Apparently they want to stop teaching Winston Churchill, according to tomorrow's
Sun. My esteemed Norfolk friend Antony Little tells me "I can tell you one History teacher who will still teach Winston Churchill! They'd have to insert the chip before I stop teaching my favourite essay; "
Churchill was the best PM ever. Agree in 500 words". Boom Boom
So this is keep them in education until their 18, the EUssr bullshitlauriat system.
ReplyDeleteDon't mention the War, I mentioned it once but the system does not recognise certain People (The English ) or periods in time that they wish to forget.
Can't find an article in the Sun about that. Did he have big tits, this Churchill?
ReplyDeleteBut you can get a degree in "Northern Studies"...
"University students can learn about coal-mining, rugby league and brass bands as part of a new degree course in northern life".
Of course, when I were a lad we didn't have universities. We had to mek do wi' an 'O' level in Gravel.
It's when Winston Smith gets burnt that I will get worried. 1984 gets closer every day.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to New Britain. Formerly known as Airstrip One.
This would normally be the occasion when I'd say "will the last one to leave the country please turn out the lights?" But there will be plenty of sad people left here still plugging away with their so-called "modernising" tendencies. We've had 30 years of this destruction of British values and perspectives of our history and look where we are now.
ReplyDeleteMaybe now is the time to stay and fight this nonsense?
Diabolo writes: "Maybe now is the time to stay and fight this nonsense?"
ReplyDeleteNo. They have taken over. The British have surrendered to the one-worlder left. It was always under their skin.
Now is the time to go.
It will not get better. Don't wait too long.
Blige me, Mistress Verity - are we in harmony for once? I thank you for your sage advice.
ReplyDeleteI'm off to the Antipodes in December for a month's break to visit my offspring and may not come back as a result if Brown and Co are still here. (I suspect they will be!)
Verity ..."History does not teach fatalism. There are moments when the will of a handful of free men breaks through determinism and opens up new roads." - would you believe, Charles de Gaulle?
ReplyDeleteDiabolo - As long as they have prime ministers like John Howard down under (I realise you may have been referring to the Kiwis,also a fine, Marmite-loving bunch of folks) Oz will be a very fine, free, brave place indeed.
ReplyDeleteHarry Hook - Britain's moment to speak out was after Blair's first tragic victory. Since then, the hard socialists have banned every form of free speech, our heritage. The moment has gone. The doors have been slammed shut and locked with brand new laws we would never have dreamed of tolerating as little as 20 years ago. Only 10 years before Blair,the Brits would not have allowed this over-mighty behaviour on the part of a little vacuous, self-regarding, wannabee pop star pretending to be Mick Jagger. Then pretending to be a "barrister" who never got paid for a case by a client; just the taxpayer expected to "Stand and deliver" to Legal Aid.
Oddly enough, Tony Blair has been a failure all his life, and still is. Now he's going to be a failed "Middle Eastern negotiator" - except the White House and the State Department have already said, after three days into the job - "Whoaaah! Negotiations on the part of the United States are done by the Secretary of State, not you." For all we know, the PLA may have forbidden him to look got office space for them. Given that they speak Arabic and he doesn't, an' all ...
Never, say never
ReplyDeleteverity
ReplyDeleteIn NZ,surely Vegemite?vb
Where did that vb come from?
ReplyDeletedelete!
Manfarang: In the Antipodes (as well now as many other places, vb is code for Victoria Bitter, one of the best brews going. Try it some time.
ReplyDeleteWord verify: ur sly fp.
I wonder who that refers to?
Just have Gorden Brown on Five Live talking about the extra sport in schools. He can't answer what would be dropped from the school day which would make way for it...
ReplyDeleteMuttered something about 'Outside the curriculum and parents helping'.
Nicky Campbell should have done better there.
Iain I know you keep stressing you are not a journalist but "according to tomorrow's Sun" doesn't have the most solid feeling about it. And I see it is those pesky "they" who are apparently planning it.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 12.15 - if there is a single problem with the teaching of history in schools it is that there is a focus on particular episodes outside the context of a narrative sweep. WW2 is certainly covered if the experience of my daughters is anything to go by.
