The civilisation of the West, led by Great Britain, was the first in history to outlaw chattel slavery. We should be proud of this achievement, but not complacent. Any institution that allows one person to use violence or the threat of violence to cause an innocent person to work, is slavery, and all slavery is evil. Some forms of slavery survived long after its formal abolition. For example, military conscription is slavery. So is compulsory schooling.

Now David Cameron, the new leader of the Conservative Party in Britain, has decided that he wants to make community service for school leavers compulsory. He wants to extend the period for which the government enslaves schoolchildren. And he has descended from ‘for their own good’ or even ‘national emergency’ as the ostensible justification, to ‘serving others’. In other words, from convincing oneself that the institution is something other than slavery to the insolent self-righteousness of the pre-Enlightenment slave owner who has never for an instant thought to doubt his ownership of the lives and persons of other human beings.

The Liberal party (then known as the Whigs) were at the forefront of the anti-slavery movement in the late 18th and early 19th century. Today their nominal heirs, the Liberal Democrats, have abandoned all trace of liberalism (in the original sense of advocacy of liberty). They make no exception in regard to slavery. Their leader Charles Kennedy

responded to the plan by saying the Liberal Democrat Youth Taskforce was already exporing a similar scheme.

"David Cameron wants to portray himself as a liberal but needs to be careful to attribute his 'ideas' to those who are genuinely doing the fresh thinking," he said.

Young people were forced into National Service in Britain from 1939 to 1960, so this idea is about as fresh as a fifty-year-old barrel of fish. Moreover, it is grotesque that politicians are now fighting over who is more ‘liberal’ by claiming ownership of the abomination.

Mr Cameron said that this scheme stemmed from the Party's belief in “trust and responsibility”. Obviously Mr Cameron does not trust young people with responsibility for their own lives. And we do not trust him to use power responsibly.