National service won’t build brighter futures for young people, volunteering will

So, we all know that once a general election is called, we go into silly-season with policy announcements left, right, and centre (pun intended).

And we know that so many of these announcements are designed almost exclusively to capture the attention of the media and entice specific demographics to consider where their ‘X’ should land on the ballot paper.

For me, it has been fascinating to see just how much response there has been to the Conservative pledge to ‘bring back national service’ for 18-year-olds in the past few days.

Putting the logistics aside – how do you support and coordinate 775,000 18-year-olds? Could the £2.5bn to fund this plan not be better spent supporting young people’s sense of community – developing skills for their future (SPOILER ALERT: it could)? This plan feels far from a well-thought through policy. Instead, it seems intended to gain headlines, win votes with certain demographics, and, if it were to ever come to fruition, plug gaps in our national infrastructure.