I'm still recovering from the way El-Beeb reported changes to the English curriculum yesterday. Apparently, Trollope is out, Meera Syal and Benjamin Zephaniah are in. The Asian female reporter could hardly contain her glee.
ReplyDeleteI went through secondary education from 1994-1999 and don't recall Churchill ever being mentioned.
ReplyDeleteThey can only really teach about Winston Churchill by teaching about Winston Churchill AND Lloyd George - the two war leaders and how much influence Lloyd George had on Winston Churchill - even to the point that Churchill wanted to bring him into government.....
ReplyDeleteThe important feature of Churchill was that he did not arrive pre-packaged in 1940 - he had lots of life experience behind him something modern politicians lack.
Alone the thought that Attlee had been a subaltern at Gallipoli trying to survive Churchill's plans must have been a very useful basis for sounding out policies during the war in Cabinet
I'll take your word for it Nomad.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen it in my neck of the woods.Anyway I have plenty of Marmite.
I thought Churchill said history would be kind to him because he was going to write it.
I don't suppose he wrote too much about the Dardanelles.
(Such was the slaughter the sea turned from blue to red-eyewitness account,my Grandfather)
Proof, if we ever needed more, that schools should not be administered by the State.
ReplyDeleteLast week on QT, Miliband/2 admitted that citizenship classes were "dull", just about institutions, so they were going to change them so people talk about issues such as climate change...WHAT! You make it interesting by teaching kids about WHY we have the institutions and the mass protests that created them - but then again, that might give the kids ideas...
Benjamin Zephaniah
ReplyDeleteHe needs publicity - his barbecue sauce stinks
The sad thing is that I suspect that if you asked certain sections of the public - "Who Churchill was ?" some would say "That Nodding Dog on the Telly who sells insurance !"
ReplyDeleteSums up the failure of our State Education System in a nutshell !
Seen the canvass returns have they?
ReplyDelete'I went through secondary education from 1994-1999 and don't recall Churchill ever being mentioned.'
ReplyDeleteYou can't have been paying attention in your year 9 history class, which was or should be about the 2nd world war....
My teacher was soooo boring, so I dropped it and did Latin instead. Learnt more history that way.
Year 9? All I remember from that year was the American West and Manifest Destiny.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I was sniffing glue behind Tescos at the time...
The EU started off by making it compulsory for Hitler Stalin and Churchill to be studied to the exclusion of all other national history in earlier centuries. The idea was that this would convince children that the amalgamation of the countries of Europe was essential for peace.
ReplyDeleteIn fact it has had the opposite effect in Britain, convincing most children that it is better to keep separate from Europe and all its woes.
This is now EU Policy mark 2. No national history to be taught at all.
My father always told me that Churchill was an extraordinary man. He was based in India in the dark early days of the war, and hearing Churchill's short radio broadcasts convinced him that the fight would be won. He said that Churchill's words at that time lifted his spirits and electrified people.
I could teach someone about debt in two 45 minute lessons. WW2 would take a minimum of a couple of years. Are the government downsizing education?
I did mediaeval history for GCSE and it was much more edoocational than WW2 history.
ReplyDeleteRead 'Churchill, a Study in Failure' and 'Churchill, Four Faces and the Man' when I did my A levels. He was the Chancellor who introduced the 10 year rule on defence spending - and then damns Baldwin and Co for not doing enough to defend Britain. (Who ordered the development of radar, Spitfires, Hurricanes, four engined bombers, modern aircraft carriers and battleships before the war- it wasn't WSC. He was a great war leader, but his predecessors shouldn't be written off.
ReplyDeleteThe course also included the Seven Years War, French Revolution, enlightend despots and Napoleon. Not sure if any of this still is covered in schools. Is it because it covers inconvienent traumatic events like wars with France?
