National service isn't the answer. AIBU?

[D3LAN3Y]

The conversation keeps cropping up time and time again. Should national service make a come back?
I have some relatives (generally older) who seem to think the younger generation could really use something like National Service to "sort themselves out" because they seem to think too many are rude/work shy/lazy/disrespectful etc.
I think it's a load of shit. I have two kids. Most of the teenagers I know happen to be good kids. I don't think they are a lost generation and anyone who works in retail already have done a form of national service in my eyes.

The tories have tabled an idea of a voluntary idea of national service but surely if they are pushing the idea to sort out "troubled youth" it wouldn't hit the audience it intended?

YABU - National service would help
YANBU - ITS A JOKE.

www.lbc.co.uk/news/penny-mordaunt-national-service/

Apparently there is no money for teaching assistants, paying benefits at a level people can afford food, youth clubs, increasing student loans to match public sector rises even, doctors, repairing buildings, youth clubs, funding prisons adequately so can't see there would be money for national service unless it was funded by private equity.

Exactly - and aside from funding the scheme, where are we going to find the resources for enforcing the compulsory nature of it?

Which is a stupid idea. Obviously the Tories don't have the time to implement this before the next GE anyway so it's a totally theoretical point, but they've failed to explain what exactly is going to happen when people who've not opted out also don't turn up. As if we have the resources to create any kind of workable system or sanction.

@PinkCherryBlossoms yes - they just need to actually advertise and promote the existing scheme and those who are interested can sign up.
Schools/social services etc could also identify pupils they think might benefit from it and encourage them to sign up (but it would be better for some to do this at a much earlier age like 12 or 13).
Ironically a lot of teens would prefer to spend their post 16 summer doing part time jobs. Many want to be working and earning from age 14/15. They want something to do, gain some responsibility and get some money.
This used to be the norm for many teens but it's so hard for under 18s to get jobs now. People just won't employ them due to so much extra red tape around safeguarding. Obviously working teens need to be kept safe and not exploited but it seems to have just made under 16s/18s non employable.
The government should instead fund more youth clubs/groups. Give teens somewhere to go and something to do. At lot are put off by the formality of things like Scouts (uniforms, rituals like the promise etc) but a more casual youth clubs with similar activities would be brilliant.

Given the state of the world at the moment any changes like this unfortunately make me worry about a future where exactly that happens and I worry the govt are planning accordingly. I know this sounds a bit tin hat but I'm very anxious about the future when it comes to our children and war

There are so many more things that could be done that might actually be of benefit to teenagers.

On the subject of safeguarding, another problem with the Tory proposal is that anything remotely close to universal would also inevitably be some slapdash shit, probably contracted out to Serco. There isn't a chance in hell I'd trust the state to safeguard my DC on quasi compulsory residentials.

Oh I am with you 100%. It's a shit idea. Elderly folk may be beyond annoying but they retain a shrewd cunning, and are they really going to get groups of youths organized and hand them guns so that they can form packs like feral stealth weasels and hunt down the oldies as they shuffle about with their Zimmer frames preparing their Horlicks and Tunnock's Tea Cake of an evening? No, I say! As for millennials, it's hard to spell properly, that's all I've got.

Also, why in hell has Horlicks not got an apostrophe and Tunnock's has. Has the world gone mad?

Quite. And of course it brings out the " all old people are shit" crowd and MN loves that.
Late father ( born 1918) was career military. Hated NS because the recruits were an unwilling waste of his time.

If anything, they should make all young people work a year in a customer-facing job.

And, yes, I have done this myself.

But aren't millennials the perfect, aware, environmentally conscious, unbiased savours of the planet?
But I expect you believe that's nothing to do with how they were raised.
Lazy ageist shite.

My dad did it, he loved it. I’ve had patients who did it and wanted to enlist but they had fiancées who wanted a non military life.

anyone who works in retail already have done a form of national service in my eyes.

Compulsory service in a customer-facing role would certainly do some people a lot of good.

Why did a Conservative defence minister himself think it was such a bad idea only a few days ago? See attached