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Britishness
Instinct or instruction?
Having started their regime with the cry of ‘Cool Britannia’ and
the dismantling of the United Kingdom as we knew it, the Government
has now decided it wants, instead, to direct our schools to
teach British values. How, exactly?
Being insatiably curious,
I thought I’d better catch up with how (and what) history
and citizenship are taught in our schools these days. So I
visited the Department for Education and Skills website and
delved into the national curriculum. Now, just because I enjoyed,
in my schooldays, being taught our island history starting
with the Romans and just because I used to be a teacher, does
not mean I reject the current fashion in teaching our children
what’s what.
When a Foreign Office Minister made a keynote
speech on the subject recently, aimed principally at our Muslim
community, I thought I’d better check it out. He said
that when dealing with ‘Britishness’ it was hard
to draw the boundaries between expressions of identity and
cultural separatism, so he had ordered a review of ‘how
the national curriculum is covering diversity issues to meet
the needs of all people . It will look at how we can incorporate
modern British cultural and social history into the citizenship
curriculum within our schools’.
Their Lordships weren’t
too happy with this. They were more interested in the defence
of free speech and tolerance. Our own representative in the
Lords, the Bishop of Salisbury, asked if Ministers believed
that ‘fundamental to the foundation of British values
are truth-telling, fairness and hospitality’. Yes – but
why? And how did we get here?
So, I was delighted that Baroness
Buscombe (in her own right, and married to a boy I taught thirty
years ago) said our young people should understand not just
modern British history but all our history – our ancient
and hard-fought freedoms and our culture and core values such
as mutual respect and fairness, which binds us as a people.
Hurrah to that! We were teaching it right in those days! Cool
Britannia indeed…
Mind you, in the schools of all kinds
that I visit regularly, I often notice on-going projects on
local life and history along the lines of when was our village
started right here, why and what for? Recently I read Alison
Weir’s wonderful book on Isabella, Edward 11’s
French wife and I was astonished to discover just how significant
Salisbury was in the early fourteenth century fabric of our
nation. Our roots run deep.
The Bomb?
The Defence Committee
of the House will shortly be publishing the first of our Reports
to Parliament on the future of the UK’s strategic nuclear
deterrent. We are not saying yes or no – but what is
the strategic context in which the government should take any
decision. The Ministry of Defence didn’t want us to do
it, of course. But decisions are likely to be made during this
Parliament and the government promised a free and open debate
before decisions are taken.
Now the Cold War is behind us,
does nuclear deterrence remain relevant? What are the threats
we now face? Does ownership of nuclear weapons enhance our
international influence and status? How independent are we
of the United States? Would we be prepared to pay for the degree
of independence enjoyed by France’s nuclear weapons which
cost at least three times as much as ours, with hardly a whimper
from their taxpayers? What will be the consequences for our
national shipbuilding, infrastructure and skills base if we
abandon our nuclear capability? This is not just about jobs
in far-away Barrow-in-Furness. It is also about the kind of
internationally competitive science and technology education
we offer our children in Wiltshire and the UK in the face of
global competition.
General Well Being
It was music to my ears
to hear the Leader of my Party saying that there is more to
Government than Gross National Product – it is also their
responsibility to promote General Well Being. Like you, I’m
sure, I know rich people who are ‘miserable as sin’ and
people with little money who enjoy a rich, good life. It all
has a lot to do with self-confidence as people and as nations.
That must be one reason why the Eurovision Song Contest remains
so popular. This year Sue and I watched in fascination as singers
and dancers put on amazing shows. It would be easy to read
too much into this annual extravaganza – whose idea has
surely gone. Great nations flopped, new nations fought for
cultural space and difficult neighbours voted for each other.
But the most interesting entries, for us, came from Baltic
near-neighbours Finland and Lithuania.
Lithuania, because they
took the mickey out of the whole ghastly show with a parody
of how the rest of Europe probably perceives their little-known
nation’s most boring traits. It had us in fits – laughing
with the Lithuanians. Finland, who also raised fingers irreverently
to the rest of Europe and gave us all a gale of fresh air with
their very untraditional, scary heavy metal rock – so
uncharacteristic of all most of us perceive to be Finnish.
For me, Europe’s greatest strength is its diversity and
its greatest weakness is the misguided attempt to fit us all
into a one-size-fits-all straitjacket. Long live the nations
of Europe! We have built a continent of tolerance variety and
general well being that still has much to offer the rest of
the world – a way of life worth defending.
Robert Key MP
May 23rd 2006 |
