UK General Election 2024

[The Ham]

And their parents too, presumably.

It seems that Rishi is desperate for a summer out of work.

As well as maybe a few grandparents or even a few great grandparents too.

 

[Gloster]

You do wonder if Sunak and co. know that something awful, either financial or geo-political, is going to happen and they are just doing their utmost to lose the election so that Labour is left dealing with an unsolvable problem. (There have long been suggestions that some in the Conservatives deliberately aimed to lose in 1945 because they knew that the necessary austerity measures and restrictions needed in the aftermath of the war would leave a legacy of bitterness against whoever brought them in.)

I am sure that the already overstretched armed services, police, fire, etc. are so looking forward to having to divert resources to overseeing thousands of unwilling conscriptions. I suspect that this is a policy that will appeal to very narrow section of the electorate (the ‘getting on a bit but didn’t do national service themselves’ one), many of whom were already the most likely to vote Conservative anyway.

 

[The Ham]

Conservatives plan to bring back mandatory National Service

Every 18-year-old would choose between joining the military or volunteering one weekend a month in the community.

www.bbc.co.uk

One weekend per month isn't much use to most organisations because you're for another month gone by the time they've trained you up. Some work with the council maintaining green spaces is plausible but not much more than that.

I presume he hasn't talked to anyone from GCHQ or other cybersecurity agencies as an 18-year-old with no cybersecurity/computer science degree, which they only have for a year, isn't going to be that useful. It's fairly well known that soldiers under conscription are far less useful than a soldier who wants to be there. And training soldiers is pretty expensive just for them to leave 1 year later.

Assuming a full day of work then an entire weekend would also mean that someone in a full-time job or education would end up working 12 days without a break.

Anyway, it's just a line to try to win votes. It wouldn't actually happen...

IF it were to come in I'd advise any 18 year old I know to take the volunteer option and do 5 weeks between the end of their exams (roughly the last few days of June) and when they start uni (roughly mid September).

By doing that they could actually be useful be the end of the 5 weeks, but it also doesn't impact on their studies.

 

[spyinthesky]

Hahahahahaha.

Starmer has do to nothing more now for the next 6 weeks which includes talking.

 

[lineclear]

I presume he hasn't talked to anyone from GCHQ or other cybersecurity agencies as an 18-year-old with no cybersecurity/computer science degree, which they only have for a year, isn't going to be that useful.

Those thousands of bored teenagers working in cybersecurity would be very useful for Russian and Chinese intelligence.

 

[YorkRailFan]

Sunak announcing plans to reintroduce National Service for 18 year olds:

Conservatives plan to bring back mandatory National Service

Every 18-year-old would choose between joining the military or volunteering one weekend a month in the community.

www.bbc.co.uk

Coupled with Starmer saying he'll lower the Minimum Voting Age to 16, Gen Z (of those who are old enough to vote) will likely be completely turned off the Tories.

Over to a question on lowering the voting age, something Sir Keir Starmer has previously spoken supportively about and was included in the Labour party's manifesto in both 2015 and 2017.

When pressed on this specific point, the Labour leader says: "Yes, I want to see 16 and 17 year olds voting".

He explains that if these young people are able to go out and work - and if they are working, he notes, they are also paying taxes - they should also be able to vote.

He adds that these age groups are also able to sign up for for the Army.

"If you serve in your armed forces you ought to be able to vote."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-69059992

 

[SuspectUsual]

When I saw the tweet I assumed someone had hacked the Tory twitter account

Its utterly unworkable insanity

The practicalities are impossible

How can it be enforced?

Its almost as if they've given up and they're just having a laugh at us now

 

[Cross City]

“Mandatory volunteering”

AKA slave labour.

What about 18 year olds with jobs? Are they going to force people to lose money to “volunteer”? How will they cover the staffing gap in the shops, pubs and restaurants these people work at?

How about people still in education, or who have kids themselves? Imagine training to be a doctor or a teacher and the government threaten to have you arrested for not dropping everything to go and work for the army for free.

They can’t be this out of touch surely? A growing percentage of me thinks they they’re deliberately throwing this election. All a policy like this will do is encourage more younger people out to vote against you.

I doubt this will encourage the older vote either. Most grandparents nowadays were born after the end of compulsory national service.

