Critiquing Sunak's national service proposal

Hi there guys, as you probably already know, we're going to have a general election in the UK on the 4th July and PM Rishi Sunak is headed for a slaughter at the polls as he is expected to sustain very heavy losses given how deeply unpopular his government has become. Thus in a rather desperate bid to reverse the fortunes of his party, he has come up with some radical ideas in his manifesto and probably the worst one of them all is the reintroduction of national service (NS). Now as someone who served two years four months of NS back when I lived in Singapore, I am extremely cynical and I am not quite sure why nobody on his team has warned him that this is such a terrible idea. So in this post, I am going to analyse what Sunak and his party has been saying about the concept of NS and doing a fact-check exercise to see if there is any merit to what they are claiming, or if this is all just a bunch of lies to once again deceive the voters. 

Claim 1: Rishi Sunak said, this proposed scheme (NS) would promote a "shared sense of purpose among our young people and a renewed sense of pride in our country".

Verdict: No, totally unrealistic, it doesn't work like that in real life. This is complete fantasy, he is out of touch with reality. I'm calling bullshit on this one because people are inherently selfish. Young people have a sense of purpose but this is fuelled by what they wish to achieve in life rather than a sense of duty or responsibility towards their country. It simply isn't in our culture to have this notion of serving our country - at a more local level, individuals can pick their own causes that they care a lot about and dedicate their time to it. There are many great charities that thrive on loads of volunteers who give their time for free. But would people be willing to do the same for their country out of this shared sense of purpose? No, they would not, that simply wouldn't happen because the country is just too vast, too complex for people to identify with. Let's take a simple example to contrast this with: Marie is a volunteer at her local church, she spends a lot of her time there as she is retired. There is a community there amongst the church members who are there for her, they spend loads of time on important projects for the church and Marie can see how her contributions are making a difference for her church and the people there. Marie also gets plenty of positive feedback from the rest of the congregation and there is a simple feedback loop in the example of Marie: she volunteers at her church, she sees the fruits of her labour, she feels a sense of purpose at the church when the others at the church thank her and give her positive feedback, Marie is then motivated to keep on volunteering and contributing at her church. Her church is a small enough microcosm for that to work very well, but can you actually expand that to a national scale? The answer is no, young people are simply told to give up their time and serve their country but it is hard to make sure you give them enough reward to foster that sense of purpose in serving their country. It is ludicrous to assume that NS would give people a sense of pride in their country, pride comes from being able to be proud of something the individual has achieved. So if a young man works as a life guard during his national service and saves a child from drowning, he has achieved but that pride is personal and based on his achievement of having saved a life, but how can that be mistaken as pride in one's country? None of what Sunak said makes any sense at all, as he doesn't understand how pride works. 

Does this reflect my experience? Hell no. There certainly was no shared sense of purpose, not at all! Sunak has no idea what it is like to serve in the military and has idealistic fantasies about how the soldiers can forge a shared identity and purpose just because they are forced to serve together. I did learn some useful social skills during my NS, but that was mostly related to getting along with difficult people. Oh boy, there were some people I hated so much but had to work with, I had no choice in the matter. I deeply disliked these people for their personal flaws and the fact that we were serving NS together wasn't going to somehow make me overlook their flaws and befriend them. Nope, I merely learnt how to be very diplomatic with them whilst keeping my feelings to myself. Get real, if you put a bunch of random guys together in a room and make them serve NS together, what makes you think they are going to somehow just get along because of this shared sense of purpose and a renewed sense of pride in our country? That was never going to happen. It was the luck of the draw - some of the people I met were nicer than others, some of them were downright nasty and within that context, I made some friends whilst I carefully protected myself from the nastiest ones by keeping my distance. Thus what I did at that point in time was completely logical, I dealt with that situation in a very rational manner given that there was a mix of good and bad people I had to deal with on a daily basis. Sunak's statement totally ignores the possibility of someone finding themselves in the situation that I found myself in and having to deal with a mix of good and bad people; rather, it is completely dependent on this assumption that every single person the young people will encounter in NS will be nice and there will never be any nasty, evil people in there. However, as I have found out through my own experience, when you subject all males in Singapore to NS, then you're bound to have a mix of both good and bad, kind and evil people in that mix because that is the very nature of our human society. Therefore it was impossible to foster any kind of "shared sense of purpose" when the soldiers in NS had little in common apart from the fact that they were serving NS together - they were still very much divided by their social classes, ethnic backgrounds, education levels and religion. Hence simply making them serve NS together isn't going to somehow eradicate all these other huge differences overnight and create a brand new unity amongst them - that simply didn't happen during my NS experience. 

