Against David Blunketts right wing youth volunteer scheme

This piece below is a example of what labour and tories have in store for our youth and their way of dealing with the riots as they put it. They see it as a break down in responsibility and a lazyness of the youth to do anything with their lives. Their disgraceful vile and smears of young people in this piece below i totally condemn but wanted to highlight it as it is not just tories proposing these ridiculous hard line right wing ideas. It is labour too. David Blunkett represents labour and as so we can assume they would be in support of such a proposal. For a labour polititian to be writing in the Daily Mail says much for how far to the right they have shifted over the years and how far they cannot be trusted by working class communities.



David Blunkett today launches an ambitious plan for a national volunteering scheme to help restore the values of duty and respect among teenagers.
The former home and education secretary said a major programme was needed to tackle the growing ‘culture of irresponsibility’ among young people which was exposed after the riots that rocked the country this month.
Speaking to the Mail last night, the senior backbench Labour MP said the riots showed many young people had a ‘severe disregard for property and community’ and lack the ‘ethics of personal responsibility’. He added: ‘I was horrified that people could get involved in the wanton destruction of their communities.
‘The culture of irresponsibility is growing. The neighbourliness, the extended family, the reinforcement of positive values have been eroded very badly over the last 50 years.
‘We have an opportunity to do something now that will make a difference in the long term.’
His blueprint for a National Volunteer Programme proposes giving hundreds of thousands of youngsters nine-month community service-style placements costing £7,000 each.
people who won't sign up should be denied benefits)
A deeply divided kingdom: Scots each get £1,600 more state cash a year spent on them
Individuals who signed up would help elderly people, clean up their local areas and do other good works.
In return they would be given money off university tuition fees or job training. Anyone who refused could have their benefits taken away.
Writing for the Mail, Mr Blunkett said the Government shouldn’t ‘bankroll’ those who refuse to face up their responsibilities.
The scheme would help tackle the problem of workless households and give young people out of work and not in education a ‘reason to get up in the morning and a pattern of daily life,’ Mr Blunkett said.
The scheme would help the young people involved in the riots. Some are seen here looting a Carhartt store during the disturbances
In the long term, it could be paid for by selling off the Government’s stake in the RBS and Lloyds TSB banks, which were bailed out during the financial crisis, he suggests, although recent falls in the stock market mean the value of these shares has fallen.
Mr Blunkett said the scheme would, like national service in the Fifties, become a rite of passage for young people growing up in Britain.
It is needed because the institutions that traditionally helped instil values, such as the Church and the traditional two-parent household, were ‘in decline as instruments of moral guidance’, he said.


This article is a disgrace in so many ways it is like forced labour and it isnt even paid. It is much like slave labour i'd suggest. Forcing the youth into work that is unpaid and threatening them if they do not take this they could have their b enifits removed is a absolute disgrace. Makes my skin crawl to hear things like this and hear polititians suggesting schemes like this. But i am not surprised at the same time. Blunkett and is labour mates have been on a rightward course for years now and this is as close to a tory idea as ever i saw one.

This scheme if it or anything similar comes to reality must be rigoursly opposed and fought with the upmost urgency. The trade union labour movement should take a lead now and start the ball rolling in representing young people. Offering them a alternative for young people to get behind. They have let our youth down too by offering no such alternative to cuts, unemployment, homlessness and a life on benifits.

It is now time the labour movement stood up for what is right and condemns labour and plans like this and stands with these young people who have been marginilised from society.