Politics at Westminster | BREAKING: UKIP

Silva said:
Boris Johnson's popularity is in large part down Have I Got News For You, he'd be just another posh toff without it.

And I'd say you're a capitalist, not a conservative. At least I've seen nothing on here to suggest you'd base an opinion on tradition/cultural norms.
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I'm a very socially conservative person (in a non-religious way), but I don't want my way of life forced on others. I think traditions and cultural norms are there for good reasons, but I won't be too attached to them if evidence/logic suggests otherwise.

Like Edmund Burke, but better looking, obviously.
 
Andrew~ said:
Perhaps. But what it means to be 'conservative' changes each generation. I'd readily describe myself as very conservative in outlook, but I'm supportive of gay marriage, and very much opposed to the drug war.

I just think the Tories speak the language that younger people understand more than Labour right now. How else do you explain Boris Johnson's incredible popularity? It's inexplicable to me.
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Disagree with that wholeheartedly, I think neither of them speak to us, and of the people I have met, they'd rather it be labour be in power. The tories and the lib dems have done nothing for me generation but give those of us in uni potentially life long debt (not all of us will be highly successful upper middle class converts), the others if they can get a job will work more hours for less pay with ever increasing costs of living. I don't just put this blame on them, I blame every single party for it, and the older generations. But each to their own, I think they've never given a damn about us until we turned 18, before that we were just yobs stabbing each other in hoodies and needed a curfew and to listen to Bach not Wiley.
 
Andrew~ said:
I'm a very socially conservative person (in a non-religious way), but I don't want my way of life forced on others. I think traditions and cultural norms are there for good reasons, but I won't be too attached to them if evidence/logic suggests otherwise.

Like Edmund Burke, but better looking, obviously.
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I'd hate to disagree with your political identity, but what issues are you socially conservative on? Because as far as I can gather, the only right-wing thing about you is the capitalism.
 
The Mitcher said:
Disagree with that wholeheartedly, I think neither of them speak to us, and of the people I have met, they'd rather it be labour be in power. The tories and the lib dems have done nothing for me generation but give those of us in uni potentially life long debt (not all of us will be highly successful upper middle class converts), the others if they can get a job will work more hours for less pay with ever increasing costs of living. I don't just put this blame on them, I blame every single party for it, and the older generations. But each to their own, I think they've never given a damn about us until we turned 18, before that we were just yobs stabbing each other in hoodies and needed a curfew and to listen to Bach not Wiley.
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Well, I didn't mean they implement policies to suit the rhetoric. It's just their slightly more aspirational and patriotic tone seems to echo what I've seen.



Silva said:
I'd hate to disagree with your political identity, but what issues are you socially conservative on? Because as far as I can gather, the only right-wing thing about you is the capitalism.
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No, fire away. I like a good debate. I'd put it like this: it's the difference between being a libertarian and being a libertine. The former things the government shouldn't stop people doing whatever they like, and the latter thinks people should do whatever they want. In practice that would mean, I think there shouldn't be any legislative barriers against women beings as free sexually as they wish, for example, but I don't think they should.

Make sense?
 
Andrew~ said:
Well, I didn't mean they implement policies to suit the rhetoric. It's just their slightly more aspirational and patriotic tone seems to echo what I've seen.
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They have never been aspirational to us working class youths, never. I haven't even heard any of those adjectives in their tone at all, and I probably never will. But I am biased :lol:
 
Andrew~ said:
No, fire away. I like a good debate. I'd put it like this: it's the difference between being a libertarian and being a libertine. The former things the government shouldn't stop people doing whatever they like, and the latter thinks people should do whatever they want. In practice that would mean, I think there shouldn't be any legislative barriers against women beings as free sexually as they wish, for example, but I don't think they should.

Make sense?
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It does make sense, but it's, well, silly. Why shouldn't anyone be what they wish? Isn't that kind of illogical?

Edit: Also, why do you only object to women's sexuality?
 
Silva said:
It does make sense, but it's, well, silly. Why shouldn't anyone be what they wish? Isn't that kind of illogical?
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I didn't explain that right. People are free to do whatever they please, just in my opinion 'liberal' lifestyles are immoral and irresponsible.
 
Silva said:
Why is it immoral? Because I'd argue that hedonism is one of the few philosophies that aren't based on unsubstantiated bollocks.
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I think conflating hedonism (in the traditional sense) to an everything is fair game lifestyle is inaccurate. Going back to sex example, I don't think being overly liberal with sex is healthy from a psychological perspective and puts one in danger of catching all kinds of infections.
 
