He added the move would help young people learn "real world skills, do new things and contribute to their community and our country".
LMAO. You know where else they could learn this? In schools, if it were taught! Vocational schools exist too. Or community outreach, or a bunch of other things that don't involve forcing a person to work for the army.
Their other option would be to volunteer one weekend per month - or 25 days per year - in their community with organisations such as fire, police and the NHS.
Wasn't there a "police explorers" program in the US - which resulted in exactly what you would expect to happen when you give policemen access to teenage girls?
Tories are cooking...whatever crap they can to appeal to their voter base.
That same voter base that voted Brexit because of some stupid dream they had that things were better in the past
Pulling at the same chords, tories appealing to the same delusion that sending the youth to the army... Jesus...right out of the lunatic right playbook
Yeah, I don't really like the idea of training everyone to be killing machines. But a national program to do all the other things associated with military training, such as fitness and basic survival training seems like a good thing.
But arguably these are things that could be done in national education programmes anyway. The Tory scumbags are just trying to appeal to bloodthirsty gammons. They have no interest in actually making society a healthier and happier place, they are always only interested in wealth and power.
Although, there may be a potential pragmatism in being prepared for shit kicking off with Putin. But it can't be forgotten that they have blame in that rise to power too, taking backhanders and advantage of the right wing populism campaigns Putin's been running for decades now.
When you get past the image of square bashing, room inspections and peeling potatoes, it might not be such a bad idea. Especially as there will be non military options.