The trouble with the National Curriculum is the way in which politicans have been trying to bolt on the cause of the month - slavery, global warming, recycling, and civics. Time to check out which of McStalin Broon's goons have children being educated outside the state system.
manfarang
ReplyDeleteChurchill used his contacts to change regiment and go and serve in the trenches as his own penance for gallipoli. Yes thats right he went to fight at the front after his cock-up.
can you imagine any of todays politicians showing such immense persoanl courage and integrity??
Churchill wrote the history of the english speaking world and displayed courage in alll he did.
ReplyDeleteBrown put his name to a ghost written book called courage.
compare and contrast.
Chris Paul may be a complete and utter twat. But he has got a newsworthy Sedgefield caption competition? on the go. No takers just yet. Go get scribbling.
ReplyDeleteHe's probably on his day release course today! Or job hunting or something. I think the drunken comatose man is the LD agent or the like. Ming's right hand man on the ground etc.
The RSA had a leture on teaching history in UK schools, it's a 20MB MP3 download.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 9:35;
ReplyDeleteYes, Churchill did go to the front - having wangled himself a Lieutenant-Colonelcy in the Royal Scots Fusiliers and obtained a commisson for a Liberal politician to be his second-in-command. Not bad for a former Cavalry subaltern.
This ignores the fact that what Churchill had in mind had been command of a brigade in a deal he made with the then C-in-C BEF, Sir John French - consequently vetoed by the Prime Minister.
Churchill has been called an unorthodox commander for caring for his troops but the truth is the vast majority of battalion commanders cared deeply for the welfare of their troops.
IF he had wanted to show true courage and not a bit of humility he could have gone to Gallipoli.
Churchill saved me money on my home insurance. I'd vote for him.
ReplyDeleteSimon
ReplyDeleteSo you dont think going to the western front was a brave thing to do then??
Can't we agree that it's about time "to stop teaching Winston Churchill"? After all he's been dead for over forty years and unlikely to learn much more now. Perhaps, though, we could try to teach Iain about the word 'about'...
ReplyDeleteW. Churchill, serial defector, would have been a joy to bloggers but, with his 'interesting' private life, he wouldn't have lasted a year in today's politics with the feral media on his trail...
Churchill's army service during WW1 is rather peculiar.
ReplyDeleteAfter Gallipoli, he attempted to obtain the appointment of Commander-in-Chief in East Africa, this was refused, he was then promised, by Sir John French command of an infantry brigade, after he had familirised himself with conditions on the Western front, this did not materialise. Churchill accepted, (with much bad grace) command of a new army battallion 6 Royal Scots Fusiliers, he then wangled the transfer of his old friend Sir Archibald Sinclair from the Life Guards, to be his second in command. Churchill then spent five months in a relatively quiet area, Ploegsteert Wood south of Ypres, (wearing for some inexplicable reason a French steel helmet). Churchill's habit of constantly rushing off to London to do some political lobbying, was a source of great annoyance to the other officers, he even used the military communications system to bring him political gossip. For most of the 120 days that Churchill spent on the front six days in the trenches, six days in the billets, nothing very much happened. When he left, the war diary for the 7th of May 1916 stated, 'Colonel W.S.Churchill left the battalion today', one gets the feeling, they did not tear out their hair and rent their rainment. In fact he was allowed to leave the army on the stipulation, that he did not apply for military command again, insisted on by no less a person than Lord Kitchener himself.
Never mind, Iain, Boris has announced his candidac for Mayor of London and he will change all that once he's zapped Red Ken and Boris is Mayor.
ReplyDeleteBye bye Red Ken
Boris For Mayor!
Woops. I meant to say that Boris has announced he's standing for Mayor of London.
ReplyDeleteBoris for Mayor!
Auntie Flo'
Actually he hasn't - he posted a confirmation on his website and then withdrew it ten minutes later. Too indecisive to be Mayor?
ReplyDeleteChurchill may have won the Second World War (big deal!!!) but surely none of us can forgive us for not stepping down from his Oldham seat and calling a by-election in 1904 when he quit the Tories? I've certainly never got over it.