Andrew~ said:
I think conflating hedonism (in the traditional sense) to an everything is fair game lifestyle is inaccurate. Going back to sex example, I don't think being overly liberal with sex is healthy from a psychological perspective and puts one in danger of catching all kinds of infections.
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So it's a case of not overdoing it? Don't you think the line is too difficult to discern, and different for different people? And why did you specify that it's women who shouldn't be overly sexually liberal? Was that a slip of the tongue, or a double standard?

And it's not that difficult to protect yourself from infections, especially in 21st century England, with condoms, pills and sexual examinations being freely available.

I also don't think being against excess is a socially conservative stance. Hell, one of George Carlin's sets had a bit warning people against it, and he's certainly no social conservative.
 
Silva said:
So it's a case of not overdoing it? Don't you think the line is too difficult to discern, and different for different people? And why did you specify that it's women who shouldn't be overly sexually liberal? Was that a slip of the tongue, or a double standard?

And it's not that difficult to protect yourself from infections, especially in 21st century England, with condoms, pills and sexual examinations being freely available.

I also don't think being against excess is a socially conservative stance. Hell, one of George Carlin's sets had a bit warning people against it, and he's certainly no social conservative.
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Not at all, it works that way for both men and women. I think just think the problems related to it, psychologically, have a greater effect on women because of the hormonal activation caused in them because of it.

And maybe it isn't socially conservative and I'm talking out of my arse. That's quite plausible. :smirk:
 
Andrew~ said:
Not at all, it works that way for both men and women. I think just think the problems related to it, psychologically, have a greater effect on women because of the hormonal activation caused in them because of it.

And maybe it isn't socially conservative and I'm talking out of my arse. That's quite plausible. :smirk:
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I've never heard of the sex hormone that harms women more than men psychologically, are you sure it's a real thing?
 
DiseaseOfTheAge said:
No, I followed it religiously.

I understand the argument. I just fear the thought of UKIP becoming so popular it's legitimised. Not because I think it could ever gain any serious power itself but because I fear the legitimisation of far right sentiments.
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UKIP are already legitimised, they've been consistently polling as the third party in the UK for ages now. Leaving the EU is now a realistic prospect within the next few years and there's a race to the bottom in immigration rhetoric - you can put this heavily down to UKIP's recent successes. They'll quite possibly have a few MPs in the House after the next election and are likely to be the biggest party after the next round of EU elections.
 
Silva said:
I've never heard of the sex hormone that harms women more than men psychologically, are you sure it's a real thing?
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Ha, dude, there's no need to be sarcastic. I never said anything about a 'sex hormone that harms women'. Anyway, this is fairly off-topic now, PM me if you wish to continue this discussion.
 
Picture the scene. You're pottering about on the internet, perhaps idly looking up cake recipes, or videos of puppies learning to howl. Then the phone rings. It's your internet service provider. Actually, it's a nice lady in a telesales warehouse somewhere, employed on behalf of your service provider; let's call her Linda. Linda is calling because, thanks toDavid Cameron's "porn filter", you now have an "unavoidable choice", as one of 20 million British households with a broadband connection, over whether to opt in to view certain content. Linda wants to know – do you want to be able to see hardcore pornography?
How about information on illegal drugs? Or gay sex, or abortion? Your call may be recorded for training and monitoring purposes. How about obscene and tasteless material? Would you like to see that? Speak up, Linda can't hear you.
The government's filter, which comes into full effect this month after a year of lobbying, will block far more than dirty pictures. That was always the intention, and in recent weeks it has become clear that the mission creep of internet censorship is even creepier than campaigners had feared. In the name of protecting children from a rotten tide of raunchy videos, a terrifying precedent is being set for state control of the digital commons.
Pious arguments about protecting innocence are invariably marshalled in the service of public ignorance. When the first opt-in filtering began, it was discovered that non-pornographic "gay and lesbian" sites and "sex education" content would be blocked by BT. After an outcry, the company quickly changed the wording on its website, but it is not clear that more than the wording has been changed. The internet is a lifeline for young LGBT people looking for information and support – and parents are now able to stop them finding that support at the click of a mouse.
Sexual control and social control are usually co-occurring. Sites that were found to be inaccessible when the new filtering system was launched last year included in some cases helplines like Childline and the NSPCC, domestic violence and suicide prevention services – and the thought of what an unscrupulous parent or abusive spouse could do with the ability to block such sites is chilling. The head of TalkTalk, one of Britain's biggest internet providers, claimed that the internet has no "social or moral framework". Well, neither does a library. Nobody would dream of insisting a local book exchange deployed morality robots to protect children from discovering something their parents might not want them to see. Online, that's just what's happening, except that in this case, every person who uses the internet is being treated like a child.

