They’re bringing back conscription. Not present in this country since nineteen-sixty-something, we’re going to force people into ‘national service’. Or ‘national service light’ as it really comes with no real sanctions for not doing it and it’s sort of voluntary but you have to do it. Or sign up to community service instead. So given the choice between spending a whole Saturday picking up ice cream wrappers in Hyde Park and learning how to strip down an M16 and shoot people, where do I sign (up)??

I’m over 18, therefore I’m prepared to do my duty. Where’s my gun? I want to be in Stripes, with Bill Murray. Having fun on the parade ground. Bivouacking with the babes in the Gel’s division. Driving tanks through Brent Cross. I’m in.

As a life-long pacifist, I’m totally opposed to firearms. Unless they’re my arms. Guns, in principle, are terrible things which murder thousands of American schoolchildren every day. But that’s only because most Americans have mental health issues manifesting as psychopathic, sociopathic behaviour. Guns in the right hands (mine) are not necessarily any safer but more fun. And driving a tank would allow me to sort out people sitting at green lights immobile whilst looking at their phones. Middle-of-the-road tossers would be a thing of the past. Even South African mothers on the school run in their Range Rovers would yield to a Challenger 2, fully armed, with its turret aimed at her face.

The problem is that it’s a Conservative proposal. And therefore, probably totally irrelevant and due to be dead by July. Which gives me two months to fantasise.

I actually think National Service is a great idea. Countries who still have conscription generally have less social problems, thuggery, gangs of glue-sniffing, lager-chugging stoners, mugging and causing trouble.

The problem with the upcoming election is that we now have to see Kier Starmer’s face on the news all the time. And his charmless, creepy soundbytes carefully designed never to reveal any actual plans. And Angela Rayner. Destined to become either the Deputy Prime Minister of all of the United Kingdom, or a prisoner. Depending on the results of the current police inquiry.

Whatever the problem might be, the answer is NEVER ‘Kier Starmer’.

Happy Sunday, which looked depressingly rainy but turned sunny just in time for tennis.

A xxxx