Bringing back national service is not a policy, it is a meme (Rishi Sunak’s national service pledge is ‘bonkers’, says ex-military chief, 26 May). The Conservatives might as well have announced a fully funded project to “string ’em up”.
James Cleverly has suggested recalcitrant teenagers could be working weekends as emergency health responders and special constables. How will the ambulance service deal with someone they must spend resources on training, who is unable or unwilling to contribute? Perhaps refuseniks can be press-ganged into building a wall along the Kent coast so we may make Britain great again.
With the government unable to refer to their past and the opposition unwilling to refer to their future, the weeks leading up to 4 July will be characterised by more vacuous memes. Let’s get this election done!
David Marston
Coventry
• My father did his national service in the RAF. He was crystal clear – he was there as cannon fodder and to massage the unemployment figures. If the world is as scary as Rishi Sunak says, then the £2.5bn needs to go to into the military now. Otherwise, this is clearly a gimmick from the campaign playbook where a losing candidate desperately announces increasingly “bold” – ie wild – ideas to try to get some traction. Next week, expect monkey tennis.
Derek Long
Rainhill, Merseyside
• National service? Are the Tories deliberately trying to lose the vote of every 18-year-old in the UK?
John Richards
Oxford
• Do the Tories seriously believe that grandparents like us with five grandkids under the age of 14 will be voting for the reintroduction of national service so they can learn how to carry out orders, march and use guns? Rather, we wish them a peaceful future, a clean environment, a university education, good friends and free access to a fully funded NHS.
Viv and Mick Beeby
Bristol
• What did I gain from my national service? I learned to type and improved my social skills, but otherwise it was a waste of two years. Surely the money would be better spent on apprenticeships and reducing university fees.
Harry Chesney
Loughborough, Leicestershire
• When no 18-year-olds turn up at universities in September 2025, how will the higher education establishment manage a 33% cut in its undergraduate funding?
Charles Jenkins
Wrexham, Denbighshire
• Rather than turning the armed forces and charities into youth workers, why didn’t Rishi Sunak consider restoring the £1bn cut from youth services since 2010, and using the skills of the 4,500 trained youth workers lost since then.
Pam Walker
Hartburn, Northumberland
• If Tories like James Cleverly dislike the idea of young people living “in a bubble”, they could start by closing public schools.
Laura Wright
Bleadon, Somerset
• The restoration of national service would instil discipline, respect and an understanding of team-playing, which so many young people need. A bold but a necessary move to help standards of morals and behaviour.
Jonathan Longstaff
Buxted, East Sussex
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