Every argument we have heard from politicians in favour of this internet filter has been about pornography, and its harmful effect on young people, evidence of which, despite years of public pearl-clutching, remains scant. It is curious, then, that so many categories included in BT's list of blocked content appear to be neither pornographic nor directly related to young children.
The category of "obscene content", for instance, which is blocked even on the lowest setting of BT's opt-in filtering system, covers "sites with information about illegal manipulation of electronic devices [and] distribution of software" – in other words, filesharing and music downloads, debate over which has been going on in parliament for years. It looks as if that debate has just been bypassed entirely, by way of scare stories about five-year-olds and fisting videos. Whatever your opinion on downloading music and cartoons for free, doing so is neither obscene nor pornographic.
Cameron's porn filter looks less like an attempt to protect kids than a convenient way to block a lot of content the British government doesn't want its citizens to see, with no public consultation whatsoever.
The worst thing about the porn filter, though, is not that it accidentally blocks a lot of useful information but that it blocks information at all. With minimal argument, a Conservative-led government has given private firms permission to decide what websites we may and may not access. This sets a precedent for state censorship on an enormous scale – all outsourced to the private sector, of course, so that the coalition does not have to hold up its hands to direct responsibility for shutting down freedom of speech.
More worrying still is the inclusion of material relating to "extremism", however the state and its proxies are choosing to define that term. Bearing in mind that simple protest groups like tax justice organisation UK Uncut have been labelled extremist by some, there is every chance that the categories for what constitutes "inappropriate" online content will be conveniently broad – and there's always room to extend them. The public gets no say over what political content will now be blocked, just as we had no say over whether we wanted such content blocked at all.
Records of opt-in software will, furthermore, make it simpler for national and international surveillance programmes to track who is looking at what sort of website. Just because they can doesn't mean they will, of course, but seven months of revelations about the extent of data capturing by GCHQ and the NSA – including the collection of information on the porn habits of political actors in order to discredit them – does make for reasonable suspicion. Do you still feel comfortable about ticking that box that says you want to see "obscene and tasteless content"? Are you sure?
The question of who should be allowed to access what information has become a defining cultural debate of the age. Following the Edward Snowden revelations, that question will be asked of all of us in 2014, and we must understand attempts by any state to place blocks and filters on online content in that context.
Policies designed for controlling adults have long been implemented in the name of protecting children, but if we really want to give children their best chance, we can start by denying private companies and conservative politicians the power to determine the minutiae of what they may and may not know. Instant access to centuries of information and learning is a provision without peer in the history of human civilisation. For the sake of the generations to come, we must protect it.
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http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...cameron-internet-porn-filter-censorship-creep

It's embarrassing how shit this government has been. Makes Tony Blair and Gordon Brown seem wholly competent.
 
Silva said:
It's embarrassing how shit this government has been. Makes Tony Blair and Gordon Brown seem wholly competent.
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This filter thing is really an awful policy.

That said, running up a multi-trillion pound deficit, overseeing one of the worst declines in an education system in human history and trying to ensnare half the adult population on some kind of social benefit means that Blair/Brown remain way out in front when it comes to incompetence.
 
It's our SOPA and PIPA (different, but the same) except we've lost as we don't have Wikipedia shutting going black to help it remain in our consciousness.

The thing that annoys/worries me the most, is whether those that choose "no I dont want to be blocked", will have some black mark somewhere on their government record saying "look into this guy, he is clearly a paedophile/pervert/terrorist". And knowing what we do now about GCHQ and the NSA (why did we have to ban GCHQ? look what he has become!) that is clearly what is going to happen.

Those that opt-out will be added to some secret government list... despite paedophiles/perverts/terrorists easily being able to by-pass the filters with a little know-how.
 
alastair said:
This filter thing is really an awful policy.

That said, running up a multi-trillion pound deficit, overseeing one of the worst declines in an education system in human history and trying to ensnare half the adult population on some kind of social benefit means that Blair/Brown remain way out in front when it comes to incompetence.
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:lol: no exaggeration with you!
 
