May’s half term break had barely started when up popped on a local online ‘gossip board’ a picture of some ‘feral youths’ riding a trolley across a supermarket car park.
Piled into the metal frame one behind the other as if to launch it like a bobsleigh, judging by the photograph, the trolley’s joy riders were perhaps aged between 12 and 14.
The comments underneath the post were a mix of those questioning the legalities of taking pictures of other people’s children through to a heated debate as to whether pushing an unattended trolley across a rain-drenched car park led to a life of petty crime.
Also buried deep in the discussion was one (anonymous) commentator who declared Rishi Sunak’s pledge to resurrect National Service couldn’t come soon enough and would address exactly this sort of behaviour.
While I can attempt a (loose) connection between commandeering a trolley that doesn’t belong to you and becoming an army conscript - would it not be better for all concerned to simply tackle the problems the government is trying to convince voters National Service will fix?
Home Secretary James Cleverly says its reinvention will address a ‘fragmented society’ young people don’t engage in.
There’s no doubt last week’s young trolley pilots were road testing their driving skills because they probably had little else to do.
Truth be told teenagers aren’t overly welcome in parks and playgrounds. In fact any gathering in a public space is usually frowned upon and met with suspicion.
Youth clubs and children’s centres have all for the most part shut up shop thanks to swingeing cuts and employment laws so stringent that cash in hand jobs for a bit of pocket money are mostly a thing of the past.
Which leaves a lot of youngsters kicking about not really sure what to do with any spare time - while adults are quick to judge when they sit all day on a computer or stare blankly into a phone screen.
Under Sunak’s new plan every 18-year-old would spend time in a competitive, full-time military commission or devote one weekend a month volunteering in “civil resilience” - such as working for free in the NHS.
And yet ironically - increasing numbers of schools are now charging parents as much as £50 to organise work experience placements because a decade ago the government withdrew funding and headteachers can’t meet the cost of the admin involved.
And would this obligatory volunteering be done by university students also holding down a weekend job to offset the £45,000 of debt we saddle young adults with who do want to engage with education?
In 2009 David Cameron launched the National Citizen Service - to develop teenage confidence and skills - much like National Service. Except its budget has been cut by two thirds since the last general election.
Kids - being kids - will always be tempted to swing on a lone trolley in a car park. It doesn’t mean they need a correctional facility.
However if there was sufficient money for our schools, universities and a properly functioning youth sector to steer young people confidently through adolescence we wouldn’t need to argue about their need for National Service either.
