Now that your 16th birthday is approaching, I'm writing to invite you to take part in National Citizen Service. I say invite, I mean conscript, so don't think you're getting out of it you lazy workshy lout. Please report for duty next Monday morning outside the Town Hall at 6am. That'll show you.
If the last week has taught us anything, it's that kids need discipline. Not my kids, obviously, but other people's kids - mischievous street-urchins, looting minxes, feral ratboys. I firmly believe that almost all of Britain's problems could be solved if only adolescents from the underclass behaved themselves better. We must instil a sense of responsibility into our nation's youth, and we must do it now. So that's precisely what National Citizen Service will do.
NCS is a programme of community payback activities designed to keep scum off the streets in the summer holidays. If we can get you weeding a pensioner's garden or camping in the woods, then you won't be tempted to throw bricks through the windows of honest-to-goodness shopkeepers and nicking their Haribo. That'll cure our broken society overnight and no mistake. It's a proven fact.
Don't worry, we're not going to force you to join the army. We asked, but they weren't interested in taking on a bunch of no-hoper ne'er-do-wells like you, plus we've cut their budget so far that they couldn't have afforded it anyway. Instead we're going to farm you off to a collection of charities and slightly-suspect youth organisations, and they'll occupy several hours of your time for nothing.
What we want to do is take sixteen year-olds from different backgrounds and get them to work together. Poor children especially, those with minimal aspiration, together with unruly kids from minority ethnic groups. And that's you, Kayleigh-Mae. We'll create chain gangs for good, to replace the knife gangs we're sure you hang around with. Once you've seen how middle class children behave, our American expert assures us, you'll never choose to riot again.
And don't think we're going to let your parents off. They're mostly to blame for your ethical malaise, because it definitely isn't the government's fault, so we plan to target them too. While you're off learning team skills or singing round camp fires, we'll be cutting your mother's benefits and evicting her from her council home. Then we'll be fining your absent father, and maybe locking him up for six months, because it's making a public example that'll surely end this slow motion moral collapse.
Responsibility, retribution, consequences. These are the watchwords of Britain's new Tough Love Society. Those of us with money, status and power don't see why we should fork out to rescue a generation of lost teenagers, it's not our fault. So pull yourself together, Kayleigh-Mae, and end this indiscriminate criminality. Now is the time to put down your petrol-soaked rag, take those looted trainers back to the shop and take your place in the National Citizen Service. Your wake up call starts at 6am on Monday.
Yours vengefully,
Teresa May (Mrs)
Minister for Communal Rehabilitation