Gove'll be having a go at The Office for putting down "hard-working Britain" next week. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, but a tool nonetheless.
 
He's got a point that left-wing academics have a tendency to skew the records on things. I had to put up with loads at university who would literally not give Churchill credit for anything because he was a 'war-monger.'
 
alastair said:
He's got a point that left-wing academics have a tendency to skew the records on things. I had to put up with loads at university who would literally not give Churchill credit for anything because he was a 'war-monger.'
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There's no doubting Churchill was a great wartime leader, but thank god he didn't win the election in '45 or feck knows what would have happened.
Churchill would have fought to keep the British empire just like the other Europeans did theirs, whereas as by the time he did get back in power the move to independence for the colonies was in progress and unstoppable.

The world is a better place for Churchill losing that election.
 
Don't Kill Bill said:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25612369

Baldrick responds to Goves stupid remarks.
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feck Gove by the way, the way he goes about himself in the media is just embarrassing, he thinks he's more qualified than all teachers and academics in the country because he is the education minister. Well to be blunt about it, he's a very stupid man. He looks and sounds more like the "uneducated oafs" he thinks we spend too much money on in our schools, wearing glasses doesn't make one intelligent Mr Gove. I'm more qualified to talk about this than he is, I have both a gcse and A level in History and am on course to gain my degree. He is wrong so wrong, and Tony Robinson was spot on in his critique.
 
Yes, but you've been taught by a load of lefties, so your so-called knowledge doesn't count.

Nah, I agree with you really mate, and Baldrick, I mean Robinson. If you want to influence the thinking of teachers then constantly slagging them off is a pretty stupid way to go about it.
 
The Mitcher said:
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feck Gove by the way, the way he goes about himself in the media is just embarrassing, he thinks he's more qualified than all teachers and academics in the country because he is the education minister. Well to be blunt about it, he's a very stupid man. He looks and sounds more like the "uneducated oafs" he thinks we spend too much money on in our schools, wearing glasses doesn't make one intelligent Mr Gove. I'm more qualified to talk about this than he is, I have both a gcse and A level in History and am on course to gain my degree. He is wrong so wrong, and Tony Robinson was spot on in his critique.
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He is more qualified than the vast majority of teachers - that's your problem.

He's clearly not a very stupid man. This is a guy who has come up from very little, then went to Oxford, got a great degree, became a journalist for The Times(no mean feat) and then moved into politics.

With all due respect, the chances are very much that he has achieved more than you will in your entire life. Words can't describe how much more qualified he is to talk on this issue than you are.

You might not agree with everything he says, but he is exactly the type of person I want being education minister. He's been to both a state school and a private school, he's been to university, he's been a journalist and thus understands the importance of good fundamental education and he's got ideas.

Congratulations on your GCSE and A-Level in history. Sadly, on its own it gives you very little gravitas as about ten million other people have them too.
 
alastair said:
He is more qualified than the vast majority of teachers - that's your problem.

He's clearly not a very stupid man. This is a guy who has come up from very little, then went to Oxford, got a great degree, became a journalist for The Times(no mean feat) and then moved into politics.

With all due respect, the chances are very much that he has achieved more than you will in your entire life. Words can't describe how much more qualified he is to talk on this issue than you are.

You might not agree with everything he says, but he is exactly the type of person I want being education minister. He's been to both a state school and a private school, he's been to university, he's been a journalist and thus understands the importance of good fundamental education and he's got ideas.

Congratulations on your GCSE and A-Level in history. Sadly, on its own it gives you very little gravitas as about ten million other people have them too.
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What he said was stupid, he was using it to score political points as well as using a very ill informed version of history. I don't give a damn about his background, and how will you know I won't succeed in life Alastair? You don't use a tragic event like this to further the ends of your own party and policies.
 
The Mitcher said:
What he said was stupid, he was using it to score political points as well as using a very ill informed version of history. I don't give a damn about his background, and how will you know I won't succeed in life Alastair? You don't use a tragic event like this to further the ends of your own party and policies.
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I never said you won't - you could be PM - I'm merely saying it's statistically unlikely. I would include myself in that assessment as well.

I don't think he was using WW1 to score political points at all. I don't think anyone really genuinely thinks that. It's just the Labour spin. Do you not think it's fair to say that Black Adder is a poor way of teaching children about the war? I tell you - they use it in classrooms as an educational tool.
 
alastair said:
I never said you won't - you could be PM - I'm merely saying it's statistically unlikely. I would include myself in that assessment as well.