Another ill thought out policy by an odious party who are so far down the line they’ve turned into an ouroboros and have started eating themselves.

July the 4th can’t come soon enough.

 

[ChrisC]

When I saw the tweet I assumed someone had hacked the Tory twitter account

Its utterly unworkable insanity

The practicalities are impossible

How can it be enforced?

Its almost as if they've given up and they're just having a laugh at us now

The UK is a very different place now to what it was over 60 years ago when National Service ended in 1960. We are a far more diverse and multicultural society now than we were back then. How would they enforce it to include all sections of our society from all cultures, and of course male and female. That’s without considering how they enforce it amongst those who are involved in gang culture, drugs and knife crime.

 

[najaB]

You do wonder if Sunak and co. know that something awful, either financial or geo-political, is going to happen and they are just doing their utmost to lose the election so that Labour is left dealing with an unsolvable problem. (There have long been suggestions that some in the Conservatives deliberately aimed to lose in 1945 because they knew that the necessary austerity measures and restrictions needed in the aftermath of the war would leave a legacy of bitterness against whoever brought them in.)

Yet both the NHS and British Rail came out of that period - proving that anything is possible for those who have ideas and ambition.

 

[Yew]

Young people overwhelmingly don't vote Conservative anyway.

This is just playing to the Conservative voter base, to try and prevent Pensioners defecting to Labour.

It's an absurd plan, but it will provide the state with something like ~200 million hours (25 8hr days for a million people per year) of unpaid labour per year. And most importantly, will make lots of young people utterly miserable.

Lots of pensioners have never done National Service, so surely they'll be the first to be picked up by the press-gangs, as they've been shirking their obligation to the country for so long?

 

[Gloster]

Yet both the NHS and British Rail came out of that period - proving that anything is possible for those who have ideas and ambition.

And Labour was then out of power for thirteen years. A lot of thanks for doing a great job with the recovery.

 

[alex397]

You often seen comments such as “bring back national service!” underneath local news articles about recently convicted young criminals. So no doubt this policy will be popular with the small demographic who post such inane comments.
I’ve always wondered why we would want a bunch of criminals forced to have anything to do with national service.

 

[SuspectUsual]

So according to James Cleverly speaking on the Kuennsberg programme, 18 year olds will be compelled to do this but it won't be compulsory

 

[najaB]

So according to James Cleverly speaking on the Kuennsberg programme, 18 year olds will be compelled to do this but it won't be compulsory.

I'm sorry, I think that just made my brain stop working for a moment.

 

[spyinthesky]

You often seen comments such as “bring back national service!” underneath local news articles about recently convicted young criminals. So no doubt this policy will be popular with the small demographic who post such inane comments.
I’ve always wondered why we would want a bunch of criminals forced to have anything to do with national service.

This,
I wouldn’t want such people in a conflict zone anywhere near me.

 

[sor]

Are they trying to scare off what remaining youth voters they have left?

Absolute rubbish.

mad isn't it. social contract's already torn up for those in their 30s and younger. insecure, poorly paying jobs. the "pleasure" of paying off someone else's mortgage or giving them extra pocket money while you are ever increasingly priced out of buying. higher education is apparently an extravagance. public services broken across the board. don't even think about having friends in your car. but please do join the military and risk your life for all of that.

even his core demographic doesn't seem to be buying it, going by the comments on the mail.

will be scaring off anyone who works in the military/NHS/etc too - they don't want a load of people who really don't want to be there. it's bad enough training voluntary recruits.

for the parents of young kids the difference couldn't be starker - one side wants to give them the vote when they leave school, the other wants to send them to war

 

[Cross City]

Somebody is going to ask Sunak if he’d be OK with his kids being forced into the army and he’s going to have to say yes. Can’t wait for that video clip.

 

[edwin_m]

Just giving up on the youth vote - I can't imagine that's a vote winner with 18 to 20-something year olds.

"Cunningly" structured so nobody who votes in this election would be caught by it. Among other things it hits the university sector, already hard pressed by restrictions on foreign students, who will find some of their entrants have to defer for a year and others will find it harder to pay their way with weekend jobs.

We may need to strengthen defences, but I can't see how the answer is a big army with minimal training. That might be useful for countries bordering Russia that might have to mobilise against a land invasion, but the UK's support in such a situation would be longer range and higher tech.