ReplyDeleteHalf-past ten and still no Chris Paul. Is there any chance he's fallen under a bus on the way to Labour HQ?
ReplyDeleteChurchill is nowadays celebrated because he typifies, and rightly so, the spirit of the British people who saved Europe from tyranny on two occasions in the last century. Any teacher who does not want to tell that story (and history is storytelling) should be shot.
ReplyDeleteNext point, correct me if I am wrong, but I do not think that any country has ever sacrificed as many men in the defence of the homelands of others as we did in Flanders. British people should walk a little taller with that in mind.
And don't get me started about the BBC!
To the very best of my knowledge, Mr Churchill wasn't taught during my lessons at school, even 25-30 years ago.
ReplyDeleteMy education about the War came from Sunday afternoon war films. With only one TV in the house and 3 channels - my dad and uncles would go to sleep watching them and it was their narrative - and the films - that taught me our History.
As "The Hitch" commented some time ago - kids these days are taught that Dr Who and some gay yank won us the war.
With multi channel TV, TV sets in bedrooms and remote controls firmly in the hands of the Children there is little chance of TV educating anyone beyond the correct use of new swear words and where young ladies like to take it.
For goodness sake. There had been no history teaching to speak of in our schools for decades. Have you just woken up. And no, it has nothing to do with the EU - not often you hear me say that - but our own educational establishment. Take away the power from the LEAs and dismantle the two education ministries, give power to the schools and parents, introduce a voucher system and who knows what might happen. Do I hear anybody saying that in the Conservative Party or on this forum?
ReplyDeleteBtw Churchill was a terrible Prime Minister but a brilliant War Leader. You don't need 500 words to say that.
to anonymous @ 10:24
ReplyDelete"I should like to acquire the whole of the ruins of Ypres. A more sacred place for the British race does not exist in the world." - Churchill's words.
Whatever his experiences on the Ypres Salient, I think they left their mark, don't you.
don't do it, boris! said...
ReplyDeleteActually he hasn't - he posted a confirmation on his website and then withdrew it ten minutes later. Too indecisive to be Mayor?
Looks like Red Ken's Got the wind up big time about Boris standing for Mayor and is sending out his nulab poodles to try to suck Boris to death. Well, don't waste your breath, bonzo :)
Not surprised Ken's shaking in his shoes though - Boris will wipe the floor with him without even trying.
Ken is toast!
As for the posting on Boris's website, Boris didn't withdraw it, Melissa did, in order to revamp it. It will be reposted, bigger and better, you'll see.
Auntie Flo'
Forgot to add:
ReplyDeleteBoris for Mayor!
Auntie Flo'
Can't remember doing any Churchill history when I was at school, and that was during the later days of Margaret Thatcher. There is a great deal to learn about Churchill but I find his history up to 1938 to be much more illustrative of Britain than what came after.
ReplyDeleteOf course nothing here has anything to do with the EU whatsoever. The EU doesn't have any role in changing the school curriculum and is far too busy with other things. Pro-Europeans like me would also prefer more teaching of Churchill because of his involvement in opposing the Munich agreement (in which the stance of the appeasers is very instructively comparable to Eurosceptics today), and in his postwar views on how the European Communities were being set up. Churchill liked the principle but disliked the details and decided not to join the ECSC in 1954, a decision which turned out to be the wrong one.
Churchill's WW1 military appointment was not so strange as it now appears.Britain had a small pre war professional army and many of its peacetime officers were killed in the early part of the war before both sides dug into the trench lines.The Army was badly lacking trained officers to lead the thousands of volunteer soldiers.Churchill was a former professional soldier with a combat record in the North West Frontier,the Sudan and the Boer War(only a decade earlier).He had continued as a Territorial officer even whilst a Cabinet minister.It was unsurprising that he was given a battalion to command.
ReplyDeleteBoris to stand
ReplyDeletehttp://www.boris-johnson.com/archives/2007/07/boris_confirmed_as_london_mayo.php
"There had been no history teaching to speak of in our schools for decades" - try telling that to my daughter who has just completed her history A level and who, I suspect, knows a great deal more about British history than Helen does!