Claim 2: James Cleverley (Home Secretary) said, "National service would engage young people in society again when "too many live in their own bubble" and this would "address the fragmentation in society" He went on to explain that, "we want to get back to a situation where young people are mixing with people - in different areas, different economic groups, different religions - to try and find a way of addressing the kind of fragmentation that we see too much of".

Verdict: Actually, this idea has some merit because the UK is a deeply divided country but in reality, can it really achieve this goal? The answer is no - British people are segregated according to their social class, their religion, their wealth (or lack of), their cultures and that's just the way we like it. As a private citizen, I get to choose my jobs, my friends, whom I spend my spare time with and most importantly, I get to avoid people I don't like. As a result, most of my friends fit a certain profile - let me give you an example, when I was at the gym recently, I met this Canadian lady whom I shall call Esther (not her real name), she speaks French, she works in investment banking, she is white and clearly quite rich. We got along really well, have become good friends and I have added her on all the usual social media platforms. At the same time, I met this working class black guy whom we shall refer to as Wilbur (not his real name). Don't get me wrong, I'm not a racist but the moment I found out that he worked a minimum wage job at a clothing retailer (which sold cheap stuff), I kept my distance. It wasn't like I went out of my way to be nasty to him or bully him, no - I simply said very little to him. There is no conflict at all, just an absence of any kind of social interaction. So when he saw me he might say hi, I'd acknowledge that by saying hello back to him but the conversations never went any further than that as I felt we had absolutely nothing in common. Now what I am describing is exactly what happens in the lives of people all over the country - we seek the familiar, in the company of others whom we have a lot in common with and we tend to avoid those who are very different. Thus people like Esther and Wilbur would never become friends in the real world because of their different social backgrounds - Esther is rich and white, Wilbur is poor and black, they will simply seek friends who are similar to themselves. Cleverly is right to point out that our society is very fragmented and different social groups simply do not mix in modern Britain. But would NS change any of that? I don't think so. It might go as far as to open the eyes of some people like Esther to the working classes, as she came from a rich family, she might have encountered working class people like servants and nannies when growing up but would she ever establish any kind of meaningful friendship with someone like Wilbur even if we had forced them to do NS together? No, I don't think so, as they have nothing in common. It is like getting oil and water to mix by stirring it vigorously, but when left alone the two will naturally separate. 

Does this reflect my experience? When I served NS back in Singapore, I had the chance to mix with people from different backgrounds - there was this guy whose parents were so ridiculously rich and then there were some scary ex-convicts who had spent time in jail. I came from a typical working class family and it was a shock to the system as I was a student doing my A levels prior to enlisting. Did the guy from the rich family put aside his wealth and embraced me as a brother during our time in NS? No, why would he? He simply looked down on me for being the scum of society, nobody gave him the memo that he was supposed to act as if we were all equal - of course that wasn't the case, he knew he was due to inherit millions and if he chose not to work in this life time, he still couldn't finish spending all the money his parents were going to leave him as inheritance. Whilst there were some scary ex-convicts, I was different from the other working class guys because I was very well educated and had thrived in Singapore's competitive education system whilst those guys flunked out of school barely able to read and write. They really resented and hated people like me because I somehow cracked the code about social mobility - we went to the same schools, were educated in the same system yet somehow I became a triple-scholar whilst  they were dropouts. None of it seemed fair to them, so I can understand their anger and frustration but when all that anger and frustration was directed at me, that was when it became quite scary to say the least. If I had done something bad to hurt you, I have given you reason to hate me and that makes sense. But if I have never ever met you before, yet you bear so much resentment and hatred towards me, then that's just fucking scary and a lot for me as an 18 year old kid to deal with. Thus having gone through that experience, I can say that Cleverly is totally delusional when he claims that NS would address the fragmentation of our society - here's the best case scenario: these young people are forced to live and work together during their NS for a limited period of time. They can tolerate each other and they will avoid conflicts by minimizing social contact with those they have little in common with. At the end of that experience, they simply go back to their civilian lives where they stick to people within their own communities, with whom they have a lot in common with and our society remains extremely fragmented. The worst case scenario? You have plenty of conflicts and these young people argue, fight and even kill each other when they're pushed over the limit. 

Claim 3: Rishi Sunak also said, "This modern form of national service will mean that young people get the skills and the opportunities that they need, which is going to serve them very well in life."

