10 Nov 2026, 01:05 PM

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The right has found a new way to denigrate young people, but it is fatuous to assume that Britons of any age would not protect what is dear to them Young people won’t go to war for Britain. So claimed numerous headlines last week, responding to findings in the British Social Attitudes survey. Except that the phrasing of the question was whether respondents placed importance on “the willingness to serve [in the military] in a time of need”, perhaps forgivably low for people thinking about things of more immediate importance to them such as getting on the housing ladder, getting a pay rise or finding employment at all.Less than a quarter of under-35s regarded this as of high importance, and so here we are subjected to the same moralising as any vaguely leftwing politician who hesitates on the stock television interview question: would you push the big shiny red nuclear button? “An unbelievable attitude on display!” laments LBC’s Tom Swarbrick in response to a 23-year-old caller, Josh, who can’t imagine a circumstance where he would ever feel able to kill another person.Jason Okundaye is an assistant Opinion editor at the Guardian Continue reading...

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