Mr Sunak said: “… there are forces trying to divide our society in this increasingly uncertain world."
Yes, Rishi, and you lead one of those forces, you oleaginous minifig.
People who say there’s no difference between Tories and Labour can get in the sea. Or do some national service, idk.
The people who say that sort of thing heard someone else say it once and just parrot it. When you try and delve deeper into their political philosophy you realize that there’s nothing under the surface.
My Brother-In-Law is like this, What he knows about the political situation of this country wouldn’t fill the back of a postage stamp. Yet he’s perfectly comfortable telling me how all political parties are the same.
Sometimes i find people will also use it as a ‘discussion shut down’ when they don’t want to get pulled into a larger conversation about politics.
They have their reasons, like knowing they have little knowledge on the subject, or knowing the person they’re talking to and not wishing to engage with them too heavily (i may be guilty of employing this tactic at times).
They espouse a political opinion in order to not engage in a political-based conversation?
How does that work.
No they just have a stupid political opinion which is based on the intellect of a concussed goldfish.
While i find your derogatory comments about concussed goldfish disappointingly predictable, the point is by saying ‘both sides are the same’ or ‘both are as bad as the other’ isn’t really a political opinion.
Its a statement that withdraws from engaging in the differences in party positions on specific subject or policy positions by broad brushing them as the same.
For instance, a flounder might say to a butterfly fish, that, goldfish (concussed or not), are all the same, just to stop talking to the butterfly fish and get out of its reef! :)
But you see, they came into the forum. I’m talking about people that come in and go “I think they’re all the same”.
They come to me with that opinion. You don’t think I’m engaging random people on the street in political discourse do you?
Look random people on the street might find it a fun interlude to their day :) I know you weren’t completely though due to the personal example you referred to a couple comments back.
However, you didn’t specify a method, said brother-in-law enters into the political discussions. From an outsider’s perspective, (me), there was no indication.
Also,
will also
I used these words in my first reply, not to deny your experience, but to add to it. The general nature of the word,
people,
in that part of your comment followed by an absolute statement spurred my entry. I think it’s important to highlight varied reasons people have for doing the same things.
You spoke in one part of the comment generally, the other part specifically. My reply attempted to accept your specific experience, while engaging in the general discussion indicated about ‘general people’ happening alongside it.
Another unfunded pledge from the Conservatives. What do we want? Housing! What will we get? Conscription!
David Cameron already did this anyway with the voluntary National Citizen Service. He also promised to eventually make it involuntary but never did, presumably because it was unworkable, expensive or both. So, what has changed to make it workable or inexpensive?
The realistic prospect of an armed conflict with Russia is what has changed.
Whether we cannot afford it is irrelevant, we may have no choice. We couldn’t afford it in 1939 and it wasn’t long ago that we’d only finished paying for our WW2 debts.
Unless something drastic happens that Putin comes to his senses we are in most likelihood heading for very dark times.
We’re not the only country considering a return to National Service/Conscription.
Which is exactly why the army has been asking for more funding, which it actually needs. It doesn’t want conscription, which it recognises would be a waste of resources.
Other countries considering a bad idea doesn’t make it a good idea.
Conscription isn’t fundamentally a bad idea it just needs to be built into your long term defense strategy
The UK military leadership disagree with you. IE the experts who need to manage the system.
All it dose is create ill motivated unskilled labour. At a time were fighting a wat has the least need for that type of labour.
And the military leadership of every country where conscription is a thing disagrees with you.
All it dose is create ill motivated unskilled labour.
If you think military conscription is for the here and now you unfortunately don’t know what you’re talking about.
Conscription is so that if you need to mobilise quickly, all of your eligible population are already trained, have units to report to, officers etc.
If you’re building a defensive military, it makes perfect sense, because in a defensive war motivation more or less ceases to be an issue.
The UK’s military is far more expeditionary, so it doesn’t make sense unless you build it into your long term plan, which is exactly what I said in my original comment.
As we are talking about the UK. Where it is UK military leaders and technological investment that the leaders will be training for.
What any other nation thinks or dose is pretty worthless. As is some politicians trying to win votes from boomers. Or myself.
Only opinion that matters really is the UK military leadership. Who make it clear they do not want this.
Other countries considering a bad idea doesn’t make it a good idea.
This isn’t talking specifically about the UK, and nor was I.
It is a bad idea, which is why nearly everywhere has stopped doing it and hardly anywhere has started again.
Because their long term military strategy changed.
Conscription makes perfect sense if you’re setting yourself up to fight a defensive war. E.g., Finland’s entire military is more or less built for a defensive war against Russia, so they conscript.
Because they built it into their long term strategy, like I said in my original comment.
Germany used to conscript, because there was this thing called the USSR that represented a very real and existential threat right next door. Then that stopped being the case, so their long term doctrine changed from defensive to expeditionary, so they stopped conscripting.
Given that expeditionary wars in the middle east are becoming a bit faux pas, and “being invaded by your neighbour” is back in fashion, I imagine more places will shift doctrine again and conscription will start seeing a return. Then again it might not because of how fundamentally unpopular it is with the population.
And when there’s any chance of us having to fight a defensive land war against Russia, I will admit I was wrong.
Don’t worry, you don’t need to admit you were wrong for you to be wrong.
Other countries considering a bad idea doesn’t make it a good idea.
“Conscription is always a bad idea” is an objectively incorrect sentiment.