If there's a surplus of underemployed young people, just increase the size of the regular forces so people can be there for long enough to learn a skill that's useful to the military and perhaps in civilian life too.

I remember the Yes Minister sketch posted above. A reminder for those afraid of hordes of feral youths, that this might result in hordes of feral youths trained in armed and unarmed combat.

 

[Peterthegreat]

I'm sorry, I think that just made my brain stop working for a moment.

Makes you an ideal Tory party candidate.

 

[jfollows]

The "mandatory" but not really "national service" is utterly demented and clearly demonstrates how old people completely misunderstand younger people, and completely forget that they were young once.

It will appeal to the sort of person who lives in Wilmslow and complains about "feral youths" hanging around town. Which is stuff and nonsense, but they like to think it isn't. I'm 62 and I think I get more positive about our younger people every year, and just feel that they are let down by society in general.

But won't these people be the last ones left voting Conservative in July anyway? For me, yet another reason not to vote Conservative, as if I needed any more, and it's not going to happen when the Tories are trounced anyway.

 

[SuspectUsual]

I'm sorry, I think that just made my brain stop working for a moment.

To be fair that may be the best way to negotiate your way through the next six weeks

 

[nw1]

Just giving up on the youth vote - I can't imagine that's a vote winner with 18 to 20-something year olds.

It will not convert many people, I suspect. The people who support it will already be intending to vote Tory, at a guess.

On the other hand it might convert some Reform voters, I guess. Perhaps that's the plan.

 

[SuspectUsual]

Current UK armed forces total 144,000 regulars (plus reservists)

They’re proposing an extra 30,000 each year - 21%

How many of the regulars are going to have to be taken away from what they’re doing now to train / mentor / babysit the new intake? Isn’t this making our regular armed forces less effective than they currently are?

But in reality, what do we think the uptake rate would be amongst 18 year olds given there’s no sanction and it isn’t compulsory? 1%??

 

[nw1]

There’s a game being played here to try and frighten people into voting for them by making people think that we’re under a certain type of threat that he’s been trying to warn us about (but obviously can’t fully disclose).

Russia, I guess.

But I suspect the main threats are likely to be terrorism and/or cyber-warfare, and having unwilling 18-year-olds do national service is not going to stop that one iota.

 

[DarloRich]

Why are right wing cranks so worried about giving 16 year olds the vote?

Surely they will be queuing up to vote for the Tories if their policies are as good as they say........

(As for national service - simply a bone to the hard of thinking reformites who live in a 1950's fantasy world)

 

[telstarbox]

Using the Betfair market (of £80k so fairly small at this stage) for number of Conservative seats:
The shortest odds are for the 100 - 149 bracket
The implied probability of being under 150 seats is 60%
The implied probability of being under 300 seats is 98%.

 

[JGurney]

Current UK armed forces total 144,000 regulars (plus reservists)

They’re proposing an extra 30,000 each year - 21%

How many of the regulars are going to have to be taken away from what they’re doing now to train / mentor / babysit the new intake? Isn’t this making our regular armed forces less effective than they currently are?

But in reality, what do we think the uptake rate would be amongst 18 year olds given there’s no sanction and it isn’t compulsory? 1%??

Where does that figure of 30 000 come from? Thereare approx 800k 18-year-olds in the country.

Only about half that total personnel are in the Army. I suspect the Navy and Air Force with have even less use for untrained short-term recruits than the Army will.

 

[SuspectUsual]

Where does that figure of 30 000 come from? Thereare approx 800k 18-year-olds in the country.

Only about half that total personnel are in the Army. I suspect the Navy and Air Force with have even less use for untrained short-term recruits than the Army will.

The BBC article

Conservatives plan to bring back mandatory National Service

Every 18-year-old would choose between joining the military or volunteering one weekend a month in the community.

www.bbc.com

 

[Sorcerer]

Aside from the fact that most people who support bringing back national service won't actually have done it before and won't be eligible to do it now, I'm pretty sure the armed forces don't want conscripts anyway. Broken as it may now be in it's present state, the British military has always prided itself not on numbers but on professionalism, something that will be lost with unwilling soldiers. Plus, I just don't feel like we're culturally cut out for conscription. As cynical as it may sound, the sense of civic duty that drives support for conscription elsewhere just doesn't really seem to exist here.