ReplyDeleteAnd no wonder 'Tone made me do it' has such odd views if he thinks that the films shown on TV when there were only three channels provided a realistic historical representation of wartime events. You shouldn't believe everything you see at the pictures old chap even though the Tories attitude to the NHS seems to derive largely from the 'Carry on Matron' genre....
Diablo said...
ReplyDeleteThis would normally be the occasion when I'd say "will the last one to leave the country please turn out the lights?"
Maybe now is the time to stay and fight this nonsense?
July 13, 2007 12:51 AM
I feel the same. I tried to get on a bus this morning after delivering my kids to school- saves congestion and emissions. I was told I could not get on the bus because they did not have change for my £10 note. Problem is that I cannot get any other kind of money out of a bank machine except £20. I took a taxi home instead. I also have to pay for my kids schools because local state schools are rubbish.
From my experience this morning, I conclude that nothing works in this country that the central or local government has anything to do with. I am sick of it.
What is the Tory response to this? It was Kenneth Baker who started the political meddling in the curriculum with the entirely inevitable and predictable consequences.
ReplyDeleteThe future for parents who cannot afford private education is very bleak with LEAs now using lotteries to award places at oversubscribed schools thereby spreading mediocrity and driving out more good teachers from the public sector.
According to the grauniad the central event in British hisory is now the Holocaust.
Further, established english poets are deprecated in favour of such as Michael Rosen:-
Down behind the dustbin
I met a dog called Ted.
‘Leave me alone,’ he says,
‘I’m just going to bed.’
Doggerel anybody?
BOOTHROYD SAID-teaching of Churchill because of his involvement in opposing the Munich agreement (in which the stance of the appeasers is very instructively comparable to Eurosceptics today),
ReplyDeleteWhat on earth are you talking about? I should have thought the wish to hand over the government of the country to the continent had more in common with the appeasement you mention.
Mystifying . I would be fascinated to know why it is you hate this country so much as to wish for it to cease to exist. Were we in the same spot again it isn`t hard to see who the appeasers would be .
Those who feel there is nothing wiorth defending about our Parliament culture and people .
It was , of coursec , the existence of a striong independent Britain that stopped Hitler , not a collection of dependencies regions and statelets.
BORIS FOR MAYOR !!!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDeleteSimon
So you dont think going to the western front was a brave thing to do then??
July 13, 2007 10:07 AM
Attlee was in the trenches on the Western Front after serving at Gallipoli and in Mesopotamia; Anthony Eden was at Ypres; Harry Truman was on the Western Front; as was Macmillan; as was Lord Denning; as was Oswald Mosley
Why would modern pygmy politicians want children to know that once upon a time we had a truly great Prime Minister and like Alfred the Great he saved his country from the barbarians at the gates? Remember this principle with New Labour; it's all about the mutability of the past!
ReplyDeleteSome home truths about the teaching of history:
ReplyDeleteBecause of the narrative element it was one of the first subjects to be devastated by the decline in reading and writing.
Of all the outside influences, none has affected the subject more than the shortening of pupil attention span and growing lack of discipline.
Even the most traditional, patriotic and right wing teacher will elect to teach lessons about the slave trade, wicked factory conditions etc. because you can retail a few lurid stories, draw a few exciting pictures and get a few words written before they get fed up and start rioting.
I would like to have the home address, please, of the person who came up with this brilliant idea of dropping Winnie. I have the Apache helicopter ready.
ReplyDeleteWhen you stop studying the past you will re-invent it.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if any of the educational 'experts' on this thread has set foot inside a state school since 1956?
ReplyDeleteAs for the sad old cliché about giving the teachers freedom from meddling bureaucrats, remember that almost half of them are NUT members who can't wait to get back to teaching nothing but extreme left wing theoretical politics. Is that what you want? Cos that's what'll happen...