Verdict: This is a very rich kid talking, Sunak has no idea how NS actually works in real life. In the real world, the teenagers from the rich families and they have all the skills and opportunities they need because their parents are willing to spend a lot of money to access everything that their children need for a brighter future. When I last worked for a British company, the CEO made sure his son Jeff (not his real name) got some valuable work experience despite the fact that Jeff attended a university that was near the bottom of the UK university league tables. Yeah, rich parents are able to extend such privileges to their kids even if their kids are (if I may be blunt) pretty stupid, but the playing field was never level. I came from a working class family whereby my uneducated parents were absolutely clueless about what I needed to do to gain the skills I needed for a brighter future. So how is NS going to step in there and play the role of the caring, rich parent and provide these poor, working class young people with the skills and opportunities they need to get ahead in life? That is so unrealistic. The caring CEO who made sure his son Jeff had some useful work experience, that's an example of a loving parent willing to do anything to help their children. Likewise, when I tutored my nephew for his A level economics exam, it was a labour of love - you couldn't pay me enough to do something like that but I did it anyway because he is my nephew and I was motivated by a genuine desire to play my role as an uncle and do everything I could to help my nephew. That is the power of love within a family and it is totally unrealistic to expect NS to provide that same level of care, support and guidance when it is an untested mechanism that will be run by the state and/or the ministry of defence. Whilst it is a noble intention to try to help young people from poorer, more working class backgrounds to access better opportunities to have a brighter future, expecting NS to somehow deliver all this without throwing an insane amount of money at it to make sure it delivers, I'm afraid, is simply ludicrous. This is a clear case of overpromising and underdelivering - whilst NS may go some way in giving young people the chance to experience something new, whether or not this would prove to serve them well in their careers as adults remains very doubtful. At best, Sunak has been woefully optimistic about what NS could potentially deliver for the young people, but at worst, Sunak is totally delusional. 

Does this reflect my experience? I was stuck doing a lot of vapid, boring menial work during my NS because I was just a kid then who hadn't completed my further education. I was never going to end up doing that kind of working class job after I had completed my further education. The fact is I didn't have a clear idea what I was going to do with my career as an adult and it was really going to university that gave me the opportunity to discover many of the new opportunities that I then pursued. A lot of the work that I did in NS were very basic - I rolled my eyes and thought, as if I was going to go through all that education, get a degree and then end up doing something like that. This kind of NS work experience will help working class kids who are barely literate and it could make the difference between them ending up long-term unemployed or pursuing a life of criminality and showing them, look you're actually capable of becoming a mechanic or a security guard. It is easy to prove to someone on the lower end of the food chain that they are capable of a simple, working class job that doesn't require that much brains or training. However, if you're dealing with someone like me who intends to pursue a career using my brains to make a lot of money, then national service has nothing to offer me, absolutely nothing at all. The reason is simple: if you want to pursue a career in law, medicine, finance or any career that usually involves a degree, then you need a very specific kind of internship in order to provide you with the right kind of work experience. However, if you want to become a mechanic, an electrician or a delivery driver, then you don't need a degree - you might require some basic training but it is so easier to ease someone who isn't that ambitious into one of these working class jobs. That is the detail that Sunak has conveniently left out: this is a scheme that will benefit the poorest, most working class young people who are going to end up doing the most poorly paid jobs in our economy - it will do absolutely nothing for the richer kids who have more ambition to pursue graduate careers. I made the most of my time during NS by doing a lot of self-study whenever I could, but I need to be very clear about this: that was me taking my own initiative to be productive, there wasn't a helpful adult there telling me, hey Alex, you need to understand this aspect of how to deal with the situation. If I had been too passive in that process, I would have simply wasted that entire period I spent doing NS as I learnt so little there. Thankfully, I am smart and resourceful enough to help myself in that kind of situation, but what about the others who just aren't as resourceful? They simply floundered and wasted their time. 

Claim 4: Furthermore, in an official statement from the Conservative party on the subject, it was stated that "young people in full-time armed forces placements could gain better work or study opportunities, including fast-tracked interviews for graduate schemes in the civil service or private sector."

