Freedom Is Slavery, across the pond

[ThePug]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2801824.ece

TEENAGERS who refuse to work, attend training or go to school are to be issued with on the spot fines under government proposals. Any who still fail to comply would then be taken to court where they could face further penalties.

The measures are designed to enforce a new law which will be outlined in this week's Queen's speech. It will say that all teenagers must remain in education, training or employment until they are 18.

The change will be phased in by raising the age to 17 in 2013 and to 18 in 2015. Details of the new "age of participation" will be outlined by Ed Balls, the children's secretary, in a television interview today and in a speech tomorrow.

The new law will effectively outlaw "Neets", teenagers and young people who are "not in education, employment or training". In a speech to the Fabian Society tomorrow, Balls will put the proportion of Neets at about 10% of 16 to 18-year-olds.

On today's Sunday Programme on GMTV, he will argue that the change is "the biggest educational reform in the last 50 years".

Balls will admit that Britain performs poorly in terms of the numbers of teenagers who drop out of the system at the age of 16. In international league tables, he will say, Britain is "pretty much at the bottom, despite the rise in participation we've seen . . . the vast majority of countries have more people staying on [after 16] than we do".

The first group to be affected will be today's 10 and 11-year-olds and the change is likely to provoke strong arguments. When Brown first put it forward in July, a senior union figure, Geraldine Everett, chairman of the Professional Association of Teachers, said that the move was a "potential mine-field" that would "compel the disaffected to, in their perception, prolong the agony".

Frank Field, the Labour MP and former minister, wrote in last week's Sunday Times that a group of teenagers in his Birkenhead constituency "rolled around laughing at the idea that any government could try to lock them up in school until they became 18".

To provide places for the teenagers, Balls will announce the creation of an extra 90,000 apprenticeships by 2013 for 16 to 18-year-olds to add to the current 150,000. There will also be 44,000 new places at further education colleges.

Tomorrow he will also issue a pamphlet detailing how the changes will be put into practice: "These new rights must be matched by new responsibilities . . . young people are responsible for their participation and this can be enforced if necessary."

If someone drops out of education or training, their local authority will try to find them a place.

According to Balls's department, if they refuse to attend, they will be given a formal warning, in which the "local authority will clearly explain their duty to participate and the consequences of not doing so".

The next step will be to issue a formal notice, followed by a fixed penalty ticket. The Neet could then be taken to a youth court and fined, but the sanction will not go as far as imposing a custodial sentence.

Balls's proposal to give children the opportunity either to train or stay at school reflects the policy of both him and Brown to blur the distinction between vocational and academic education in the hope that the skills of the whole workforce can be improved.

Last month, the schools secretary announced that the government's new diplomas, to be introduced in 2011, would include not just practical subjects such as travel and tourism but also academic topics.

Critics have accused Labour of diluting the rigour of A-levels and GCSEs to ensure more young people gain qualifications.

But Balls will say today: "For decades we've been bedevilled by a two-tier view, which was that getting a skill, going to university, was for the few, and that for most young people excellence wasn't for them, that they would end up with a second-class route into either vocational learning or an unskilled job." Balls says today. "We've got to put that view behind us."


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At least over here you can still escape the tax man by refusing to work. Not so over in jolly ol' England. Anyone want to start a pool on how long until this applies to adults, too? Whoops, my bad, you can't gamble online anymore.   

My favorite comment from the article:

Labour camps are a good idea, Jennifer Hynes. I favour national service as they have in other EU countries. I know many people who have completely wasted their lives and could not have done so without benefits. A year or two of national service early on would have sorted at least some of them out.

Sickening.

[error]

I wasn't at all surprised to see the Fabian Society mixed up in this. They've, among other things, been pushing hard to extend the age of childhood and reduce the maturity level of people generally.

[Porcupine_in_MA]

At least over here you can still escape the tax man by refusing to work. Not so over in jolly ol' England. Anyone want to start a pool on how long until this applies to adults, too? Whoops, my bad, you can't gamble online anymore.   

No, but I would like to start a pool on how long until this kind of thing comes over here. 

[J’raxis 270145]

The Fabian Society.

[OnGard4Liberty]

The most amazing thing about this is how tyranny begets more tyranny.  We have need labor camps because we have too much welfare.  Over here, they're saying we need smoking bans because it costs our socialized medical system too much money.  We need to ban transfats because it costs the healthcare too much money.  Does anyone ever think to just cut the socialist crap instead? 

All socialism involves slavery.  Always.

[J’raxis 270145]

The most amazing thing about this is how tyranny begets more tyranny.  We have need labor camps because we have too much welfare.  Over here, they're saying we need smoking bans because it costs our socialized medical system too much money.  We need to ban transfats because it costs the healthcare too much money.  Does anyone ever think to just cut the socialist crap instead? 

All socialism involves slavery.  Always.

That's often the point. They create a new program that justifies new laws and regulations, over and over.

[Porcupine_in_MA]

The most amazing thing about this is how tyranny begets more tyranny.  We have need labor camps because we have too much welfare.  Over here, they're saying we need smoking bans because it costs our socialized medical system too much money.  We need to ban transfats because it costs the healthcare too much money.  Does anyone ever think to just cut the socialist crap instead? 

All socialism involves slavery.  Always.

That's often the point. They create a new program that justifies new laws and regulations, over and over.

Like Harry Browne used to say "Government is good at one thing: It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch, and say, "See, if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk."

[Lasse]

I don't know if any of you have heard of the ASBOs in the United Kingdom, but it's along the same vein of this. Complete insanity.

[Pat McCotter]

At least over here you can still escape the tax man by refusing to work. Not so over in jolly ol' England. Anyone want to start a pool on how long until this applies to adults, too? Whoops, my bad, you can't gamble online anymore.   

No, but I would like to start a pool on how long until this kind of thing comes over here. 

NH has it in the form of SB18 passed in 2007 set to go into effect July 1, 2009.

[Ogre]

I was thinking the same thing -- we already have this over here.  Until children reach the chronological age of 18 in most states (soon to be 18 in NH), they are required to go to school or they will be punished and/or their parents will be jailed.  In England, at least they have an option to work instead of go to school, so in that way they're actually more free than we are right now -- and that's just damn scary.

[Porcupine_in_MA]

NH has it in the form of SB18 passed in 2007 set to go into effect July 1, 2009.

Any concerted effort towards repealing that?

[OnGard4Liberty]

NH has it in the form of SB18 passed in 2007 set to go into effect July 1, 2009.

Any concerted effort towards repealing that?

Probably not till Republicans re-take the legislature.