It’s certainly a bad idea to rely on conscripts to make up the bulk of your fighting force. It’s not a totally bad idea to have a population of fighting age citizens have had some basic military training and know which way to hold a gun. Countries like Finland or Switzerland have a more realistic view of what they may need to do if things ever got bad on their eastern front.
For the UK we’d have probably resorted to our nuclear deterrent before we consider putting conscripts on the front line.
In a war, the bulk of Finland’s force will be made up of conscripts. Or more accurately, people who were conscripts.
The career military men will be the officers. If you look at their officer to non officer ratio in peacetime it will be absolutely bananas compared to the UK’s. Because if they do get invaded by Russia, they’ll immediately call up their reserves (which due to conscription is their entire eligible population) and the ratios will make more sense.
The military part of the proposed new national service is going to be optional however, those “conscripted” can choose a civilian volunteering path instead. So I’m not sure how this scheme would help with the threat of future conflict when nobody chooses the military option.
It’s a ridiculous gimmick to distract from the Tories failures in areas people do care about.
You think NATO v Russia is going to require conscription?
Or, sorry, let me rephrase that. You think Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, UK, and USA v Russia is going to require conscription?
Or, sorry, let me rephrase that. You think 966 million people v 145 million people is going to require conscription?
Or, sorry, let me rephrase that. You think a country that has been at war with its small neighbour for 10 years and is struggling v the largest military alliance in the world with the largest economies in the world would require conscription?
I’ve been a bit of a dick here to get my point across but making excuses for the tories bringing back conscription is also a bit dickish.
If you want to sign up, go for it. If there comes a point where it’s required, I’m a relatively young fit man so would consider signing up too. But only when there’s a need for it. There is no need yet.
Plus, if we’re going for WW3, we’re all gonna die in the nuclear blasts before we even get a chance to put boots on the ground anyway.
Yes you certainly have.
For clarity, I have not stated any excuse whatsoever, certainly not for Tories, but rather a reflection on where we are at present, where we could possibly be in the future and what has happened previously.
Tbh as much as this annoys me, if it became mandatory I wouldn’t really resist it. Because I can see the necessity of it, and it could easily do me some good.
You should reconsider resisting
Only 5 between 1995 and 2024? That’s less than schools, lol
I quite often think about Cameron’s ‘Big Society’, and how the continual underfunding of public services over the past 14 years has led us to a place where we’re essentially there anyway.
One step closer to bringing back Victorian workhouses
Rishi really doesn’t want people voting Tory, does he?
This is probably aimed at people who are to old (and rich) to do military service anyway and with an ever aging population it might work? 🥵
Considering the voting age is 18, vast majority of voters won’t have to do it. Probably none of them considering it’s a 2025 thing
Old people often have grandkids, though. Sure, there will be some that will think that it will do them good, but surely some others will not like the idea of their grandkids having to give up a year of their life.
I don’t think it’s wasting a year of life- you’ll learn important skills surely. There’s something about it not being compulsory either. So it’s basically a volunteering program. Some people at that age still don’t know what to do with their life, so it could be helpful
Okay, yeah, if it’s a voluntary scheme, it’s completely different. But the BBC are saying mandatory.
They said on Radio 4 this morning that it wasn’t ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ unless I misunderstood
The sceme is mandatory. Military service is an option. But you must spend 25 days doing one of the options.
Of course the options are NHS Policing or mental health. All things tories have screwed.
So using teens as slave labour to look like they are fixing their own screw ups. Would be a fair description.
Worse. He is using people who would be very unlikely to vote tory. The youth.
As slaves to convince old folks who have lost faith to vote tory.
Just like he is fucking the disabled its another culture war attacking those who refuse to support him.
They know they’re doomed and just appealing to the faithful.
We funked up the NHS Policing and local services. By cutting funding to the bone. While refusing to invest.
But thats OK. We will use 25 days of teenage slavery to fix a bit of it.
Or you can learn to kill people ready for our next oil war.
Of course we will concentrate on selling how beneficial it is to the youth. While helpfully forgetting to mention. You can all already choose to do this shit. All we are adding is a mandatory requirement. So slavery to achive our own goals. And make some old folks vote for us.
Basically another culture war using folks who won’t vote tory to convince folks with nothing to lose to vote tory.
Ah yes, that will make new Torys. Boot camp. Break their will to make them into good/conservative citizens. Don’t see that working… though I can see old voters (who didn’t actually do it either) might think that.
Fucking prick rishi can go fuck a barbed rusty pipe. How about.you do.some fucking real work you self centred fucking muppet
Good luck Rish with trying this with Born Iron. IRA haven’t gone away mate.
This actually sounds pretty fun tbh
Sure but you can already do it.
All this is is a requirement to do it.
Not really, generally you need degrees to do this stuff. Would be good to be able to try out different jobs with experience
Cameron set up a service where you can vollenteer to do just this. Its been around for years. And like any work experience training. You end up doing the unskilled stuff. Cos of course you will never gain any experience that requires qualification. At best you get to watch.
And even before Cameron charities offered and offer these services and many more.
This is literally just making a volentry thing mandatory. Nothing else at all.
A degree to get on the officer track. Conscription or not.
Without one, you’re probably infantry. Conscription or not.
You can do some volunteering without out degrees like with St Johns Ambulance who will give you the training to be a driver, event first aider, etc. I know a guy who volunteered as an ambulance driver who was an engineer by trade. Just as an example.
Would highly recommend volunteering with SJA, thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding
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It is one’s duty to serve their King and Kingdom
You go and do that then