I don't think he was using WW1 to score political points at all. I don't think anyone really genuinely thinks that. It's just the Labour spin. Do you not think it's fair to say that Black Adder is a poor way of teaching children about the war? I tell you - they use it in classrooms as an educational tool.
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Not really the leader type :angel:

No I don't think Blackadder is a poor way to teach kids, because it is a tool like what Robinson said, you still have to read the text books and do the research yourself (in A level more so). Blackadder 4 was a satire yes, but even with some pretty left wing writers, I think it transcends boundaries and it never really made a proper political statement on it, just showed how mad it was. I know, I have witnessed Blackadder being used, and I think it worked myself. Even then its not the whole series it is just one single clip (usually the scene where they discuss the beginning of the war).
 
The Mitcher said:
Not really the leader type :angel:

No I don't think Blackadder is a poor way to teach kids, because it is a tool like what Robinson said, you still have to read the text books and do the research yourself (in A level more so). Blackadder 4 was a satire yes, but even with some pretty left wing writers, I think it transcends boundaries and it never really made a proper political statement on it, just showed how mad it was. I know, I have witnessed Blackadder being used, and I think it worked myself. Even then its not the whole series it is just one single clip (usually the scene where they discuss the beginning of the war).
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For what it's worth, I don't think Black Adder is remotely left wing. Maybe I just haven't 'got' it.

I do think Gove has a point though when he says it undermines the gravity of the event and that it's not a good way to teach kids about the events. I don't want to come across like a bore who thinks everything should be learnt through text books, but there's a limit to how useful Black Adder can be. There's no historical accuracy or relevance in it whatsoever.
 
alastair said:
For what it's worth, I don't think Black Adder is remotely left wing. Maybe I just haven't 'got' it.

I do think Gove has a point though when he says it undermines the gravity of the event and that it's not a good way to teach kids about the events. I don't want to come across like a bore who thinks everything should be learnt through text books, but there's a limit to how useful Black Adder can be. There's no historical accuracy or relevance in it whatsoever.
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I don't think its right or left, even though I do know a lot of the cast and one writer in particular were left wing they weren't really using for those purposes. Again its not being used to teach them EVERYTHING, like I said, its a way to get them involved about learning about it, giving them a visual representation (as well as some laughs). Actually you'll find a lot of it is historically accurate but highly exaggerated (for example i know the german airforce ace wasn't a sadistic lunatic). Also that scene I mentioned when they discuss the origins of the war, that IS relevant, because people STILL don't agree about what caused it. Its a satire ffs, it can't be anymore relevant. You're giving gove too much leeway.
 
The Mitcher said:
I don't think its right or left, even though I do know a lot of the cast and one writer in particular were left wing they weren't really using for those purposes. Again its not being used to teach them EVERYTHING, like I said, its a way to get them involved about learning about it, giving them a visual representation (as well as some laughs). Actually you'll find a lot of it is historically accurate but highly exaggerated (for example i know the german airforce ace wasn't a sadistic lunatic). Also that scene I mentioned when they discuss the origins of the war, that IS relevant, because people STILL don't agree about what caused it. Its a satire ffs, it can't be anymore relevant. You're giving gove too much leeway.
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If something is heavily exaggerated, it's not historically accurate. The most accurate Black Adder gets is that it references WWI, which I can confirm, did happen in real life.

I respect the fact that they didn't politicise the show, but it just isn't relevant to a history GCSE. Without sounding like an old man, I don't see why kids today need to be encouraged to engage with history by using comedy shows. I'm firmly on Gove's side - the history is interesting enough. You don't need sweeteners to get kids to co-operate. It's just an easy way for a teacher to let the kids watch something as opposed to actually teaching them.
 
alastair said:
If something is heavily exaggerated, it's not historically accurate. The most accurate Black Adder gets is that it references WWI, which I can confirm, did happen in real life.

