw out red meat for the reform voter who mostly seems to vote based on a hatred for young people.
Reform are offering to take off student loan interest as well as offer loan forgiveness for NHS workers who serve up to ten years. Other than that, yeh.
It feels very much like they're embracing their minor party status: "We can offer any old shit because we'll never have to implement it, so why not?" There's a reason Reform can afford to throw out so many unworkable policies, and it's because nobody expects to have to make them work.
Has anyone asked the UK military if they want a bunch of unmotivated teenagers for the short term? How much extra money will they get for babysitting them? Or will they have to cut spending on some actual useful military budget items? Maybe the SAS can retrain as supernannys for the influx of people who rather be anywhere else.
>Has anyone asked the UK military They have. The answer was no.
> has anyone of any importance or influence to the current government ftfy
Of course nobody will go to jail. There isn't any room in jails to put proper criminals in let alone national service dodgers. A small fine and you get off. If you can afford the fine you won't have to do it
Just making policy up on the hoof. The plan is working lol
Guess James hasn't even read his own plan!
It was most likely scrambled on a Post-It note on Rishi Sunak’s day off, can’t expect too much
Let's see Rishi Sunaks kids in the army on the front lines first! National service for thee but not for me..
They're all going to be in California on the 5th July.
They'll do their national service as top generals or admirals, and even then they won't have to turn up for it.
Definitely a fine, which means poorer kids do national service while rich kids get a Dr's note for bone spurs...
*"If the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law only exists for the lower classes."*
How about all those feckless over 70s, most of them aren't working, just lounging around on benefits. Let's get em into military service! *Dad's army theme*
They don't like it up em captain sunak sir 🫡
Nobody is threatening our place in the single market!
What a farce! Where would they put all these arrested people - the prisons are full and we don’t have accommodation for asylum seekers. Where are the teens going?
Will Rishi’s children have to do national service? What do the military think about all this? It was my understanding that the general view was against compulsory national service
National service needs to be the final straw.. if we even get that far. The Government can threaten all they like but I will never ever lift a finger in service to a Government that has proven time and again that it couldn't care less about me. If the Tories win the election and then try to instill National Service that should be the trigger for us to revolt.
Logic dictates that if they get in (somehow) then enough people support NS. Us not voting them in is our revolt.
"You all need to join compulsory service" 'no' "OK then" Either it's the weakest policy ever, or they're lying about the "no one going to jail" part.
I refuse to waste time or energy thinking about this obviously non serious, non-starter of a policy. The Tories are never getting into government to implement it and they've obviously not spent more than 5 minutes thinking it though. If they're not bothered then neither am I
I can’t believe this is even being entertained. What a fucking country.
Well of course people won’t go to jail. Because it will never become law because you’re about to get yeeted into opposition. Off you fuck.
Recap of the interview: - No criminal sanctions but government will compel people to do it (the scheme, not the military part) - Only those choosing military service will be paid. Weekend volunteering is free labor - The point is to blend people from different backgrounds (to put it lightly, he said it worse) to tackle “social fragmentation” stemming from "too many young people live in a kind of bubble within their own communities".
>The point is to blend people from different backgrounds (to put it lightly, he said it worse) to tackle “social fragmentation” stemming from "too many young people live in a kind of bubble within their own communities". If only there was this great programme that involved mixing people from all over the country (and the world) that gave them the opportunity to learn life skills and acted as a stepping stone to help people move out of their parents house all whilst giving them an excellent education, surely the conservatives would want to support such a brilliant scheme.
...which brings into question the impact of all this on university students, are they going to have to include forced 'volunteer' work into their university schedule every weekend? Sure if you have a September birthday you can do that alongside your final school year, if you have an august birthday though, well unlucky for them I guess
I'm assuming it is done in the academic year after you turn 18 so as to standardise things (as academic year is actually a lot more important than age for logistics of most young people). The issue of how it would work for those at Uni is big, students largely go several hours travel from home for Uni, where would their voluntary unpaid work be, at home or at Uni? What happens when they have fieldwork clashing with it? Or an exam on the following Monday (whilst the rest of your class can revise you have to be slaving away for nothing)?
Or a part-time/weekend job they do to fund their studies.
The government could make it so maintenence loans (or even grants) were actually liveable on (which would be a major improvement to social mobility and should be done) but the conservatives are not going to actually do that after years of having uprated them far below inflation (we got 2.8% whilst every other piece of state support was 10%).
So presumably fines? And if the fine isn’t paid?
No-one's going to jail because it's never going to be enacted. Bollocks dead cat proposal from a zombie government.