Verdict: What kind of dumb bullshit nonsense is this, it is practically a bribe if you put it like that. Any organisation, whether they are the civil service or the private sector would want to hire the very best talents for the job - that is called meritocracy. It means having the power to discriminate on the basis of ability, to pick the best person for the job but what the Conservative party is suggesting is that we compromise this basic principle of meritocracy and favour candidates who have served NS in the armed forces, even if they might be inferior to other candidates up for the same job who have not done that. As a business owner in the private sector, I find that scary because I worry if I may be then forced to hire someone who isn't capable for the job, who was not my first choice but somehow was bumped up that shortlist because of this policy - having served NS myself back in the day, I found out first hand how totally irrelevant the experiences I had in the army were to the business world. In the business world, we talk about transferrable skills when we move from one job or one company to another. In this case, there are virtually no transferrable skills that one can take from the military to the business world - none at all. As a potential employer, I would like to be able to look at each candidate's experience and decide for myself if those skills are transferrable or not, rather than for the government to mandate that those skills and experiences obtained through armed forces placements must be, by law, all considered totally transferrable and relevant for all jobs in the private sector. A far more practical way to reward those who choose armed forces placements would be give these young people a grant to spend on training and further education, that way it is just cash in hand and it will be up to these young people to pick the right courses and obtain the relevant training that they need for their careers. Whilst this may be a very expensive option, it can work as long as that money is well spent. However, such a scheme would cost the government a lot of money to fund and thus the government is being very cheap by asking the civil service and the private sector to pick up the slack by granting these young people some kind of priority when it comes to finding a job. The government is making the incorrect assumption that all experiences in the armed forces will give young people very useful or transferable skills to take to a different sector, when in reality that simply isn't true at all. 

Does this reflect my experience? Singapore doesn't have any kind of scheme to force employers to fast track locals who have done national service, but in any case I never tried to look for a job in Singapore. Every single employer I have dealt with has prompted ignored the fact that I have done NS in Singapore and have focused on other parts of my skill set and experience because of my career choice. The only way my time in NS might have yielded more relevant work experience was if I actually pursued a career in the military but that was not something I wanted to do. Certainly, whenever I was looking for a new job, I knew the onus was on me to prove my worth to my potential employer, brandishing something like "I did NS, now bump me to the top of your shortlist" is counter productive. I can foresee a hypothetical situation whereby two directors are saying to each other, "we have five people on our shortlist, but ignore candidate number one - he is only on that list because he did NS, he will be the first to eliminate and we'll just hire one of the other four." Thus even if Sunak did somehow get his way (which he won't as he is going to lose this election), this scheme would not benefit those taking part in the way that Sunak has promised, this will be yet another broken promise. 

Claim 5: Sunak said in reference to those who opt for military service for their NS, "They will have the option to work in many areas, from defending our country against cyber attacks to developing their leadership skills."

Verdict: This is so far removed from reality, he is delusional. Whilst it is important to defend our country against cyber attacks, what makes you think an 18 year old is going to have the skills to do that? Perhaps one in a hundred thousand 18 year old can be that brilliant and actually has the skills to do something like that but no, what most young people end up doing NS is the most boring, mundane, entry level type of work which they can do on their own with just a few week's training. Time for a reality check people: it is not going to be fun or exciting, it will be painfully boring. The people who have the most exciting, interesting and fun jobs have spent many years studying and training before they are able to do what they do as a professional. Sunak is an example of a ridiculously rich parent who is so used to giving his children anything they want, "you want to learn how to prevent cyber attacks against our country? Of course, let daddy make a few phone calls and I'll get you started on it." Let's get realistic about NS, are you going to become a fighter pilot if you spend one year in doing NS? No of course not, even if you join the Royal Air Force (RAF), there is absolutely no guarantee that you can make your fighter pilot dreams come true. You would need to go through several stages of training in order to qualify to the next stage and given that the RAF doesn't need thousands of pilots but many wish to become fighter pilots, the process is very competitive and hence only the very best make it to the end of this process and succeed. Most will simply fall out of the process along the way and end up being a mechanic servicing or cleaning these planes as ground crew. Furthermore, I don't want some 18 year kid who has just finished his A levels defending my country against cyber attacks - I want an experienced adult to do that difficult task. As for leadership skills, there's already plenty of opportunities within schools for young people to develop their leadership skills but I feel that you can't teach someone to be a leader - it's a personality trait, you must have the right social skills to persuade others to listen to you and follow you. If someone lacks those social skills, the obvious thing to do would be to let them be a follower instead.