Paul Newman, you can call me David. Your question asking "why it is you hate this country so much as to wish for it to cease to exist" is based on a fundamental mistake which I believe you make deliberately and maliciously. I hold no such views.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do invite you to do is to read the more detailed arguments made at the time (in October 1938) by the supporters of Munich. Their case has largely been forgotten by history, because Hitler repudiated an agreement he never intended to keep. However, Lord Maugham (then Lord Chancellor) wrote in early 1944 a defence of Munich which is worth reading ("The Truth about the Munich Crisis"). Essentially Maugham tries to remind everyone what they were thinking at the time and in so doing reveals the underlying attitudes within the government.
What Maugham reveals is that Chamberlain's approach was based on pessimism about the chances of Britain obtaining international allies, uncertainty about the political stability of the French government, and a belief that British negotiations were stymied by previous treaties having inadequate foundations (in the case of the formation of the state of Czechoslovakia). All these things are characteristic of euroscepticism. Also to be noted is Maugham's belief that it was better for Czechoslovakia to be dismembered than for the Czechs to suffer damage to their economy, which chimes with the commonly expressed but mistaken Eurosceptic
belief that European union should only be about economic matters and trade and not about political unity.
"they want to stop teaching Winston Churchill"
ReplyDeleteI thought Winnie's USP was that he never learned? - even when long dead!
This is not aimed just at Churchill but also at Ghandi, Luther-King, Hitler and Stalin too.
ReplyDeleteConsequently, Brown's Labour Government can pretend the Lurch is a great leader rather than the great tyrant he actually is!
After all younger people will not now the real difference between them. They will listen to Chairman Lurch and he will tell them.
What I notice about the teaching of history is that even given there is some residual attention given to the narrative of the nation its stops at the early modern period ( Elizabethan say) and starts again with the Industrial revolution.
ReplyDeleteThe intervevning period has popped out of existence. Of course this is only my impression
So Tories are actually complaining about the fact that power is being handed back to the teachers to decide on curriculum details? Isn't that exactly what they keep asking for? Very strange.
ReplyDeleteAre teachers communists who target schools as the best way to propagate their viewpoint, or is there something about the profession of teaching which persuades its practitioners that they know more than everyone else, and they become extremists on the strength of it?
ReplyDeleteI mean. They obviously know more. That's why all those kids sit and listen to them all day, and someone keeps sending them money every month.
From outside the profession, on the other hand, the adage, 'if you can't do it, teach it' - certainly seems to be an accurate reflection on the true capabilities of many teachers...once they stray away from their teaching specialisation.
Maybe they have an inner rage at their own incompetence, and they get secret satisfaction by holding extreme political views and propagating them against their sworn enemies - the competent and the capable.
Fortunately most kids can tell when their teachers are bigoted half wits - and they can tell when their teachers rightly command their respect. The same goes for the setters of the national curriculum.
If schools were set free from central control and could decide their own curricula, parents would have a choice. The central control of education is and has been a national disaster. Getting rid of Churchill merely confirms the stupidity of the system which we already know about. Localise.
Is this the best the right wing can do. I attended secondary school, between 1980 and 1985, Churchill wasnt on the curriculum then, didnt seem to upset the Thatcher nutters
ReplyDeleteYou trying to get “Close and personal “.... “ David “..... Newmania will do fine .
ReplyDeleteYour question asking "why it is you hate this country so much as to wish for it to cease to exist" is based on a fundamental mistake which I believe you make deliberately and maliciously. I hold no such views.
Then why do you wish to hand its rule over to unelected bureaucrats whose often stated objective is a United States of Europ. With it they intend to challenge American dominance,impose socialism and a European social model requiring a loss of Liberty, high taxes , protectionism and reducing nations to regions especially this one . Quite aside from the waste and necessary unaccountability of a democratic unti where there is no demos . £5000 per household just so Milliband can waffle on about the climate with the Germans !! Good deal . Why is the EU element in our laws consistently hidden and why is Gordon Brown lying about the nature of the Constitution when the rest of Europe knows the red lines are worthless? How can all this proceed when a clear majority does not want it detesting as they do the imposition of alien legal systems overriding our Common law and Parliament .