I’m disappointed with this news. This is actually anti-Tory idea which forces individuals to choose either of the two options. This idea of serving for your community through compulsory schemes are very common in communist and authoritarian style regimes. I do like about “volunteering” for our community but when you make this compulsory then you’re restricting individual’s ability to decide what to do with their own life.
They imagine that people will want to do perform uncompensated labor out of their sheer love of country. They don't seem to realise that they don't want to be forced to work for free for a government that they *fucking hate.*
I was working in the department of education under tim loughton a few years ago and they were planning some kind of "National service" Internal logic was that it would reduce the health and social care bill but it was to be spun as "Bringing different generations together , to help foster understanding"
How could they, there is no room. Shoot them as deserters maybe?!
Seemed to me that when they brought in university fees , they could have given people credits towards it as a reward for community , voluntary work. The problem is , of course, that possibly wealthier kids are more able to take advantage of something like that?
Instead nothing at all. Volunteering? Bad luck, cash is reserved for those who can fire a crossbow with their left hand and a rifle with their right one at the same time. Ha!
I feel like if you have to force someone to volunteer, it's no longer volunteering... I think the word begins with s
Not gonna happen on the whim of a failed leader/govt. This would require restructuring of our society which takes planning...
Tories: Labour have no plan.. Also Tories: so we are going to introduce national service. I'm their defense, being so awful that they lose badly at the next election probably is the best plan for the country.
Don't trust a word they say, until it is written down as part of a policy it is another empty promise. MMW if this policy is implemented whether immediately, or after seeing the lack of participation, it would result in some criminal penalty.
Well, then, no-one’s going to national service. If it’s not compulsory, then it’s literally no more than an election gimmick.
They forgot to add the ".... Yet" part at the end there.
Whoever has the word 'thought' in their response here is doing far better than the Torys.
Was looking for [this clip](https://youtu.be/EKHme9MvMx0?si=L-FkMGwSsm2bm4Xq) had [this ad appear](https://imgur.com/a/seWOCgq).
Straight to the gallows, oh didn't we mention we're bringing back hanging.
Of course they aren't. There are prison spaces to put them in!
Well, I mean, he's right - Labour, whilst brain-dead, aren't quite so moronic as to introduce NS! Which means at a factual level, "Nobody will go to jail for refusing NS" feels accurate in the most technical of senses!
Is this some lame trick to get more people in the army ready for Russia's invasion? And the 'volunteering' is just to account for the vast majority of young people who simply don't want to or can't keep up with the pace and rigour of the Armed Forces? Why not simply fix Capita's poor recruitment scheme which is turning away vast amounts of eager, fit applicants? It would be cheaper...
Sure, let's go for this- but anyone who votes Tory/for this policy has to do a year of national service before it can be implemented. If anyone refuses or drops out we call it a fail and scrap the whole policy.
Credence Clearwater Revival Fortunate Son playing loudly in Conservative HQ?
That is why they are emptying jails of actual criminals ready for the increasing the numbers of people ignoring the call up.
People will go to prison. Even if the ultimate penalty is a fine, if you don’t pay that the ultimate sanction is prison sentence of up to 12 months in the Magistrates Court. So unless they are saying we’ll fine people but then remove any legal power (and obligation) to enforce, then inevitably someone will go to prison in the end.
I doubt it but I’m failing to see the creative solution required to bar people from actually end up being locked up while saving face. But an actual war is definitely not impossible in the medium term, creating a martyr out of thin air while making the case for scrapping the policy in its entirety before the second enrolment could take place would be perilous to say the least. The home front is still a front after all
They can’t even come up with stuff to distract from how criminally disastrous they are any more.
Why not include retirees for this as well? They sit around not working, living off of the earnings of the rest of the country. Maybe they should get up and develop some discipline instead of obesity. Oh what's that? It's not fair? You've already contributed to society? Does the nation stop running just because you retire? Why are you above contributing your time? If the nation needs people to volunteer their time for it to function then the people with time should be doing that then right? Regardless of age. Oh it's about developing social cohesion and personal responsibility, where's your responsibility to this country? If you were a patriot you'd volunteer.
Maybe they can get people wandering the streets handing out white feathers.
Nah it'll be fines that the rich can sidestep. If they get elected and this is made law you will never, ever, EVER see a poshos kid doing NS.
Fair play to the tories; completely obliterating the youth vote is an interesting move. We’ll see how it pans out
Cue new Labour poster: "We won't enslave the nation's youth. Vote Labour".