Does this reflect my experience? During my time in NS, I observed that a small number of very lucky and privileged individuals were placed in interesting, even fun positions where they managed to learn a lot from their experiences: these were usually the sons of politicians and very rich businessmen who were able to call in certain favours to make sure their sons could make the most of their time in NS. But if you were ordinary working class scum like me, then no, you didn't have that privilege and you were simply assigned to wherever they needed manpower. Nobody gave a damn what I wanted to do, what kind of skills I had to offer or if I was going to get a useful working experience there - I simply didn't get a say in the matter. The system simply wasn't set up that way, we were just assigned our vocations and there was really nothing we could do it we didn;t like what we were given. Let's contrast this to when I took a nice holiday in Greece some years ago, I booked a flight + hotel package and I was met at the hotel by a host who offered a welcome drink, tea and loads of delicious snacks. As we sat down to indulge in all that delicious food, we were pitched various excursions that they offered to make the most of our holiday there. That was when I realized, ah okay this is a sales pitch, they lured me in with nice food and now I'm listening to a sales pitch. But fair enough, some of those excursions were actually very interesting and it did inspire me to do a lot more with my time in Greece. We were presented with a glossy brochure of all the best activities we could do whilst on holiday there; some excursions were more expensive than others of course but there was an element of choice there. Sunak had presented NS as if these young people were going to be greeted by a holiday representative with a glossy brochure of loads of fun activities when the reality is that the vast majority of these young people are going to be left with no choice whatsoever but to accept whatever terrible option is given to them. In Singapore, it was impossible to give the young recruits any choice in the matter as they would all want to do as little as possible but positions in the infantry and other more unforgiving vocations have got to be filled - thus we all simply hoped for the best, but expected the worst, knowing that only the sons of the elites would be given the kind of VIP experience that Sunak has talked about. By that token, of course the entire system is very corrupt (but that shouldn't surprise you). 

Claim 6: Sunak also said, "it will provide life changing opportunities for our young people, offering them the chance to learn real world skills, do new things and contribute to their community and our country. It shouldn't only be those who are fortunate enough to go on gap years to get the opportunity to have these kinds of experiences." 

Verdict: Sunak thinks it's a a nice internship that rich kids have when daddy makes a phone call to his best friend. Firstly, let me tell you what rich kids do on gap years: when these teenagers complete their A levels, they can take a year off and delay starting their undergraduate studies. In that year, they would travel around the world, get a bit of work experience but mostly have a lot of fun. The parents reckon, my children have the rest of their lives to study hard at university or be tied down with a full time job, so this is my chance to give my children the holiday of a life time. It is effectively a year long holiday in some of the most exotic, beautiful locations in the world that costs an insane amount of money. So along the way, these teenagers might do a little bit of volunteer work like various charities so it will look good on their CVs. Gap years are usually the experience of a life time when young people get to travel the world in style with their rich friends, spending a lot of their parents' money and yes, it may come with some incredible experiences but let's be clear: it is their parents paying a lot of money for their children to have these awesome experiences. This simply cannot be compared to NS, when you are meant to serving your country rather than paying a lot of money to have a fun holiday. The two simply cannot be compared, I have done both: I have served my NS, I have also paid a lot of money to have incredible holidays and the two experiences couldn't be more different. For Sunak to compare the two as if they could be similar shows how out of touch with reality he is. If you want an opportunity to give young people can be life changing and provide them with awesome experiences that will let them learn some valuable skills, you have to throw a lot of money at it to make it work and that's exactly what these super rich parents do for their trust fund kids. But if Sunak thinks that the country can somehow find the money to provide that same level of experience for all young people in the country, then he hasn't thought this through - where is that money going to come from? How can we afford it as a country when we're struggling to keep the health service going and public infrastructure is crying out for more investment? Or is Sunak being so condescending in believing that making a working class teenager volunteer for a few hours each weekend would be enough to turn him from a drug dealer to someone willing to do a dreadful, minimum wage job in a warehouse on a godforsaken industrial estate in some depressed suburb of Middlesbrough? Either way, Sunak's plan makes no sense. 

Does this reflect my experience? On the day I started my NS, I was already a bright young man who had aced my A levels and had secured a scholarship to my university in the UK. I had bright plans for my future and I hate the way Sunak talked about young people as if they are clueless. Most young people have remained in full time education until the age of 18 and have had a lot of time to think about what kind of opportunities and experiences they would need to help them achieve their career goals. For poor working class kids like me, the issue was always money as my parents couldn't afford to pay for a lot of the things I would have liked to have done back then and NS certainly didn't plug that gap at all. Instead, it gave me a taste of what it was like to do a mundane, working class job which would suit the people who simply just weren't that educated. If anything, the experience was so bad that I swore I would study hard at university to make sure I would never ever end up doing a terrible job like that. I served NS with some working class guys who struggled at school and wouldn't go onto further education; they faced a very grim future doing lowly-paid, unskilled work for the rest of their lives and simply getting them to serve NS didn't break that cycle and somehow turned them investment bankers or brain surgeons. Nothing changed for them in the long run, they still ended up in those dead end jobs because of the unfortunate circumstances of their childhood which doomed them from the start, leaving them in this situation where they are so far behind their peers and unable to access better employment opportunities. NS was never ever going to fix all those problems that affected them in their childhood; putting any expectations that NS could make a difference and help these people is completely wrong as it did absolutely nothing for them. After they had completed their NS, they just went on to do really terrible jobs. The key difference between what Sunak has described and my experience is the element of choice - in the military, you do not get to choose anything at all. You are told what to wear when you are given a uniform, you are told when your meal times are and you eat what you're given, you obey orders and the only appropriate response is "yes sir". At no point, was I ever given any element of choice when it came to so many aspects of my daily life and anyone who is familiar with life in the military would say yes of course, that is exactly what happens in the army. I know that, you know that but Sunak seems to think otherwise - he hasn't done his research. 

