Carl Court/PA
Oh man, this campaign is not going very well at all for Rishi Sunak, is it? Fresh from his gaff-a-day approach, the Tory leader is now creating opposition within his own ranks – and one peer is already sick of what he’s seeing.
Lord Johnson has this week lashed out at the PM, claiming that he is pushing a ‘1950s version of Britain’ in his approach to the election. Among a litany of criticisms, the senior Tory accused Sunak of trying to narrow down which youngsters can go to university.
Sunak had recently suggested that the Conservative Party would put an end to ‘Mickey Mouse degrees’ if they were re-elected, but Lord Johnson believes this is merely another form of elitism coming from the ultra-wealthy Prime Minister.
Last week, the Tories confirmed plans to bring back a form of National Service, which would compel all 18-year-olds to commit to regular volunteering roles, or carry out their placement in a military setting.
The sheer chaos of the policy announcement has left government officials making up the rules as they go along. It has even been suggested that parents could be fined if their children don’t take part – despite them legally being adults at age 18.
The ‘enforced volunteering’ has gone down like a lead balloon, and it does not appear to have had a positive impact on the electorate. A recent opinion poll, taken after these plans were made public, shows the Tories are now 27 POINTS behind Labour.
It perhaps doesn’t come as a surprise then, with support for the Conservative Party edging towards non-existence among Gen Z and younger voters, that Rishi Sunak would face hostilities from someone who would be affected by National Service.
In a clip that’s gone viral online, a 16-year-old student rejects Sunak’s offer of a photo, and instead tells him he wants to know why he ‘hates young people so much’. The Prime Minister denies these claims, but he is pressed once more.
The headstrong lad tells Sunak that he has ‘volunteered all his life’, and that National Service ‘would not be a choice’. In response, he crassly insists that the teenager ‘would love it’, before scurrying out of an exit. Man of the people, eh?
