RICHARD ORD: Monkey Tennis gets my vote every time

Can’t help feeling it won’t be long before the desperate PM channels his inner Alan Partridge to lure undecided voters (there’s about 12 of them left in the UK, I suspect) with such delights as ‘Arm Wrestling with Chas and Dave’ and ‘Inner City Sumo.’

Certainly his decision to bring back National Service has a ring of ‘Youth Hostelling with Chris Eubank’ about it.

If the Alan Partridge references are going over your head you’re probably in the pro-National Service camp (over 80) or under-16 (in which case none of the two main parties really care what you think).

My eldest son Bradley, 23, waded into the politics debate with his grand plan should he even become Prime Minister.

Votes for 16-year-olds at one end of the scale and, at the other, a cap on voting age. He suggested 65… or when you reach retirement age.

Sounded a bit radical to me, but on reflection his reasoning was pretty solid. In essence it was to make politicians focus on the young people who are the future and forget about the generation that put the country where it is now.

He hadn’t fleshed out the details, but reading between the lines I get his frustration and presumably the frustration of his generation (the generation that really matters by the way) who have been sidelined by the big two parties in favour of knee-jerk vote grabbing.

For knee-jerk see the Rwanda deportation lunacy and the return of National Service policy that sounds tough but is nothing like National Service. It’s a bit like bringing back the death penalty, but without the death or any sort of penalty.

National Service in the 1950s meant being conscripted into the armed forces for a minimum of 18 months. Two million 18-21-year-olds completed National Service.

National Service in 2024 would mean youngsters maybe working a few weekends with the police if they really want to, erm, or something like that. We don’t really know, because as soon as National Service was announced and revealed to be a sham, the Tories have stopped talking about it. Presumably safe in the knowledge that they’ll never have to implement it.

As for Labour… they are remaining tight-lipped other than to say that all their policies are ‘fully costed and funded.’ What a pity that no-one can remember what those policies are. Yep, they’re that interesting.

As one of the 12 undecided voters in the UK, Monkey Tennis just might sway me. The ball is in your court would-be MPs, I’m waiting...