Warped logic of trying to brainwash 3-year-olds
WHO would attempt to govern modern Britain — where, news-wise, it seems to be April Fools’ every day? Children as young as three have been asked to sign a ‘Home-School Agreement’ contract pledging not to use racist, homophobic or ‘transphobic’ language at Turnham Primary School in South-East London.
Purportedly to stamp out playground prejudice, we reported, ‘each child must print their name and provide a signature to confirm that they understand their “responsibilities” while attending the school’.
Teachers sent a letter to parents which read: ‘We believe that every child can and should reach their full potential. This is achieved when all staff, parents and children understand their responsibilities and work together towards the same goals, as detailed in our HOMESCHOOL Agreement.’
Turnham Primary School is funded by the Government via Labour-run Lewisham Council, which refuses to comment. As does the ‘executive’ head teacher, Selina Sharpe.
But chairman of governors Robert Mapp promised to investigate the matter, saying: ‘ I would l i ke to sincerely apologise for any offence or distress caused to our parents and pupils.’
Might this absurdity be a consequence of the coalition government’s ‘British Values’ campaign, which obliged all schools to teach tolerance of other faiths and lifestyles?
This was introduced after Birmingham’s Trojan Horse scandal, in which Muslim hardliners sought to impose an Islamic agenda at local schools.
Since then, schools say they have been penalised by Ofsted for failing to meet the criteria set down. They say pupils were set ‘ i nappropriate’ questions on race and sexuality, and deemed ‘intolerant’ when they gave the wrong answers. A ten-year-old girl was upset when asked ‘whether she felt trapped in someone else’s body’.
Every time a political choice is made, DOWNTON ABBEY creator Julian Fellowes says he’s turning Anthony Trollope’s 1858 novel, Doctor Thorne, into a three-part drama for ITV. Trollope unites two strikingly dissimilar Tory premiers — grand Harold Macmillan and man-of-the-people John Major. Macmillan ‘enjoyed going to bed with a Trollope’. So did Sir John, who was only 13 when the Victorian author became his ‘love for life’. there are unintended consequences. When Britain chose to outlaw racial prejudice, no one imagined this would lead to police becoming so fearful of being branded racist that they turned a blind eye to Asian gangs preying on troubled young white girls.
Likewise, it was never anticipated that laws against racism and homosexual/transgender discrimination would be used as a basis for brainwashing school ( and now preschool) children.
GEndER, race and sexual preference laws intended to protect minorities from being ill-treated, or barred f rom employment, are supported by the majority of us, but few envisaged that freedom of expression would also be curtailed, even for schoolchildren.
We must all be ultra careful about how we talk when it comes to race or sexual and gender preference.
Yesterday, there was a story about a transgender Liberal democrat candidate for Parliament, Zoe O’Connell — who is contesting Maldon, Essex — and her two companions, Sarah, who used to be a man, and Sylvia, who was his wife.
‘Father-of-three’ Zoe lives in what is described as ‘a three-way lesbian relationship’ with Sarah and Sylvia. Their tale was presented as ‘the most amazing election story you will ever read’.
On Saturday, meanwhile, Radio 4 listeners had the pleasure of hearing bearded Conchita Wurst, the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest winner, who in private life is Tom neuwirth from rural Austria. The BBC cautioned that, while Tom/ Conchita ‘ has become a gay icon to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community all over the world, Conchita is a drag Queen — not transgender’.
Life has become a semantic minefield which can trap even the wellintentioned. Remember how Benedict Cumberbatch was criticised recently for referring to ‘coloured people’ instead of ‘people of colour’? Offence can be concocted for almost anything, which is why politicians are so terrified of slipping up.
We complain that party leaders won’t face real people any more, that they prefer to be filmed or photographed in private surrounded by adoring supporters. Also, that they talk in politically correct soundbites, never addressing our real concerns.
They all want to avoid Gordon Brown’s 2010 confrontation with 65-year- old Labour voter Gillian duffy, who quizzed him sharply about immigration. Later, not realising his microphone was still on, Brown was heard calling her a ‘bigoted woman’.
When Labour MP Tristram Hunt asked a derby schoolboy in front of TV cameras if he knew which party he’d vote for — and was told that it was Ukip — he was careful to say, ‘very good’, but then made the mistake of asking why the boy had made this choice. He was told: ‘To get all the foreigners out of the country.’
A priceless moment of election candour, not least because it was so rare.
France’s late president, Charles de Gaulle, once complained: ‘How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?’ So i t has increasingly proved there.
The same might apply to a nation with 246 varieties of political opinion, in which nothing of consequence can be said for fear of giving offence.