General Chat

Thankyou Lorraine

Over to you Eldrick

I think you all need to think outside the box .Why is it that it comes down to National Service most of these kids come across as confident when in actual fact they have low self esteem and no selfrespect and I don't see how putting them in to do National Service would help. even if we could afford to do it .We have service personal at this very time that haven't got the equipment to do the job they were sent to do let alone setting up to put aload of kids in for National Service that the funds aren't there for .

Does the concept of national service not include taking all youngsters and putting them in the military?

Including my sons and daughters? To pay for the sins of the unwashed?

If you are just going to target the yob culture, then that isnt national service, its something else.

Frankly, you could drown them all for me - i wouldnt give a damn! I don't I see the need to tarnish or taint our still professional services with scum from street corners.

And whats the point of making them non combatants? Minefield clearing parties would be my preference if we are talking about the hoodies and chav gangs.

You might as well make them delivery boys for interflora if they are non combatants.

I dont believe NS is the answer for a moment. Damn good thrashings is my prefered method, handed out on a regular basis.

I have my own ideas on how yob culture can be tackled but that is not the issue in this discussion :-)

Ah, so we are talking about selective national service....you mean conscripting a certain class of people......based on the fact that they are unemployed and claiming benefit......

do you really need me to point out the problems of doing that....?

I don't think the unemployed are a class,

but some have been brought up to think it is ok never to work, they know how to work the system this cycle has to be broken, national service as it was I agree will not work, but offering them of choice of finding a job or military training could work.

well that is hardly national service though, or am I missing something....?

Actually, tory had just put into words what I was thinking. Maybe what really needs to be done - assuming anything needs to be done - is get people away from the "benefits culture". So often I am reading on these boards of people (or their relatives) who are in genuine need of disability allowances etc which they cannot get because they aren't ticking the "right" boxes and some clerk somewhere doesn't consider their need genuine enough.

And yet on the flip side is the terrible image of teenagers having babies and then not going to work (because they have no intention to) because by having the baby at, say, 16, they are guaranteed whatever benefits - child allowance, that sort of stuff. Maybe what we need - obviously new parents etc do need support, maternity pay, etc - is to get away from this idea of "if I have a baby, they'll have to give me a council flat" and similar thinking.

When I was at college I did fill out a form for free prescriptions as I was at college full-time and working 13 hours a week but it proved pointless because they say you have to pay the first £18 of an eye test yourself, and so on. (And an eye test only costs about £22 - I didn't think it was worth it so when I went to uni I never filled out another form. The first only lasted till the July as that was when my college course ended.)

If you mean the old form of all men age 18 to 40 being forced into the services then no it's not national service, but a way of getting the work shy off benefits.

At least they will be earning their money and and learning skills to enable them to get work.

The some you mention is the point isn't it ,for some it is all they have know and it is a cycle that needs braking but I don't see National Service as the way to go .

My OH says it was good, he reckons, it made them appreciate their homes. Tough boys crying at night for their homes.

He also says apprenticeships should again be available, and day release classes from jobs.

These so called Universities, they only have lectures twice a week, and the rest of the time, they are lazing about, so we are told by our friends whose children are away in them, no wonder there is binge drinking, if they had to get up and go to work in the mornings, they would not be able to do this.

As we live in a University city, we see the youngsters walking from one building to another during the day. My OH says they spend more time doing this. Subjects could be done in shorter time, if they did not have all the tooing and frooing.

Skills what a word .Yes they need them and other things besides but that can be done without National service

There are apprentiships,

my son left school and did a 5 year apprentiship on day release to be an electrician.

Oh we are doing well so far we've had a go at yobs ,people on benifits and uni students .Who next I wonder

Tory

what form of skills do they get watching day time tv.

there is no incentive for people to learn a skill if they are paid for doing nothing.

There are Lorraine but few and far between as with most things alot depends on where you live

if you are going to target the unempoyed or whatever - why pick the military?

Oh...whats wrong with having them picking fruit and solving the immigrant workers problem.....?

lol

The topic was national service - would pablo like to define what he means by national service and who should be included?

With that I agree Lorraine but why does it have to be National service in 2008 we must be able to come up with something better .

The question was do I think national service is a good idea

and in a revised form yes I do.

governments have tried YTS, yes did that £25 quid a week for sitting on a checkout learning jack sh*t and when you got to 18 they got rid of you because the government didn't pay the wages anymore.

Free computer courses for the unemployed, why only the unemployed why do they the get the free stuff and people who work get nothing.

To me it is worth trying what else is there to try?

I also did YTS and yes it was cr*p but that was down to the companies.As for the unenployed you will always get some that know how to play the system but not everyone on benifits is the same ,and no before you all jump up and down I am not on them .

I personally dont think this is the answer - treating the symptom isnt curing the illness. You can throw as many schemes as you want at the problem....it wont work because there are always ways to get round it.

75% of the little drunken glue sniffing tack smoking trogs I used to arrest have got chronic health problems like asthma. Instant get out for military service.

The real problem is that the real problem is in the too difficult to deal with tray.