However, Lord Maugham (then Lord Chancellor) wrote in early 1944 a defence of Munich which is worth reading ("The Truth about the Munich Crisis"). Essentially Maugham tries to etc.
He will naturally have tried to save his reputation , which , with other other appeasers of Hitler will be forever as a coward and more particularly a fool. “Because Hitler repudiated an agreement he never intended to keep.”..... of course !!!!
What Maugham reveals is that Chamberlain's approach was based on pessimism about the chances of Britain obtaining international allies.
I see , ( I think) you mean because we are always going to be isolated in Europe we would rather not be in it .Esoteric to the point of irrelevance . That does not approximate even remotely to the attitude of Euro sceptics who wish this country to rule itself and do not accept that pooling sovereignty is compatible with a nation state . Not a problem for Germans of course who for most of their history have been federated regions under an empire and have no democratic tradition or much to be proud of.
The Pro Europe position is pessimistic in that it imagines tossed on the cruel seas of free world trade we will be “unable to go it alone”. This in fact was why Conservatives voted for the EU in the first place the Common Market as it was misleadingly called. In fact we could easily join the trade group with Norway ..or not . In any case the importance of Europe in world terms recedes daily. I would accept however that the only reason there is any support for the project is the sense that we are blackmailed by the prospect of fortress Europe. It is the single and only reason for having anything to do with them except as a holiday destination. Or perhaps you feel that that a Lithuanian should have as much say in the rule of London as I do ? Theres not much in it . We live in the Region of London
Also to be noted is Maugham's belief that it was better for Czechoslovakia to be dismembered than for the Czechs to suffer damage to their economy, which chimes with the commonly expressed but mistaken Eurosceptic
belief that European union should only be about economic matters and trade and not about political unity.
Damage to their economy ? Their economy ?!!!! This was after the Anshluss and justified by the German ethnic population of Sudetan land . Incidentally you might want to wonder the Poles are not quite as keen as the Germans on regional self
Determination for diverse ethnicities as the Germans ...wonder why eh ? This is absurdly anachronistic. The economy was hardly the point in what was actually the continuation of the Great war by temporarily other means. It is the EU who wish to dismemeber nations states by dealing bi-laterally with regions and offering grants at “Borders “ so as to destabilise them.
It is , as I have said , a damn good job we were not , at that time reduced to the level of a quizzling set of Brussels dependencies because had we been the Wermacht would not have been stopped.
If there is one lesson of this period it is the essential value of the nation state . Its value is that it is a modern approximation to the tribal homeland and an extended cultural family.
It is required for Liberal Democracy and defence because noone will either fight for or pool resources with , or compromise with strangers .The notion of Britain is now so attenuated that it is increasingly difficult to pool resources hence the bitterness common against immigrants and the Barnett formula.
Your narrative is liken a game of twister . It might be fun but it looks ridiculous.
If you think I'm responding to that poorly typed and mis-spelled rant which betrays nothing but a total ignorance of European politics, well I'm not.
ReplyDeleteYou might try studying Churchill though.
Churchill is bullshit, an essential part of a national self-delusion. People say "what if Hitler had one?" but never ask "what if Stalin had won?". We were lucky that Japan was provoked into attacking the American Empire otherwise the whole of Eurasia including ourselves would have been imprisoned in a Bolshevik gulag.
ReplyDeleteStalin was a good guy until 1945 and then became a bad guy - oh dear, what a surprise, but only if you believe the self-serving nonsense which constitutes your premise.
Forthhurst, are you on drugs. If not, you should be.
ReplyDeleteMy motto, and it has always been thus, is,
"if you want to win, hire a bastard"
Churchill was a bastard. He was very, very, drunk. He was more hissy than a Piccadilly poofter. But he knew, from the bottom of his heart what the stakes were and what needed to be done. If Atlee had been in charge, or heaven forbid Eden, we would all be speaking German and Alan Yentob would be making Bagels in Poland - if he was lucky.
