Unserious

[poliphilo]

 The PM's promise to bring back conscription isn't serious politics. It's hardly serious electioneering either. 

Because

(A) He knows he's unlikely to be PM for very much longer and so is never going to be required to carry through on it.....

And

(B) He must also know (as anyone who thinks about it must know) that it would be ruinously expensive to implement and, more importantly, hugely unpopular with those on whom it impacted (meaning young adults of conscriptable age and their families) leading to social division, mass disobedience, demonstrations, riots.....

Comments

[cmcmck]

He's nuts and this demonstates the fact!

[poliphilo]

He feels power and authority slipping away and he's not yet ready to let them go....

[shewhomust]

I can see (as your A implies) that the policy hasn't been though through because it doesn't need to be thought through - nobody imagines it's going to happen.

What I can't see is whose vote it is supposed to win. It might just appeal to the most die-hard of Tories, but their votes were in the bag anyway. Everyone else is more likely to be deterred by it. You list people who would be subjected to conscription, but there's a second list of those who would have to manage them: the army don't want a bunch of sulky teenagers who will leave before they've learned how to be any use, and voluntary bodies don't want to waste their energy on non-volunteers...

Each day since the election was announced brings its fresh astonishment.

[poliphilo]

That's right, it's a policy (though to call its policy accords it too much dignity) that will only appeal to people who were going to vote Tory anyway, though I suppose it might lure back a few who were thinking of defecting to far right fringe parties....