Mat Bowles

The Sun Online - News: Cameron's call-up for teenagers:

Bookish swots will be shown there is more to life than just exams.

Best reaction I've seen? The political editor of the Daily Mail:

My reaction on reading this was to bristle. Surely this was just my chum George Pascoe-Watson applying his talent for distilling complicated ideas; Mr Cameron must have something far more subtle in mind. But no, there it is, on page 16 of the policy document: Those who are overly academic will discover there is more to life. And it all came flooding back: being forced to run behind the sports master on his motorcycle; endless games of ghastly football; painful attempts to learn rugby. Around the country there are bookish types who are quite happy to read and swot and think, and who will now I suspect quite like to biff Mr Cameron on the nose (if they knew how).

It comes to something when I agree with the guy who writes the Daily Mail's political coverage.

Caveat: I knew there was more to life all the way through my teenage years--I was a member of the Scouts. Was crap at pretty much everything that didn't involve boats, but I'm also pretty sure it was good for me.

Thing is, what Cameron's bloody 'national service' proposal is going for is a short course one summer that's (initially) strictly voluntary. Don't know about you, but the summer after I finished my GCSEs I got myself a summer job and earnt money. I suspect his target audience (ie, the 'young yobs' are even less likely to want to sign up for this thing.

I wish Cameron would figure out what he wants his party to be, this is the weirdest attempt to grab the middle ground (whicever middle ground he's thinking of) that I've seen. Attacking those of us that like studying for being 'overly academic'? Nice...