Minister suggests armed forces recruitment could help cut youth unemployment

Aren't their wages more than the dole and they have to be fed, housed, amused and hopefully not used... If they could make stuff they could sell on e-bay like Remploy and MSP...

Get these ministers out. They fail at their jobs to build prosperity and affordability, so let's send the kids to die instead. The armed forces should not be a scapegoat for failures

For a start, the MP's need to get their heads around the fact that the age group he reffers to have no interest in the Royal family whatsoever, let alone losing limbs for them. The age group he reffers to tend to see themselves as English, Welsh, Scottish nowadays as the "British" thing just isn't seen as cool by them. Recruitment is down because people in the target age group see their freinds coming home from deployment with limbs missing, disfiguration or extreme mental health problems and then treated like absolute dirt by the country they were tricked into protecting. Unless you give someone something to fight for, why would they volunteer to be turned into flying mince?

As a former Army N C O of 9 years i would not want my Grandchildren going into the Army the pay is rubbish the married quarters are full of damp and when you leave no help loads sleeping on the street why should any Welsh youngsters go in both Labour and Tory rob Wales of Billions so why should they fight and die for them when i went in young i was very naive but after working down the pit i changed my thinking

I suspect that soon some wise guy working in a think tank or some other "thing" close to government will suggest mobilising disabled people to drive drones ! They can sit in their chairs in front of screens and amuse themselves whacking distant targets. All done on a wage just about Minimum Wage + a bit of PIP.

Dulce et decorum est, pro Standard & Poor's Sovereign Credit Rating mori.

Ah yes, the usual right wing answer of "the armed forces", and no doubt we'll be hearing "national service" soon. Why not give young people the opportunity to fight and die or, if they're lucky, be maimed while partaking in the latest crusade against another confected enemy? If you want to fix the economy, stop wasting money on junk like AI - that bubble is going to burst very soon - and the interminably vast royal family and do one more small, but very important, task: TAX THE RICH! Wholesale tax avoidance has beggared this country, and to fix it effectively they need to drop the hammer swiftly and decisively by freezing all money transfers out of the country, auditing any account with over a million in it, then taxing it appropriately, something like 2% per 5 million with a cut off at 90% or so. Tax credit, property, or anything else that the rich hoard to the detriment of the country. Taxing the poor costs more than it recovers, so use your effort more productively. Independence is the ultimate answer but without a concrete plan to recover what's been stolen from us over the years, it's not going to be possible.

My advice to any youngsters considering joining is simple- Don't. Junk accommodation, lousy pay, arrogant officers and bullying junior and senior NCOs. XXIV-XLI, I'm talking about you.