Claim 7: Sunak also claimed that, "this rite of passage will create a shared sense of purpose amongst our young people and a renewed sense of pride in our country."

Verdict: It doesn't work like that in real life. In fact, this reflects a post I did quite a while ago on my blog when I disagreed with one of my readers. Firstly, Sunak's plan offers young people a wide range of options when it comes to where and how they serve NS, so it is not going to be a similar experience for all of these young people and by that token, how can he claim that it will be a rite of passage? It could only be a rite of passage if it was a very similar kind of NS training experience that all young people had to go through. Allow me to use an analogy: loads of people have taken a holiday in the UK but would that shared experience then somehow bond them all? No, because different tourists have done different activities in the UK. The tourist who goes trekking in the snow covered peaks of the Scottish Highlands is coming away with a totally different experience compared to the tourist who has spent a whole week in London's West End watching a lot of plays and musicals. The sense of purpose you may derive from your NS is directly related to what you do: for example, if you served as a life guard at a swimming pool, your purpose is saving lives and keeping the swimmers safe as they enjoy the pool. However, to try to extrapolate that and take that purpose from the pool to the entire country is just lunacy - if you want to feel a sense of purpose towards your country, then really you need to have achieved something that has an tangible impact nationwide. Furthermore, if you want to have a sense of pride, you need to start with yourself: look at your reflection in the mirror and ask yourself, what have you achieved recently that you can be proud about? The UK has plenty of heroes who have accomplished a lot and have done their national proud: from Tim Berners-Lee to Stephen Hawking to Isaac Newton to John Lennon but these people have a long list of accomplishments that they can point to and say, "this is what I have achieved and I'm proud of what I have done." How can anyone have any kind of pride in their country? If you want to have pride, then that needs to come from what you have achieved, not what someone else in your country has achieved. Did you help John Lennon pen the lyrics to Imagine? Were you in the lab with Stephen Hawking? I can certainly express my admiration for someone who has done something incredible but to derive any personal pride from it is just plain wrong. You need to help these young people to achieve goals that they can genuinely be proud of, rather than fill their heads with some idealistic vision of how patriotism can replace genuine pride. 

Does this reflect my experience? I remember this argument I had with a reader years ago when he accused me of being lucky, in that I didn't suffer enough during NS and if I had been given a tougher vocation (such as that of an infantry soldier), then the shared suffering that I would have had with my fellow soldiers would have bonded us together. I disagreed with him because all soldiers who served NS were at least 18 years old before they enlisted, they had 18 years of shaping their identities, 18 years to develop their individual characters and thus they are not like new born babies or blank slates that you could nurture; how they would respond to a traumatic experience which makes them suffer a lot would depend a lot on the first 18 years of their lives. Thus I feel like I reacted differently to my 'suffering' in NS compared to a lot of my peers not so much because the 'suffering' wasn't intense enough, but more because of the kind of education and other life experiences that I have had in the first 18 years of my life prior to enlistment in the army. At the end of the day, we're all so different because of our various social backgrounds, social classes, cultures, religions and whilst NS can be a good training ground to try to put up with people who have absolutely nothing in common with us, it is utterly unrealistic to imagine that we would somehow just form bonds with people whom we have nothing in common with. I question this desperate need to try to create this shared sense of purpose because our society is just so divided and fragmented - this is simply unachievable so why even bother? As for pride in one's country - again, I don't agree with that. I'd pass on patriotism as I believe in having pride in your own achievements, that is far more healthy. Whilst we want to help nurture the youth to achieve as much as possible so they can achieve their full potential and have something they can be truly proud of, I just don't understand this obsession with trying to forge this shared identity, shared purpose and shared pride when so little is actually shared in this country; just look at how unequal the wealth distribution is, any talk about the rich and the poor somehow 'sharing' anything is just hypocritical. The rich people like Sunak would never share their wealth with you, but at least you can share in this sense of pride. But this pride can't pay the bills, this is not how you help the youth of today who need help to access better paid, highly-skilled jobs in order to attain real social mobility. 

Claim 8: Sunak said, "For some, it will open their eyes to potential careers." 

