Sunak vows to bring back national service as Streeting aims to turn around the NHS

It took just three days for the personal insults about the two main political leaders vying to be prime minister on 5 July to emerge.

On day three, Labour started briefing that the prime minister had gone missing after a catastrophic first 48 hours of gaffes and Titanic miscalculations in the campaign.

The Tories denied that Rishi Sunak had gone to ground but by today as Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer appeared to take a rest, they came out with their own briefing.

A Tory campaign source said: “Yesterday the PM hit the campaign trail two hours before Sir Keir surfaced. Today there is no sign of Starmer whatsoever and we are just four days into the campaign. Campaigns are tough, tiring things and it’s understandable that he may be weary. But being Prime Minister is a 24/7 job which requires stamina.”

Not to be outdone, Labour was swift to hit back with colourful details of what Mr Sunak’s top team has been up to including his currently seatless party chairman Richard Holden.

The Labour spokesperson said: “Keir and the Labour Party are working round the clock, enjoying taking our message of change to the country. We were out speaking with voters across the country within half an hour of the election being called. Meanwhile the PM has been holed up with his aides at his house, the Tory party chair spent yesterday afternoon at a pub in Westminster and the Cabinet appear to have completely disappeared.”

David Cameron introduced a similar scheme dubbed the National Citizen Service when he was prime minister. That scheme had no military component to it, instead encouraging youngsters to take part in activities such as outdoor education-style courses as part of his “Big Society” initiative.

Prior to that, Britain enforced mandatory 24-month national service in one of the armed forces for all physically fit males between the ages of 17 and 21, in a post-war scheme which ran from 1949 to 1960.

They then remained on the reserve list for another four years, during which time they were liable to be called to serve with their units but on no more than three occasions, for a maximum of 20 days. Over that decade, national servicemen took part in military operations in Malaya, Korea, Cyprus and Kenya.

Students and apprentices were allowed to defer their national service until they completed studies or training, while conscientious objectors were subjected to the same tribunal tests as in wartime.

Here is more reaction to Rishi Sunak’s national service announcement.

Sam Bidwell, director of the Next Generation Centre at the right-wing Adam Smith Institute think-tank said: “Young Britons have already done their fair share of national service, sacrificing the best years of their lives to protect the elderly from Covid. That’s not to mention our broken economy.”

Andy Westwood, a professor of government practice at the University of Manchester, was among those who attacked the plans to raid a key levelling up fund brought in to replace lost EU structural funding in order to pay for national service.

Historian Glen O’Hara similarly accused Mr Sunak of abandoning levelling up with the policy announcement:

Full Fact have given some more context around the claim by shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves this morning that “the tax burden is at a 70-year high”.

The fact-checking service said: “As we explained when Ms Reeves made a similar claim earlier this month, that was the case in 2022/23.

“The so-called ‘tax burden’—which refers to tax revenues as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP)—has since fallen slightly, but is forecast to rise over the next five years to a near-record level.”

A friend of Tory former chancellor George Osborne has poured cold water on rumours he could help Rishi Sunak’s campaign.

They were quoted as telling The Times: “George thinks Rishi is hopeless. He’s always thought he doesn’t have a big political brain and that Rishi has made two big calls in his career — backing Brexit and backing Boris — and that those are the two most catastrophic things to happen to this country in the last decade.”

Much of the detail remains unclear, with the Tories saying they would set up a royal commission bringing in expertise from across the military and civil society to establish how the scheme would work in practice.

This commission would be tasked with bringing forward a proposal for how to ensure the first pilot is open for applications in September 2025, and the Tories would then seek to introduce a new “National Service Act” to make the measures compulsory by the end of the next parliament.

But broadly, the party said that young people would be given a choice between a full-time placement in the armed forces for 12 months or spending one weekend a month for a year “volunteering,” in their community.

Teenagers who choose to sign up for a placement in the forces would “learn and take part in logistics, cyber security, procurement or civil response operations”, the Tories said.

Labour MP Richard Burgon notes that, only this week, Rishi Sunak’s government was arguing against its new policy of national service on the grounds that it “could damage morale, recruitment and retention and would consume professional military and naval resources”.

Defence minister Andrew Murrison told Tory MP Mark Pritchard in a parliamentary response on Thursday – the day after Rishi Sunak called the general election – that: “The government has no current plans to reintroduce National Service.

“Since 1963, when the last national servicemen were discharged, it has been the policy of successive Governments that the best way of providing for the defence of our country is by maintaining professional Armed Forces staffed by volunteers.

“The demanding, increasingly technical, nature of defence today is such that we require highly trained, professional men and women in our Regular and Reserve Armed Forces, fully committed to giving their best in defending our country and its allies.

“If potentially unwilling National Service recruits were to be obliged to serve alongside the professional men and women of our Armed Forces, it could damage morale, recruitment and retention and would consume professional military and naval resources.

“If, on the other hand, National Service recruits were kept in separate units, it would be difficult to find a proper and meaningful role for them, potentially harming motivation and discipline. For all these reasons, there are no current plans for the restoration of any form of National Service.”

The Liberal Democrats responded quickly to Rishi Sunak’s plan to reintroduce National Service for school leavers with a campaign ad mocking the prime minister.

With the hope of knocking down “the Tory blue wall” in the south of England, the Lib Dems posted on social media and emailed supporters a picture of General Kitchener’s famous First World War poster saying: “Your country needs you!”

Lib Dem leader Ed Davey noted: “I never thought I’d be writing this. I agree with Rishi Sunak: we need millions of people to do national service.”

He added: “We need millions of people to commit to serving their country in its time of need – by voting this Government out of office. I need you, Jack, to be part of our national service.

“This is your moment. This is your time to sign up and to commit to a better future for our country.”