'Unbelievable attitude!' | Why won't Gen Z fight for Britain?

Can we talk about your military background? My wife and I loved it whenever there was a trial because you automatically dropped into military mode. Right, you are with me, you are with me. Yeah, they needed structure. Sure. Um, uh, But as my wife watched it back, she said, Oh, my God, you're bossy. But you're not, it's a military... Hang on, Dad is military, right? Dad's a colonel in the army and I was a captain, exactly. And speaking on the day, I don't know whether you've had sight of this. A survey's come out and said that 35s and below would not sign up because they don't feel that they've got anything invested in the country. Were you always going to be a military bloke? I was. Actually, the army had funded my university, and so I owed them four years. I ended up doing six years in the end, and I'm really, really glad I did. You know, I was a lazy student, and it gave me some drive, and I really only think I do what I do now because it's given me... You know, the notion of hard work and attention to detail and some discipline along the way. We run my tour like a military operation. Genuinely? Yeah, it is pretty much. You know, my band and my crew are, you know, the non-commissioned officers and soldiers of my troop. My tour manager is the troop sergeant or sergeant major, exactly. And we stand by our bunks and inspect the bunks. But they're all experts in their field, and it's run very much like the team that we would have in the army. I understand why people nowadays wouldn't, because I think we have through, you know, politicians do try and divide us so extremely nowadays to choose whether you are left or right, choose the extremes of whether you are leave or remain. But our social media is anything but social now. It is entirely antisocial. Our phones are no longer things that we pick up to communicate. You know, if someone calls me, I get angry. If a friend calls me, I'm upset. What are you doing? You're bothering me. And instead, I use my phone to look. ...at strangers, or argue, worse, argue with strangers online. You'll always write me. That's me. And so I think, yeah, I think, you know, the notion of meeting in the middle, dialogue which should be respectful and kind and compassionate and also understand someone else's perspective. And I know this from being in war. Is that, you know, you have two sides, and you hear one side of an argument, I was in Kosovo, and if you hear the Serbs' side of the story, it was entirely understandable, and the Kosovo-Albanian side was entirely understandable, but because they couldn't understand each other's, they would end up in war and not be able to co-exist. Is this traitorous behaviour, or just the blunt truth? Less than a quarter of under 35-year-olds regard a willingness to serve in the military at time of need as important, according to the UK's longest-running survey into social and political attitudes, the British Social Attitudes Survey. Funny name. Surveyed 4,656 Brits aged over 16, and researchers found that against a backdrop of international instability and conflict, just 22% of those surveyed under 35 attached high importance to a willingness to serve in the armed forces. at a time of need. Connor Wilson is a defence commentator and a former British Army officer. Thank you very much, Steve, for coming on the programme, Connor. Why do you think this is? I think we need to separate two things. I think in the event of conflict, and I've got a record before of saying, I think young people would be willing to serve. And I think that many of those that say they wouldn't, when it came down to it, when the lives of their families, their values, their freedoms were on the line, I do think they would be prepared to serve if it came down to it. And we saw that in the COVID pandemic. It was young people who stepped up and risked their health when we didn't know much about COVID. I think we need to give young people a buy-in to a society that we're ultimately going to ask them to defend and potentially pay the ultimate price for. We have a politics that focuses on the elderly. We have Conservative ministers, or shadow ministers, who in private will slam the triple lock, but then will stand up and defend it to the hilt. We have a Labour government who every budget will announce measures to help the elderly. And we have Reform to obviously target that base. And young people... Looking at politics, looking at society, looking at the falling levels of living standards and thinking, well, what is in it for me in that social contract? What am I getting from my government? Now, that's not to say that, you know, should their values in the way of. living and the freedom that they enjoy come under attack, that they wouldn't defend it. But I think in peacetime if we prepare for war, yes we have to prepare by buying missiles and drones and aircraft and frigates, but we also need to prepare society for war and one of those is giving young people a reason to fight, a reason to serve in whatever capacity that is. It's not always on the front line. And giving young people a little bit of pride I think in the country and actually A bit of perspective on just how good I think they've got it. Do you think they've got it good? I think