The British Prime Minister has announced plans to force all English children to carry out at least 50 hours of community service before the age of 19.

Luckily, the plans are in his manifesto pledge for the next British elections and are therefore extremely unlikely to ever come to fruition for the two very good reasons that Labour is unlikely to win a general election again for a long time and they have already told us that their manifesto promises aren’t actually promises, but more sort of vague ideas of things they’d do if they didn’t hold us all in such contempt.

However, as unlikely as it is that his proposals will ever come to anything, it just goes to show the lengths this illegitimate Prime Minister will go to to grab a headline.  He is putting a promise in his British general election manifesto, on which he will ask the voters of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath in Scotland to elect him, to compel English children to carry out unpaid “voluntary” work by making it a compulsory element of the English school curriculum.

Of course, you won’t read any of this on the BBC News website.  They have helpfully (for Gordon Brown) quoted the British Prime Minister word for word without correction:

It is my ambition to create a Britain in which there is a clear expectation that all young people will undertake some service to their community, and where community service will become a normal part of growing up in Britain.

And, by doing so, the contributions of each of us will build a better society for all of us.

That would mean young people being expected to contribute at least 50 hours of community service by the time they have reached the age of 19.

This will build on the platform provided by citizenship classes as they develop in our schools. But because the greater part of what I envisage as community service takes place outside the school day, it will require the close involvement of local community organisations and charities.

He also said the community work would be linked to a “clear system of accreditation” meaning that children who refuse to take part in the slave labour would fail or marked down in their Citizenship exams.

The following complaint has been made to the BBC:

You quote Gordon Brown saying:

“It is my ambition to create a Britain in which there is a clear expectation that all young people will undertake some service to their community, and where community service will become a normal part of growing up in Britain.”

The article explains that he would do this by way of changing the school curriculum which, as anyone with even a passing knowledge of UK politics (let alone a professional journalist) knows, would only apply to England.  Despite this clearly being an English-only proposal, there was no explanation of this on the BBC website, nor was Gordon Brown’s use of the word “Britain” when he meant “England” challenged or corrected.

There was also no mention of the fact that the British Prime Minister, representing a Scottish constituency, is making this policy that only applies to England a cornerstone of his general election manifesto when he seeks re-election in his Scottish constituency next year.

Technorati Tags: CEP, BBC, Slave Labour, El Gordo, Children