Archive for category British History
1066 and All That
Posted by David Merlin-Jones in British History, Education, Multiculturalism on 19/08/2010
The BBC series The Normans, presented by Professor Robert Bartlett, concluded last night and has shown the licence payer just how well History programmes can be made. Not only was it well-rounded on facts, interesting asides and minimal judgements; it also displayed great insight into themes such as multiculturalism and colonialism, both still hot topics to this day and fascinating to explore as a result. Read the rest of this entry »
Quality: questionable guides
Posted by Anastasia de Waal in British History, Education on 13/11/2009
The issue of quality assessment in relation to education has come up twice this week in two quite different arenas. Firstly, Ofsted, the schools’ inspectorate, has been accused (again) of over-reliance on exam and test results in its judgements. Secondly, the teaching union NUT has orchestrated a revolt against the introduction of Ed Balls’ ‘licences to teach.’
Red Tories
Posted by David Green in British History, Politics on 23/02/2009
In the latest issue of Prospect Phillip Blond makes a case for localism, but he seems to think his proposals require a rejection of liberalism, whereas in fact they are simply the natural outgrowth of liberal ideas. In particular he is grossly mistaken about some of the characteristics he attributes to liberalism. His article has provoked considerable criticism, including my defence of liberalism.
National Trust goes green
Posted by Nick Cowen in British History on 25/07/2007
The National Trust is to celebrate reaching a 3.5 million-membership landmark by changing its focus. No longer will it just look after the buildings and artefacts that constitute our national heritage. Now it will “advise people how to adapt their lifestyles to climate change and challenge government to be more ecologically aware.” How is it beginning? By throwing its weight behind opposition against the expansion of Stansted airport.
As it so happens, there are a number of simple things that the National Trust could initiate in order to reduce its own ‘carbon footprint’, if indeed that is to be considered a genuine priority. The most obvious would be to eliminate the farming of animals on all its land. Since, according to the currently popular theory of anthropogenic climate change, world meat consumption is a large contributor to global warming, this would mean the National Trust would reduce its own contribution to climate change and be taking a principled stand for other landowners to follow. Indeed, they could set aside their land not for carbon inefficient British agriculture but to grow more forests to act as carbon sinks. Whether the National Trust will commit do doing this remains to be seen.
New Labour’s New Maths: How to Get Less from More
Posted by David Conway in British History on 26/10/2006
In his last budget, Gordon Brown pledged to increase public expenditure so as to bring funding per child in state schools into line with the average costs per child in the independent sector. This move would involve increasing annual state spending per child from £5,000 to £8,000. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, to close this gap, the Exchequer would need to spend an extra £17 billion per annum.
According to a report in today’s Times, the Chancellor has just been taken to task for this pledge by the House of Commons Select Committee on Education. They have argued to carry it out would only anger tax-payers unless the extra spending could be shown to result in improved performance by state schools.
To date, there has been little precious sign of extra spending in this sector having done so. According to the same news report, during the last eight years in which New Labour has been in power, annual public expenditure on education has increased by over 50%, yet last year only just over a quarter of pupils from state schools managed to obtain good GCSE grades in English, mathematics, science and a language — a fall of 4 percentage points from 2002.
I wonder whether, if instead of increasing public spending on state schooling in the manner pledged, the government were to award to parents of pupils at them who obtained good GCSE grades in these subjects a sum of £2,000 for each year their child had attended one, there would not soon be a spectacular and demonstrable improvement in the attainment levels of state schools at far less cost to the taxpayer.
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.