Editorial: The idea of national service for the young is a good one but it has come too late

The Conservative plan that 18-year-olds have to undertake national service was swiftly undermined yesterday.

It emerged that a defence minister in the outgoing government, Andrew Murrison, had ruled out just such a restoration of “any form” of national service only days ago.

The Tories have said that teenagers would choose between taking a 12-month placement in the armed forces or “volunteer” work in their community one weekend a month for a year under the proposals.

It is in fact a good idea, but has come far too late in a 14-year administration, and is another stab at tackling symptoms of things that are fundamentally wrong in the UK, and indeed in other wealthy countries.

The Home Secretary James Cleverly says the idea is to get teenagers “out of their bubble” in which they “don’t mix with people of different religions ... [or] viewpoints”.

He said that nobody would be “sent to jail” for refusing to comply with the scheme. That is sensible.

But this is a sudden response to an emerging problem among the younger generations that is apparent in their hyper-sensitivity to criticism; in their the cancelling of controversial views; in the medicalising of normal ups and downs and challenges that young people have always faced; in trends such as large numbers of younger people feeling psychologically unable to work, and so on.

As a country we face a crisis if this goes on, with ruthless foreign powers sensing national weakness.

The idea of forcing young people, in the words of John F Kennedy, to ask not what their country can do for them but what they can do for their country is sound. But it won’t come about by sudden imposition, but rather the near overthrow of liberal orthodoxies in upbringing and education so that we have a society in which the idea of national service seems natural, not alien.