Get real, smell the barley cup, and read some history. Git.
Forthurst = Verity wannabee
ReplyDeleteI feel with time and the right therapy I will be able to sustain my spirits despite this grievous blow. Your snippy nit picking is puerile and your , naturally , unsubstantiated claim that “ You know best” , is all to typical of the self serving conceit of minority whose loyalties are not along national lines.
ReplyDeleteThus it has always been.
The weekly timetable on the front page of The Independent today makes interesting reading.
ReplyDelete5 periods a week of Maths and 6 of English, seems sensible, not much change from 45 years ago.
But beyond them, a large number of subjects commanding just one hour a week each (Languages, Science, global warming, British values, History, etc, etc). Are children really going to learn a foreign language in one hour a week? And science used be broken down into chemistry, physics and biology, with a total of several periods a week. These scientific topics seem to be just as important to the Nation today as they were in the early 60s. For example, they all have an important role to play in understanding global warming, developing new medical products, etc.
This looks like a timetable for diletantees rather than for children who want to develop real knowledge.
As a History graduate, I'm losing the will to live. Someone get my an AK-47 so that I can put us all out of our misery?
ReplyDeletehttp://conservativemindblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/at-my-wits-end.html
wrinkled weasel is a drunken git which is presumably why he so admires Churchill and I have read plenty enough history to come to conclusions which are based on facts, having discounted the self-serving propaganda which is presented as history to people without the intellectual capacity to think for themselves.
ReplyDelete"wrinkled weasel is a drunken git"
ReplyDeleteyes, my dear farthurst, but in the morning I will be sober. You will still be a git.
There is nothing like a grown up mature and reasoned debate on a Friday afternoon.
ReplyDeleteDon't get too upset, Weasel.
ReplyDeleteForthurst is one of those people who cannot put his or her point across without insulting anyone who disagrees with them.
He or she was probably bullied at school.
Good...
yes wrinkled weasel, but you are now drunk and your brain and liver will be more shrunken in the morning.
ReplyDeletePS As a matter of interest, do you believe that following the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact which preceded WWII, we should have declared war on the Soviet Union as well as Germany in order to protect the independence of Poland? After all we were in no position to defeat either party, so why not go for the jackpot?
""There had been no history teaching to speak of in our schools for decades" - try telling that to my daughter who has just completed her history A level and who, I suspect, knows a great deal more about British history than Helen does!"
ReplyDeleteYou reckon? Why go into personal attacks then? Actually, even when I was doing History A level (which was exactly one third more than the same exam a few years ago - I checked) the teaching of history was iffy.
Frankly, anyone who thinks taking and even passing exams is the same as learning a subject knows nothing about education.
Not surprisingly, Farthurst, I do not know the answer.
ReplyDeleteBut rest assured, the same elements of the argument are fought over every year in about May. It is called the Eurovison Song contest, and a careful analysis of the tactical voting, esepecially those of the Baltic States, may help you with your recondite historical enquiries.
And now enough! Mrs Weasel is expecting tea, and she likes it hot on the dining room table, with french bread cut in nice oblique slices, so I must be away to the kitchen and get busy.
The government has no business running schools, let alone telling them what to teach. All schools should be private (fee-paying or charitable) with full discretion to choose what they teach and to whom.
ReplyDeleteThe only exception should be a prohibition on incitement to murder, for religious or other reasons.
My school history lessons covered only the period 1485 (Bosworth) to 1688 (Glorious Revolution) and were none the worse for that.
Forthhurst 4.52:
ReplyDeleteThere was no soviet union proceeding the first world war, tipical EUssrphile, putting cart before Orse as usual.
If winston was 'the best PM ever', then why didn't you Tories vote him in?
ReplyDeleteI never did Churchill at school in history - because my history courses ended at 1918, much like Sellars' and Yeatman's.
ReplyDelete"America was thus clearly Top Nation and history came to a stop."