Teenage Call-up

Darra Singh wants teenagers to be called up for community service:

Plans for every young person in Britain to enrol in a national volunteering scheme that could become compulsory are at the centre of a government report into improving social cohesion.

The possibility of mandatory community service is put forward today by Darra Singh, chair of the Commission on Integration and Cohesion, the body created by Tony Blair after the 7 July bombings in 2005 to promote more unity. It echoes the concept of National Service, which ended in 1960, that required all men between the ages of 18 and 26 to serve in the military for up to two years.

There is a word for enforced servitude. That word is “slavery”. And there was me thinking that slavery was illegal in this country.

Singh, 47, the chief executive of Ealing council in London, argues today that the benefits of volunteering are great, ‘bringing together young people from different backgrounds to work together towards a common goal’. He adds: ‘We need to have a debate about the possibility of a national community service – and we should not be afraid of asking whether this should be compulsory.’

Mr Singh wants to take time out to learn a little about Britain. Not least, about our our language. He can start with the difference between “voluntary” and “compulsory”. This is a wicked, pernicious idea so typical of the collective socialist mind-set that claims state ownership of our bodies. It is an idea that should be vigorously and ruthlessly quashed.