Verdict: What the heck do you think these 18 year olds have been doing for the last 18 years? The youth of today have grown up consuming a lot of social media and by the time they turn 18, they have a good idea of what they would like to with their working lives. Admittedly, some have better ideas and plans than others, however the issue for them is not knowing what they would like to do, but rather accessing those better jobs that can lead to social mobility. So for example, a young person watches the popular series Suits, becomes very inspired and decides he would like to become a lawyer, however, he is from a very working class background and doesn't know where to begin to get into one of the top law schools in the country. Thus NS isn't going to do anything for someone in that position who is aspiring to achieve social mobility by aiming for a highly skilled job like that. Sunak is probably envisioning these working class youths who are going to enjoy doing painfully boring working class jobs designed for the most uneducated in our society, steering them away from a life time of either long term unemployment or criminality. In any case, I don't think that would make much difference: those who end up either in long term unemployment or criminality do so because their lives were so incredibly messed up in the first 18 years of their lives and if that's the issue you're trying to address, then NS isn't going to fix it, no way. You need much earlier intervention in the lives of vulnerable young people to ensure that they are going to get the kind of education and support they need if, for example, they come from very problematic family situations and do not have the supervision one would normally expect children to have from responsible parents. Sadly, there will always be children who inevitably fall through the net through no fault of their own (as they had irresponsible parents who didn't play their part) and if you think that simply by making these young people do NS at the age of 18 would miraculously, magically correct all the things that have gone horribly wrong in the first 18 years of their lives, then you're completely delusional and don't have the faintest clue how to help these young people and all the challenges that they face. Some young people might be interested in a potential career in the military and something related to the armed forces, but these young people would choose this path regardless of whether or not they had to serve NS and in fact this is the current situation - we already have a professional army made up of individuals who have chosen this career path. 

Does this reflect my experience? Back in Singapore, you had the choice of either doing your NS for a shorter period of between 1 year 10 months to 2 years 6 months (that has been since changed to a flat 2 years) but be paid a tiny stipend during that period, or you could sign a longer contract with the armed forces for about 6 years and in return, you will get a much better monthly salary. Now this was an option that some of my peers did take but allow me to explain: it was not because they had tried NS and realized they loved military life. No, rather it was because they found out the hard way that the stipend we got paid wasn't enough to live on - without some help from your family, it would be impossible to live off that stipend. These people joined the military out of poverty, out of desperation - often with the most noble intentions. I knew this guy, let's call him Kumar (not his real name). He had two younger siblings and his parents were desperately poor. Kumar realized that the only way to ensure that his two younger siblings got to university and had a brighter future was if he could add to the family income, so more money could be dedicated to his younger siblings' education. The army was a means to an end for Kumar, it solved his family's financial problems but let's be clear about this: it was never Kumar's first choice of career. There was an element of sacrifice on his part to go down this road, he put aside his own preferences and prioritized the needs of his younger siblings. So the reason why I used this case study was to point out that whilst it is entirely possible that someone may find a career through NS, it might not be their first choice but simply a last resort if they are very poor. In most cases, the young men who did NS will end up doing something completely different in their adult lives for a simple reason: imagine if I said to them, "I'd like a career in investment banking in the future, can I do something in NS that will be relevant to that?" The answer would be no, we don't have anything that is related to that, you will have to do whatever you're assigned whether you like it or not. Now the people from the military may claim that I was given some kind of work experience that would have given me transferrable skills that I could take with me into the business world, but in reality, nobody actually taught me anything. No, I was simply placed in a difficult, stressful situation and was forced to figure out a lot for myself. There is a huge difference between pushing someone into the deep end of the pool to try to motivate them to learn how to swim and actually giving them proper swimming lessons. 

How does Singapore gets away with NS?

