I had the rare opportunity last week to catch up with current affairs. I ended up watching about half of David Cameron’s annual speech to the Conservative Party. There were a few interesting points, along with quite a bit of fluff, one of which was the idea of a National Citizens Service. It would be a voluntary affair aimed at young adults between the ages of 16-18, designed to be a transition to adulthood, a ‘coming of age’ if you like.

It’s not a bad idea, well, not completely. It’s clear that Cameron is jumping on popular opinion that ‘proper’ National Service wouldn’t do any harm to the hoards of neds (aka chavs), he’s just doing it in a more namby pamby way. For a start it’s voluntary. Is he expecting the knife weilding, buckie drinking louts to form an orderly queue? I think not. Most likely it will be the ‘middle class’ that will be the uptakers, the public school kids that see this as yet another way to boost their bulging records of achievement. For this to have any impact at all, it needs to be these three things;

COMPULSORY

EXTENDED (6 WEEKS?)

RESIDENTIAL

No ifs, no buts, and no damn medical certificates.