Compulsory national service

Diagro · 12 Sep 2013 at 00:28

nick.lidgett said:
Thats bang out of order mate. I want to know what statistics or facts or any real proof you have of this to back your mindless statement up. Disgraceful.

Same crap they get the statistics about teachers

=XDC=FluphyBunny · 12 Sep 2013 at 09:11

steve45 said:
What like fine Gents? OF COURSE! I'll be behaving like one this weekend, possibly my last in the country for a number of months!

So a weekend of community focused work and helping old ladies cross the street.

Craig1981 · 12 Sep 2013 at 09:22

Giving chavs military training? Yeah, thats a plan with absolutely no downsides.

krooton · 12 Sep 2013 at 09:31

DampCat said:
Good lord. Disgraceful? Bang out of order?

Do you work for The Daily Mail? Jump down, son. That's a big horse.

Usage of "bang out of order" is, itself, bang out of order.

d_brennen · 12 Sep 2013 at 09:34

Craig1981 said:
Giving chavs military training? Yeah, thats a plan with absolutely no downsides.

I think training in armed and unarmed combat coupled with strength and endurance training would greatly benefit the average lowlife in his day to day life

McGray · 12 Sep 2013 at 09:57

Tbf most of the armed forces are made up of the unemployable anyway.

ci_newman · 12 Sep 2013 at 10:13

Could this be a thinly veiled way of reducing the number of youth outside of work or employment? That would look good on the run up to the election..

Theophany · 12 Sep 2013 at 10:30

I don't think the military would be particularly thrilled to have those of my ilk forced upon them. I'd give me a week before they ship me back to work.

Diagro · 12 Sep 2013 at 10:32

26 is about the age that is too high

Should be 18-21

I'm 24 and would tell them to shove it as I am simply too busy

tom_e · 12 Sep 2013 at 10:33

The officers are definitely just as bad if not worse than the squaddies.
Went to visit my mate up in his mess one night and as we walked into the mess his 2IC said "We've finally got the ceiling fixed"
It transpired that the week before when they were all absolutely mashed they had spotted a little hole in the plaster on the ceiling, this obviously needed fixing so they started launching pint glasses at it till it was a proper hole, later on that evening the night descended into filling bin lids with WKD and chinning it as fast as possible and also chugging glass boots full of beer along with the associated vomiting afterwards.
These are supposed to be the behaved lot

Theophany · 12 Sep 2013 at 10:33

Diagro said:
26 is about the age that is too high

Should be 18-21

I'm 24 and would tell them to shove it as I am simply too busy

I don't think compulsory means what you think it means.

Neutralmilk · 12 Sep 2013 at 10:47

Many of the things that's mentioned in this bill should have been taught at school. Instead of forcing people to potentially work for an army when they don't want to, they should possibly have a rethink about what's happening in some schools.

deuse · 12 Sep 2013 at 10:49

What a good idea

bring it back asap and watch the UK empty over night

Amp34 · 12 Sep 2013 at 11:48

dowie said:
its both pointless and unnecessary... why spend money on something like that when defence cuts are already being made - increasing numbers in the TA doesn't require compulsory national service

WHy would it come out of the defence budget? It would be education IMO. It's basically an extra year of compulsary study, considering the government have basically made it compulsary for people to study to the age of 18 anyway another year isn't going to be an issue.

dowie said:
well make it voluntary then - or compulsory for people who are claiming job seekers benefits and haven't found a job after X years....

for lots of other people its just going to screw with their careers... some imaginary workaround to integrate jobs into it isn't going to prevent that... certainly a good way of encouraging highly skilled people to leave the country too - 1st class degree, complete masters, completed PhD... drat now aged 25 and have 1 year left to complete national service... forget about moving into a post doc position and working on cutting edge research you've got to do some charity work or military service.... alternatively move to California, Switzerland and pursue lucrative startup job there instead of staying under a regressive regime in the UK because some conservatives are still jerking off over what it was like in the 1950s...

if you were thinking that perhaps the post doc research would count somehow because you might deem it useful then there is another can of worms over what can and can't count... the whole thing would become a bureaucratic nightmare as there are plenty of roles out there you'd need to cover - anyone who's a non-retard would essentially find loop holes

Its not even clear what problem this would attempt to fix or how it would be beneficial in the majority of cases.