I respect the fact that they didn't politicise the show, but it just isn't relevant to a history GCSE. Without sounding like an old man, I don't see why kids today need to be encouraged to engage with history by using comedy shows. I'm firmly on Gove's side - the history is interesting enough. You don't need sweeteners to get kids to co-operate. It's just an easy way for a teacher to let the kids watch something as opposed to actually teaching them.
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Well why, wants wrong with a bit of interactivity. You and Gove are saying teachers only use the full 6(?) episodes of blackadder as their basis for learning about the first world war, when that is totally not the case. I only saw the clip once in that term, and that was very relevant. Its not even to get them to co-operate, history isn't even a compulsory subject in this country for gods sake, so most people are pretty clueless at it. Its still completely down to the skill of the teacher to motivate the class, and get all their learning done from books etc.

To be honest books and a teachers curriculum are not enough either. You are painting all the teachers with the same brush, and you haven't even seen it from my side really. He WAS using this to score points, why else was he saying the current consensus on the war is left wing, unpatriotic and full of myths? He probably doesn't know most of what the historians are saying, because new research and material is being released everytime, what we thought of ten years ago is probably not the same as what we think now.
 
Gove - "The conflict has, for many, been seen through the fictional prism of dramas such as Oh! What a Lovely War, The Monocled Mutineer and Blackadder, as a misbegotten shambles – a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite.."

Anyone who knows anything about WW1 knows that such a description is reasonably accurate. At least as far as our upper-class political and military leadership during the War is concerned...which I think is what Blackadder ridicules. My history teacher at school helped to demonstrate this very well when he asked the class to come up with a solution to the stalemate of trench warfare. Within 5 minutes we came up with the suggestion of extending the trenches to the point of contact with those of the opposition - apparently a tactic that didn't even enter the minds of brain dead upper class officers at the time.

It's interesting that Gove talks of patriotism. He's right to say that our education system shouldn't allow left wing dogma to get in the way of proper historical analysis, but he seems to be suggesting it should allow patriotism and his own right wing principles to influence how kids are taught. History should be analysed rationally and impartially, at least to the greatest possible extent. Gove is wrong to use teaching history as a way of bolstering patriotic pride.
 
The Mitcher said:
Well why, wants wrong with a bit of interactivity. You and Gove are saying teachers only use the full 6(?) episodes of blackadder as their basis for learning about the first world war, when that is totally not the case. I only saw the clip once in that term, and that was very relevant. Its not even to get them to co-operate, history isn't even a compulsory subject in this country for gods sake, so most people are pretty clueless at it. Its still completely down to the skill of the teacher to motivate the class, and get all their learning done from books etc.

To be honest books and a teachers curriculum are not enough either. You are painting all the teachers with the same brush, and you haven't even seen it from my side really. He WAS using this to score points, why else was he saying the current consensus on the war is left wing, unpatriotic and full of myths? He probably doesn't know most of what the historians are saying, because new research and material is being released everytime, what we thought of ten years ago is probably not the same as what we think now.
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Showing a DVD is not interactive in the slightest.

I would agree with you about how kids are clueless about history in general and also that books and a curriculum aren't enough either. We don't focus enough on inspiring kids to learn by themselves.

The reason I'm not seeing this from your side is because I don't agree with you - it's not out of some personal vendetta!
 
alastair said:
Showing a DVD is not interactive in the slightest.

I would agree with you about how kids are clueless about history in general and also that books and a curriculum aren't enough either. We don't focus enough on inspiring kids to learn by themselves.

The reason I'm not seeing this from your side is because I don't agree with you - it's not out of some personal vendetta!
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I'm just saying you can't deny he has other motives like he has with his other policies, I don't listen to Labour, I heard what he said and thought that was what he was trying to do. I think history is compulsory i most places I believe. But to be honest, this will a good distraction for him regardless.
 
The Mitcher said:
I'm just saying you can't deny he has other motives like he has with his other policies, I don't listen to Labour, I heard what he said and thought that was what he was trying to do. I think history is compulsory i most places I believe. But to be honest, this will a good distraction for him regardless.
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I think the guy has motives but I really don't think it's as clear cut as 'using WWI for political gain.' I listened to him and didn't even realise anyone could construe that from it.

History in this country will always be controversial. I don't think anyone agrees on what we should teach and how we should teach it.
 
He said it because he likes the headlines, he's one of the biggest self-publicists currently in government.
 
alastair said:
I think the guy has motives but I really don't think it's as clear cut as 'using WWI for political gain.' I listened to him and didn't even realise anyone could construe that from it.

History in this country will always be controversial. I don't think anyone agrees on what we should teach and how we should teach it.
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History should be down to the student to make their own minds up, and the exam boards and coursework organisers (whoever they are called) to make good questions.
 
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