Published on 12, July, 2020
I see this old chestnut has come to the fore again. I can see problems with it.
Does the military want all these people for a year or so and what will they do with them?
If people are made to volunteer for things like life boats, special constables and library assistants, will it mean that the training for such things will outlast the service time?
Will real jobs be at risk because people are volunteering?
If theres no sanctions how will they make people do it?
Will it mean that those currently on benefits will be sanctioned for not "doing their bit"?
Will this idea have mission creep? If not enough people volunteer, will some kind of sanction be imposed?
It all sounds desperate to me, like a political party flailing about to find vote winning policies that are ill thought out.
It won't come in until 2029 anyway, just in time for another election, hmmm?
The kind of regressive thinking that seems to define conservative thinkers. I've never understood this notion that putting teenagers into the military builds character, or gives you 'real world skills'. Even worse, the idea of sending troubled or anti-social teenagers into the military. Sure, let's teach them how to kill people.
It's just another attempt to use vacuous nostalgia for 'our lost Britain' as a vote-harvester.
I agree with you Capt, I've been told that all sorts of things are character building, I've even tried some of them! I think I'll stick to being characterless if thats the sort of character they want to build. I think I'm just the sort of person who can't help asking 'Why?' when someone tells me to jump.
I notice this thread has exclusively stayed on the military option and not the civilian ones, why is that?
It’s like the same kind of thinking that was constantly drummed into me when I was growing up in Ireland as a child that I needed to take the bullying and take the beatings because “it builds character” and that taking the bullying is “for my own good” - not only did all of the teachers in school defend the bullies and where I was punished for being bullied, the police were called to give me a good hard beating for being bullied, I was the one who was seen as the problem because I was the one who was being picked on because I was regarded as mad and “not quite right in the head” because I could not accept reality and accept the consequences of my own actions because I was not slapped often enough and hard enough as a child, according to the police at the time