In a galaxy far, far away

The Tory Education minister wants all schools to teach British values. Every pupils should learn about what we, as a sociey, value in a person. He was supported by the prime Minister.

Mr Cameron said: “I would say freedom, tolerance, respect for the rule of law, belief in personal and social responsibility and respect for British institutions – those are the sorts of things that I would hope would be inculcated into the curriculum in any school in Britain whether it was a private school, state school, faith-based school, free school, academy or anything else.”

Surely we could add truthfulness to that list. I wonder why he left it out? I also wonder why the government think that schools are the right place for these values to be inculcated? Surely basic values are learned at home in the first isntance. Our young people can learn these values from the way our society operates. Take freedom for instance. Young people will see that we are free to express our views about anything and demonstrate in public in support of our views without interference or kettling by the police. Well, perhaps not.

Tolerance is a basic value we live by in the UK. We tolerate people’s religious beliefs and don’t penalise them for operating in accourdance with their religion like Catholic adoption societies who try to place children in hetrosexual families. We don’t force them to close, er, well apart from that kind of thing.

The rule of law is important in our society. So much so that we have a legal aid system that provides defence for people in court. We don’t stint on that kind of thing because the rule of law is one of our values. That’s right, isn’t it? Isn’t it? No? Oh!

The belief in personal and social responsibility is paramount in Britain. We can see that in the way that bankers who brought the economy to it’s knees were charged and brought to court. Those bankers who mad fortunes from wrongfull selling of PPI and caused the Libor scandal heve been charged for their crimes and jailed. Well they are going to be charged, tried and jailed then. Oh, they are not being dealt with by the law but the banks have to pay back the money, if you can catch them, well that’s surely personal responsibility. You are responsible for catching the bankers who have robbed you. Simple!

Respect for British institutions is a no – brainer. Who could fail to respect the police who shot the terrorist Jean Charles de Menenzes before he could do any damage with the explosives he was wearing in his puffer jacket, which he wasn’t wearing anyway and then lied about it when it turned out he wasn’t a terrorist. The officers in charge of the force were severely knighted as a punishment. We respect institutions like parliament where the ministers fiddle their expenses and give a short, cursory non apology and that’s an end of it. We must respec t the coallition government who stand up and admit that the problems we face are someone else’s fault.

I’m also interested in “anything else”, as in “private school, state school, faith-based school, free school, academy or anything else.” What else is there? What does that mean, Sunday school, night school, card school? This isn’t just some vague waffle is it? Surely this is something we can learn to respect, just like Dave and wee Michael.