Teaching Britishness

Alan Johnson on the teaching of Britishness in English schools:

"More can be done to strengthen the curriculum so that pupils are taught more explicitly about why British values of tolerance and respect prevail in society and how our national, regional, religious and ethnic identities have developed over time."

Tolerance and respect are English values before they are British values. The narrative is English, not British, despite the fact that Gordon Brown would like them to be British:

"So there is, a golden thread which runs through British history - that runs from that long ago day in Runnymede in 1215; on to the Bill of Rights in 1689 where Britain became the first country to successfully assert the power of Parliament over the King"

The Magna Carta was English and the Bill of Rights was never incorporated into Scottish Law. Bernard Crick has rather a good take on Brown's confusion:

the examples he gives of our long British tradition of civic values are all English. The myth of Magna Carta's importance is once again disinterred and nary a word on the Declaration of Arbroath. He invokes Milton, Wordsworth, Burke and Orwell as British rather than, it seems to me, typically English voices. Walter Scott and Robert Burns are ignored, though both were Unionists, powerful voices for a dual not a single identity.

Personally I find it extremely disturbing that a Scottish led government will be making schools teach Britishness in England but not in Scotland (where they have devolved power over education to the Scottish parliament). What is even more disturbing is the fact that they seem to be unable to distinguish between England's history and achievements and those of Britain - to them England and Britain are one and the same. Really, I see no reason why asymmetric devolution should allow Scots to peddle their perverted version of British history in English schools, or why they should be allowed to indoctrinate English kids with their version of Britishness. Besides, what business is it of theirs anyway? I suspect that the primary motivation is the dissemination of state propaganda to our children.

Everyone (except me) has probably forgotten that a while back Gordon Brown, in an effort to make teenagers take citizenship seriously, suggested that students that volunteer for community work should have their tuition fees waived by the Government. This measure, believed Brown, would encourage "strong modern patriotism" and "an agreed British national purpose". The rather glaring problem with this policy is that such a measure would not apply to Brown's own constituents in Scotland, it would only apply to English students, the only group directly affected by the UK Government's legislation on education. Quite why English students should volunteer for community work in the cause of building an agreed British national purpose when their Scottish counterparts do not have to pay the same tuition fees, and when it was Scottish MPs voting in the UK Parliament that imposed top-up fees on English students (by overturning the collective will of English MPs who were opposed to top-up fees), is beyond me. If/when I have my way it will be beyond English students and their parents too.

Come on England, it's time to reject these Scottish shiesters and send them packing off to Scotland to teach Britishness where the teaching of it is most needed.