To serve or not to serve? Pat McFadden, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, has declared that the UK government has no plans to introduce conscription. Meanwhile, the President of Latvia, which recently resuscitated conscription, has suggested many other European countries should do as they do. Given the state of the world, the UK would do well to reconsider its position.
Every few months or so, someone proposes that the UK should bring military service back. And each time, this undertaking is supposed to perform different functions: teach teenagers to become adults; keep teenagers out of trouble; magically solve the armed forces’ recruitment woes. But now the old world order is rapidly deteriorating, so rapidly that Prime Minister Keir Starmer has – so to speak – bitten the bullet and set a speedy deadline for his long-vague defence spending increase.
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