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.

[Gromit]

Venator,

The bailout of UK banks has cost us £850Billion. We did not have £850Billion, so we have had to borrow it. It will cost us tens of years to pay back those loans. The banks that incuured all that debt do not seem to be in a hurry to pay us back or indeed to reform their dubious practices.

Agreed, PFI is a con. It started under John Major, but to his disgraced, Brown carried on the practice.

[The-HouseHusband]

Thanks DT

I have got 30 different CV templates, all saying the same thing but in a different format depending on what area i am applying for. It is annoying having numerous qualifications and still no one wants you. Even worse when you get rejected for being over qualified.
Would be glad to head up some sort of community service to allow people to earn their benefits and get some pride in the local area.
As for my local MP they have ignored all forms of communication I have used asking for a meeting, I have tried email, letter, fax and phone but never get past the P A. Total waste of space..

[Kromovaracun]

Haven't quite read all of this, but just to clarify that DT is not wrong about UK manufacturing - it is still very much alive and well, it's just very different structurally and is smaller proportionally as a sector of the economy (which is what I was saying earlier about the reasons for youth unemployment). So most of the work that in the past was taken up by low-skill labour operating very basic machines is now taken over by more complicated machines and more trained/skilled labour to man them. If you'd like to see the PWC report from April '09 which extensively demonstrates this, you can read it yourself here (be warned it will spring up as a pdf you need to download):

http://www.pwc.co.uk/...ufacturing_300309.pdf

As an aside, this development is not particular to the UK. Manufacturing is still a fairly sizable chunk of both the German and US economies, but exactly the same thing is happening in both of those countries, albeit on a different proportion/scale - it's accounting for less of the workforce, but still very large amounts of national output. This is happening all across the western world and is pretty hard to deny.

[rov1100]

If it were compulsory it would cure the rapid immigration at a stroke. Could you imagine young Muslims wanting to take part?