The reasons are simple: NS was introduced in Singapore back in 1967 upon independence and the withdrawal of British troops from the country - that left the small, newly independent country feeling very vulnerable as it was surrounded by hostile neighbours. This hostility only got worse over time as Singapore because very rich and prosperous whilst Malaysia and Indonesia lagged behind economically so there was always that feeling of peril and menace even if there has never really been the outright threat of war. The relationship that Singapore has with Malaysia and Indonesia has always been tricky, at times it can even be described as tense but it is easy to see why Singapore feels the need to protect itself and that has simply been the harsh reality that Singaporeans have accepted for a long time. Hence the Singaporean men who had to serve NS are basically told, tough shit, it is your responsibility to serve and protect the nation, we are not going to sugar coat it and male it sound like it is going to be a fun holiday camp - you're gonna suffer a lot, you're gonna have to make huge sacrifices and unfortunately, it is going to be a massive chunk of your time but look at the situation, we really need to protect the country. By that token, there is at least an element of honesty on the part of the Singaporean government when they make the young men enlist for NS. Thus the men in Singapore who have to serve enlist knowing exactly how tough NS is going to be and more to the point, just how little they are going to get out of it. This has been the case for the last 57 years and there is a precedent which leads to an acceptance of the grim reality: yeah it's a shit situation, but what can you do? Call it bad luck if you must, just accept your fate and deal with it. Whilst this is really bad deal for the young men bearing the brunt of this burden, at least there is some honesty about the reality of the situation. The reason why I am angry with Sunak's plans is because he is full of bullshit - he is  lying in totally misrepresenting what NS actually is and trying to make it sound like it is something wonderful for the young people who have to do it when really, that couldn't be further from reality. Ironically, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there is a real threat of war in Europe today if the conflict expands if Russia invades a country like Poland. Latvia or Estonia, dragging NATO into the conflict. That would give Sunak a much better reason to introduce NS - so why isn't Sunak talking about the threat of Russia when that is something that is a lot more real as the war in Ukraine drags on and on; Sunak can sell the concept of NS without telling any lies just how great NS will be for the young people having to serve? 

Why is Sunak doing this now then and why has this gone so badly wrong? 

Going into this election, Sunak's party is trailing behind Labour by an incredibly long way and the right wing vote is further split by the Reform party. The NS proposal is seen as a desperate bid to prevent the elderly vote from deserting the Tories for the Reform party, led by Nigel Farage. NS in the UK was abolished back in 1960s, so the last men who did NS in the UK are at least 80 years old today. Hence if Sunak is trying to appeal to this segment of the electorate, then it is still a bad plan - after all, if you are trying to appeal to these elderly folks, you need to be very clear, "I am doing this to appeal to you older folks, vote for the Tories, we care for the elderly!" The message instead is very confused - Sunak makes it sound like he is creating something for the youths and he is trying to appeal to the youth (and perhaps their parents) when it is very obvious that young voters would definitely hate the idea of NS; even parents would be concerned about this additional burden being placed on their children. Sunak needs to be clear, "I am doing all this to appeal to you voters over the age of 80 and our party is willing to do things to please the elderly. Vote for us, we are the party for the over 80s. We really love you old people!" But wait, this gets far worse: there simply aren't that many voters over the age of 80 - the life expectancy in the UK for men is 78.6 years for men and 82.6 years for women. Sunak is pissing off both younger voters and the parents of younger voters in order to chase a tiny portion of a electorate. Statistically, it doesn't make any sense, the numbers just don't add up. So here's a story for you: I have a family friend, let's call her Auntie Lia, she grew up on a farm and she always joked about how stupid her younger sister was. One task they had to do every morning was to gather eggs from the chicken coop and bring them to the kitchen. One morning, Lia's sister picked up five eggs and placed them on the small table by the chicken coop. Lia cautioned her sister that it would be safer not to carry more than two eggs in each hand and if make two trips if necessary. So Lia's sister picked up two eggs in each hand, leaving one egg left on the table. However, she accidentally bumped into the table and so that egg started rolling off the table. In blind panic, Lia's sister dropped her four eggs to stop that one last egg from falling off the table. She may have saved that last egg, but she smashed four eggs in the process of saving that one egg. You can laugh at how stupid Lia's sister was, but Sunak is doing the exact same thing right now in pursing the elderly vote - you really don't want to smash four eggs to save just one egg, it just makes no sense at all as a strategy to try to win an election - do the maths. 

It took me ages to get this post out as this was a complicated topic and Blogger's website currently has a lot of bugs which has really slowed down my writing process. We still have a few weeks before the election happens so I will certainly have the time to do another post on the election. Personally, I am a very fair voter, I want to judge each politician by their own merits rather than blindly pledge my loyalty to a particular party given that there are both terrible politicians on the right and the left. I was actually pretty okay with Rishi Sunak but that was only because he came after two absolutely disastrous prime ministers Johnson and Truss, both of whom I truly hated. Of course I would love to see the Conservative party totally decimated at the polls - that would be poetic justice for what Johnson and Truss did when they were in office, but I can only shake my head when I remember that they only got into power because they won the last election and I live in a country dumb enough to elect Boris Johnson as PM when he is a total fucking idiot. Heck, Sunak is so crazy rich, he will simply take his billions and have more fun adventures somewhere else once he has left politics - this would be no more than just another crazy adventure that he did as a rich kid. "did I tell you about the time I was a politician? I  was the prime minster of the UK for about one and a half years. Like I know right? That's so crazy, but it's totally true you can google it!" Let me know what you think, please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.