Excellent idea.
There should be universal and compulsory – non-military, but uniformed, ranked and barracked – National Service between secondary education and tertiary education or training.
Social mixing. Good works. Discipline. And no one going to university without having lived just that little bit, making them immune to Marxism, or anarcho-capitalism, or the marriage of the two in New Labour and the rest of neoconservatism, or any other such rubbish.
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And when were you in the TA?
ReplyDeleteI wasn't. But I was in the Scouts, which is much what the Prospect proposal either seems to amount to or could be turned into, but that bit older so full-time residential and a bit harsher in the good way.
ReplyDeleteThere must not, of course, be any compromise of the operational efficiency of all-volunteer Armed Forces. Nor would there be.
This idea of National Service should go down really well in Crossmaglen and West Belfast.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly "Northern Ireland" did not have conscription in WW2. Apparently it would have taken more army personnel to have enforced it than they would have gained.
Not just in respect of the Nationalist/Catholic side......the Protestant/Unionists really thought one Somme was enough so they got themselves reserved occupations.
"This idea of National Service should go down really well in Crossmaglen and West Belfast"
ReplyDeleteYes, it would. More people from the Free State than from Northern Ireland volunteered during the War, and the Irish remain such a maninstay of the British Army that they carried the Queen Mother's coffin.
Anyway, this scheme is exactly the sort of thing that the Northern Ireland Party (there's only one, it just trades under four different names) now comes up with of its own accord.
And one of the two more powerful of the four affiliates to the Northern Ireland Party is Sinn Fein, which would be right behind this.
Ah......WW2 yes a considerable number of People from the Republic did join up certainly more than from the North, who were busy developing careers in fire watching. Odd because there were not any fires to watch.
ReplyDeleteAs you probably know the Good Friday Agreement provides that people born in the Republic have the right to exercise their right to be British. The number of people taking this option is around 15.
The same provision allows those born in "Northern Ireland" to be Irish (rubber stamping a de facto agreement). The numbers taking this up are in the tens of thousands.
Each 12th July there is the opportunity to express British symbols. Indeed it lasts all summer. Not much enthusiasm in West Belfast or Crossmaglen Im afraid.
But this sin't military service. It is, as I said, exactly the sort of thing that SF comes up with these days.
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