if you've travelled the world, if you've been to, you know, countries across, you know, the Middle East, if you've been to Africa, if you've been to, you know, countries in South America, yes. Yeah, we still do have it very good. We, you know, for all the faults of our democratic system, we do have peaceful transitions of power. We do have, I saw people protesting yesterday chained to... ...to the ground and police taking utmost care to remove them. You don't get that in other countries because there's not that level of accountability. We do have... You don't get to protest. You don't get to protest or, you know, we even see that across the pond. I think there is a lot going for Britain. So when the young person says, I don't really have much time for this country, it's not giving me great opportunity, it's not being a boon for me particularly, do you say, Conor, to some extent you understand that, but also get a grip, look around the rest of the world, see what it's actually like? And then fight for this. I completely understand that. I left school in 2008, you know, just as the financial crash was beginning to unfold. And all I've seen amongst my peer group is people that do not have the life, the luxuries that their parents had, that they sort of took for granted that would be theirs one day, isn't that way. They're struggling in the job market. They're struggling to get on the housing ladder. They can't get a GP's appointment and all these things that we talk about all the time. They are the realities of life. So, however. You know, what is the alternative? And if you're looking at authoritarian governments across the world, speak to the people in those countries, because the problems that we have, they are genuine problems, but comparatively, they're not as bad. There is something to fight for, I think. Connor Wilson is a defence commentator and a former British Army officer. Thank you very much indeed for your time. Josh is in Plymouth. You want to talk about this aversion to fighting for the country from the young, Josh? Apparently, hi. Yeah, hi. Just a bit of context. I'm 23 and I study psychology. And the idea of being drafted into a war that I don't particularly believe in and then being in a position where I'm aiding to assault or kill others who also are in a similar situation just doesn't bode well for me at all. Yeah, nobody would want, no one would choose to do that, otherwise it wouldn't be a conscription. No, exactly. But then also to think about the repercussions of... Being put in that situation to kill somebody else kind of leaves me somewhere for the rest of my life where it will bleed into other parts of my life. It's just something that I know that I cannot do. What do you think, as a 23-year-old, so as a young person, What do you think would happen if let's imagine a set of circumstances in which something dreadfully awful happens here, absolutely apocalyptic scenes, and the government of the day says, listen, we need every male between the ages of 23 and 35 or 40. We need you. So you're conscripted. So we're knocking at your door. Turn up to your local leisure centre. Here's your bag and your gun. Basic trainings on Friday. Off you go. By the way, it's prison if you don't. Honestly, for me, I would rather take prison because, again, I can't be in a position where I would be able to kill somebody else. Under any circumstances? Yeah, under any circumstances. So the Russians are looming into view across the channel. Dover's completely compromised. Hastings fallen. Um, You're told you've got to get down to your local... I don't know where your local... you're Your local church is handing out guns and backpacks. You are required in the defence of your nation. Otherwise, this is it. you, The kind of issue that I kind of lean into that is why is the military in that position? Paul. Yeah, yeah, we can argue that afterwards. We'll argue that afterwards. But at the moment, they're done for. It's all over. We'll be speaking Russian by Thursday. It's Thursday. What are you going to do? Honestly, I... You put me in a really big dilemma because obviously you're defending your own country. But in the case of... I know for a fact if I was to see a Russian on my borders, for example, I couldn't kill them because I know... For me personally, I couldn't do it because I know that potentially... OK, well, you can stay and make the tea then. Or you can stay and fix the guns. Or you can say... You could do something. You don't have to go and fight a Russian or whoever. But you're going to have to contribute to the war effort. It really, again, it really depends on how significant the contribution is. Oh my God, hang on. So now I'm asking you, so you've turned up at the local leisure centre and we're telling you you're going to be the chef. You're cooking the food for the troops when they come back from the front line of Hastings. You're going to cook it. You wouldn't do that either. I would support in some capacities. Right, you're asking, you're cooking. There you go, you're the chef. Well, I'm a pretty good cook, to be fair. Brilliant, OK, so you'll do it? It would be a very limited... Unbelievable, you'll do lunch and no dinner. Maybe breakfast at a push. Unbelievable attitude on display from Josh. Well, we're screwed then.