Archive for June, 2006
Live By the Knife-in-the-Back…
Posted by David Conway in European Union on 30/06/2006
For a change, some good news courtesy of a report in today’s Times:
By last night tendering their resignations from the Dutch coalition government, three ministers belonging to the tiny coalition partner in it, the strangely named D-66 party, have brought it down. Their resignations forced the Dutch prime minister to tender his resignation, thereby most likely precipitating early elections.
The three ministers resigned out of their wholly justified opposition to the continued presence within the government of its immigration minister Rita Verdonk who had quite understandably incurred their wrath last month, along with that of many others, by having summarily stripped the Dutch MP and fellow Liberal party-member Ayaan Hirsi Ali of her citizenship for having lied when applying for asylum from Somalia many years earlier to escape a forced marriage.
In Whose Hands is Britain Safest?
Posted by David Conway in European Union on 29/06/2006
‘I hope we will honour the victims [of the London terror bombings last July], and look frankly at what can be done at the European level to give more coherence to the fight against terrorism and organised crime.’
So Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, is reported to have said according to a report in today’s Times.
Few will surely want to disagree with the sentiment expressed in the first half of his assertion.
Many, however, will want to question the suggestion contained in the second half of his assertion about how the memory of the victims of last year’s London tube bombings may best be honoured.
Why Active Citizenship is Little More Than Kid’s Play
Posted by David Conway in Politics on 23/06/2006
Through its system of select committees, the House of Commons is currently undertaking a review of citizenship education in schools. This element of the national curriculum aims to turn out pupils who are civil, politically literate, and active in public affairs.
Given newspaper accounts of daily proceedings in the Commons, there is some reason to doubt how well suited some of its present occupants might be to deliberating how schools should set about seeking to attain these educational objectives.
Consider the following exchange there reported in yesterday’s Times:
“Shut your bloody gob!” shouted Dennis Skinner at Andrew Robathan on the Tory front bench. Mr Robathan, who had just told Mr Skinner that it was time for him to get his pension, smirked back.
“Tell him to shut his bloody mouth!” cried Mr Skinner at the Speaker who admonished him to calm down. “He started it!” cried Mr Skinner.
The Speaker chided him: “You are getting very childish.”
Mind you, learning about such goings on there might be the best way to persuade schoolchildren how undemanding it is to be an active citizen. It is nothing more than mere child’s play even at the highest national level– or should I say especially there?
How To Avoid A Bad Guilt-Trip: Just Say ‘Know’
Posted by David Conway in Race and Equality on 22/06/2006
Next year marks the bicentenary of Britain’s abolition of the slave trade. In many ways, this anniversary would form a fitting occasion for a national day of celebration, a rallying point to foster social cohesion as well appreciation of this country’s glorious role in the past as a harbinger of liberty around the globe.
In our present-day victim culture, however it would seems, no one in this country shall be allowed to take any vicarious enjoyment or pride in this world-historic achievement of their country, without first having been made to eat a hefty slice of humble-pie for its past complicity in the practice.
A foretaste of the guilt-fest currently being planned for the country’s inhabitants next year in connection with its past involvement in the African slave trade can be savoured from a report in today’s Times entitled, ‘Slaver’s descendant begs forgiveness’.
Citizenship Education — Why Old School Beats New
Posted by David Conway in Education on 16/06/2006
Tomorrow is the official 80th birthday of the Queen. Yesterday, to mark the occasion a special morning service was held at St Paul’s, followed by a slap-up lunch at Manson House. There over three hundred guests, ranging from the likes of Eric Clapton to Margaret Thatcher, turned up to pay homage to the remarkable lady who has done more than anyone else during this last turbulent half-century to hold the nation together.
Remarkably, this occasion served to evoke some rare words of sense from both the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
England has something more to celebrate today than getting through to the next round of the World Cup
Posted by David Conway in British History on 15/06/2006
At last the People couldn’t bear it any longer, so they said to the Barons (who were now Noble English Gentlemen): “We really can’t stand this misery any more. Won’t you do something?”
“Well,” said the Barons, “we can’t put up with him any longer either, so we’ll see what we can do for you.”
Then the Barons got together and talked.
“Suppose,” said one of them, “that we made a List of all the things he must do and all the things he mustn’t do. Then we could take it to him and make him Seal it with the Great Seal and make it a law. Perhaps that would make him behave better.”
“That’s a good idea,” said the others. “We’ll try it.” So they made a List and in it they put things like:
You are not to put anyone in prison unless he has done something wrong.
Even if he has really done something wrong you are not to put him in prison until you have taken him to a Just Judge and had him Judged.
You are not to take away a Farmer’s Ploughs and Carts and things that he needs for farming.
You are not to take away a workman’s hammer or chisel or anything he needs to do his work with.
These are just a few of the things the Barons put in their List. But you can see what a bad King John was when they had to put in things like that. There were lots more things in the List, so they called it the Great Writing, or Magna Carta.”
So wrote Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall about what happened in England on 15 June 1215 some 791 years ago. She did so in her 1937 re-working of Our Island Story written for still younger children and published under the playful title of Kings and Things.