Why leav it until you're 25 before you do it? One, you're rather silly to leave it til that age considering you could have done it as soon as you did your A-Levels, during uni summer holidays or after you graduate before you start school. As others have mentioned in other countries this is done it shouldn't affect your job opportunities, in fact it'll probably become the case that employers would preferentially chose people who have done it due to showing dedication and developing skills. I'm sure for graduates all that would happen is you'd deffer you career by a year, which would be the standard thing to do.

Alternatively if you're suggesting if it came in everyone under 26 would automatically fall into compulsary national service, rather than doing what is normal in this case of starting it with people born after a certain year. For example when they change exam sylibus exam boards dont post date the changes to those already studying, they start with the year just about to start.

I do agree though, if there is no chance of a standard national service then something like compulsary national service for a year if you are under 25 and have been claiming JSA for 6 months. Then again that's not far off what the government tried to introduce with forcing people into unpaid jobs with big companies. I'd hope that wouldn't be allowed however and instead it would be military training or charity style work only (for example working for St Johns Ambulance, National trust and national parks style organisations that rely on volunteers anyway).

Obviously none of us really know what is being proposed but I still think a compulsary national service is a great idea in principle, especially for those without job experience or with troubled pasts (ie been in trrouble with the police or poor academic grades, you never know, more vocational training may really change their lives). If it's just beasting people for a year in military style environments and forcing people onto sentry duty then no, i'm firmly against that, however that doesn't appear to be what compulsary service is like in most of the rest of europe.

wingman · 12 Sep 2013 at 12:07

Would have loved this when I came out of school, I was 16 years old and, not knowing what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go, this would have been ideal. I was refused from joining the army because of an illness which I think was pretty bang out of order (sorry).

Now, at 23, I'm half way through a chartered accountancy qualification.

I'd be somewhat miffed at the thought of being pulled out of that and thrown in with a load of unemployed council house and violents.

MookJong · 12 Sep 2013 at 12:12

A more militarised subsurvient population....just what we need.

This will never happen.

Amp34 · 12 Sep 2013 at 12:14

wingman said:
Would have loved this when I came out of school, I was 16 years old and, not knowing what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go, this would have been ideal. I was refused from joining the army because of an illness which I think was pretty bang out of order (sorry).

Now, at 23, I'm half way through a chartered accountancy qualification.

I'd be somewhat miffed at the thought of being pulled out of that and thrown in with a load of unemployed council house and violents.

But would that happen, or would it actually be (assuming it started in 2014) anyone born after 1996 has to complete a year of national service before the age of 26...?

Generally the latter is what happens with government and educational policies (see student loans, GCSE, A-Levels etc).

Amp34 · 12 Sep 2013 at 12:15

MookJong said:
A more militarised subsurvient population....just what we need.

This will never happen.

Amp34 said:
Nice to see the usual arguments against national service already coming in here.. Namely that it will ONLY involve military service...

Who said anything about just military service?

That fact seems to have bypassed the Falmouth activist as well...

Tunney · 12 Sep 2013 at 13:55

Compulsory national service is a great way to get all of our brightest and most ambitious young people to go work abroad.

BusError · 14 Sep 2013 at 11:43

I was enrolled against my will for a year in the french army, back before it was abolished (just before, just my luck!)

The executive summary is that I didn't any particular opinion about the army before I 'joined', but I left as a lifelong antimilitarist.

Basically it involved being the literal slave labour of everyone else, and give people who definitely shouldn't have any authority over anyone (including themselves) a small army to play with.
As for useful "training"? forget about it. For me it was a year that was stolen from me by the state, 1/80th (if lucky) of my lifetime wasted.