Call to bring back national service.

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/264874

It seems that 72 per cent supported the idea, and only 17 per cent were opposed to it.

Before any dismiss this out of hand, please just think about it.

/// Senior Tory MP Patrick Mercer said: “If you are in being taken to hospital in Germany, the likelihood is that you are being driven by a conscripted ambulance driver. There are all sorts of important ways that National Service could benefit society, while at the same time instilling some much-needed discipline into youngsters.” ///

I personally think that Patrick Mercer MP is talking so much sense, it need not be military service, it could cover many civilian positions.

The youth would be taken off the streets and away from their home environment, also away from any peer pressure they are likely to encounter from the gang culture that is so prevalent today.

Apart from those obvious advantages, they would experience discipline, and learn a skill at the same time.

Taking into account how much our broken society is costing us, the introduction of a type of national service would be self funding.

[Bobbisox]

it seems to work in Israel and Turkey AOG

[Gromit]

At least one serving soldier has been arrested during the riots. So much for the military instilling decipline and respect.

[anneasquith]

it is something that could /should be considered.

[boxtops]

National Service would catch everyone though, including the many excellent teenagers and young people I work with, who are in stage school, in the cadet forces, at work, making good life choices at an early age. It wouldn't only take the rampant youth off the streets, it would hold up for two years those who are doing good and with promising futures. Perhaps there could be a model which says that if you haven't got a job within a year of leaving school, THEN do some square-bashing?
However, as has been said before, why should the Forces get all the dross? They need committed people with skills and team spirit, not youngsters who have no faith in their own abilities, nor any commitment to anyone else's well being. And as Gromit says, the Army have already had one looter in their ranks, and say that they are expecting more to have been involved last week, as many are on leave at the moment. Recruitment into the Forces didn't do that chap much good, he didn't learn anything....

[tamborine]

If they're fit to loot then they're fit to serve society thru our forces. Why should we subsidise yobs to loot and destroy?

[Gromit]

Yes Turkey has a form of National Service and their youth are model citizens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UPbxwizav0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[Bobbisox]

I agree Gromit, there will always be an element in any country even those with NS but I would also say Turkey would not have been so mamby-pamby i to the looters as our lot are being

[daisya]

Can see both sides of the argument here especially the way boxtops has come across. So perhaps, there should be a scheme for those who aren't in work and commited elsewhere, those between a certain age on benefits who should be conscripted to take them away from their environment in the hope that it would turn them away from gang culture and bad ways and make them into worthwhile citizens who would be able to offer more to society than they do now. Would of course have to be mooted but that's the gist of how I would see it - fwiworth

[MarkRae]

Scroll past the first 50 seconds or so...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLhFXkvugLM&feature=related

[Bobbisox]

good point Mark

[boxtops]

Clever - Nigel Hawthorne at his best

[MarkRae]

Hats off to Jay and Lynn!

[boxtops]

Indeed, Mark - wonderful scriptwriters.

[anotheoldgit]

Gromit

/// At least one serving soldier has been arrested during the riots. So much for the military instilling decipline and respect.///

That is truly the most pathetic argument I have come across, but then it is not the first time you have wheeled it out.

One serving soldier out of the whole British Army, blimey the whole discipline of the Army is at risk.

[dzug2]

Slightly tongue in cheek, but surely the army is the ultimate in gang culture?

[anotheoldgit]

boxtops

Please don't follow Gromit's failed argument.

As in all areas of society if everyone was law-abiding there would be no need for the police, criminal justice and prisons.

Likewise if all military personnel were perfect models of discipline and law-abiding, there would be no need for the Military Police, court-martials or military Prisons.

And as I have already said, National Service doesn't necessarily mean military service.

[Barmaid]

Not a bad idea, as long as they are not deployed on the front line. Frankly, if I were a career soldier, in a hostile environment, I would want committed, sensible comrades next to and behind me, not some little Sugar in a hoody who is only there to escape prison.

[anotheoldgit]

Gromit

Will you never end?

If you are not busy researching in the annals of History to try to prove your point, you are then prepared to cyber journey the earth in an attempt to find a country and it's peoples who conduct their lives much differently than we do.

[anotheoldgit]

Oh come on daisya don't be shy, you can openly agree with me seeing that you have suggested almost everything I did, in my original question.

[anotheoldgit]

Agreed Barmaid