Across the Whitehall and Westminster villages there is no more toxic subject than national service and conscription for the military, and other services. Any revival of national service, which ended in 1959, would be costly and wouldn’t win votes.
Yet it is now a hot topic — and pretty sure to come up in the general election campaign, to the chagrin of Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer. The outgoing head of the Army, General Sir Patrick Sanders, has just this week warned that the UK needs to prepare a citizen army to handle the increasing prospect of a land war in Europe, threatened, as he sees it, by the antics of Russia and its allies in Ukraine and beyond. Sir Patrick’s suggestion was slapped down by a flat denial by the Prime Minister’s spokesman yesterday. That, however, is the beginning of the argument and not the end.
