I've argued elsewhere that there has been a very quiet, slow, coup in Britain. The Civil Service call the tunes. Rishi Sunak dances to their tune. Truss didn't and got the bums rush. Boris was useful until he wanted to get on with Brexit properly. Theresa May started well (Lancaster House Speech, 17 January 2017) but soon became corrupted by the BRINO aims of the Civil Service.
Corbyn of course was too radical to be allowed to succeed. Sir Ikea has done well to purge the Labour Party of radical ideas, but doesn't know what to do next beyond keeping in with the Civil Service Regime.
Melanie Phillips wants to return to the old culture. I'm not sure that is possible. My hope is that a new political party could push back... but that is a long term prospect which will be bitterly resisted.
I agree with every word above and with Mel P in the video. One just hopes that events take an unexpected turn like the one that almost seemed to happen in Russia recently.
DJ - I'm sure you are right, Sir Ikea doesn't know what to do next. It's possible that he doesn't intend to do much more because not rocking the boat is all he is supposed to do. I'd like to see the rise of a new party but I don't have much confidence in voters seeing it that way and media opposition would be ferociously unscrupulous.
Tammly - an unexpected turn could happen. As we have seen elsewhere, radical parties can arise very quickly, although I have little faith that UK voters will go beyond the established parties.
When I started a new teaching job twenty years ago, my head of department lent me a copy of ‘All Must Have Prizes’, telling me that we were, in his words, an embattled minority fighting a last-ditch defence against progressive ideology and the indoctrination of our pupils.
As Melanie Phillips says, the passage of time has promoted the products of the Long March into management and seen the retirement of more enlightened teachers like my old HoD. It was hard enough back in my day; I think it would now be virtually impossible to qualify as a teacher without subscribing to the current ideology unless one were a consummate actor prepared to live a lie for years.
Among other things, my wall display of quotes from the Greek philosophers was regarded with great suspicion by the new HoD and the senior management (their preferred motivational posters were a mixture of Californian therapy-speak and multicultural awareness); it’s hardly surprising, I suppose, given that the senior staff seem bent on recreating a culture in which Socrates would be forced to drink the hemlock.
Macheath - a wall display of quotes from the Greek philosophers? You could have made one up to see which teachers would query it.
We've seen something similar to an ‘All Must Have Prizes’ doctrine in every sports day at our grandkids' schools. Exclusively team games where athletic ability has clearly been carefully balanced between teams. As if there is a war on talent being conducted by people who have the education but not the talent.
6 comments:
I've argued elsewhere that there has been a very quiet, slow, coup in Britain. The Civil Service call the tunes. Rishi Sunak dances to their tune. Truss didn't and got the bums rush. Boris was useful until he wanted to get on with Brexit properly. Theresa May started well (Lancaster House Speech, 17 January 2017) but soon became corrupted by the BRINO aims of the Civil Service.
Corbyn of course was too radical to be allowed to succeed. Sir Ikea has done well to purge the Labour Party of radical ideas, but doesn't know what to do next beyond keeping in with the Civil Service Regime.
Melanie Phillips wants to return to the old culture. I'm not sure that is possible. My hope is that a new political party could push back... but that is a long term prospect which will be bitterly resisted.
I agree with every word above and with Mel P in the video. One just hopes that events take an unexpected turn like the one that almost seemed to happen in Russia recently.
DJ - I'm sure you are right, Sir Ikea doesn't know what to do next. It's possible that he doesn't intend to do much more because not rocking the boat is all he is supposed to do. I'd like to see the rise of a new party but I don't have much confidence in voters seeing it that way and media opposition would be ferociously unscrupulous.
Tammly - an unexpected turn could happen. As we have seen elsewhere, radical parties can arise very quickly, although I have little faith that UK voters will go beyond the established parties.
When I started a new teaching job twenty years ago, my head of department lent me a copy of ‘All Must Have Prizes’, telling me that we were, in his words, an embattled minority fighting a last-ditch defence against progressive ideology and the indoctrination of our pupils.
As Melanie Phillips says, the passage of time has promoted the products of the Long March into management and seen the retirement of more enlightened teachers like my old HoD. It was hard enough back in my day; I think it would now be virtually impossible to qualify as a teacher without subscribing to the current ideology unless one were a consummate actor prepared to live a lie for years.
Among other things, my wall display of quotes from the Greek philosophers was regarded with great suspicion by the new HoD and the senior management (their preferred motivational posters were a mixture of Californian therapy-speak and multicultural awareness); it’s hardly surprising, I suppose, given that the senior staff seem bent on recreating a culture in which Socrates would be forced to drink the hemlock.
Macheath - a wall display of quotes from the Greek philosophers? You could have made one up to see which teachers would query it.
We've seen something similar to an ‘All Must Have Prizes’ doctrine in every sports day at our grandkids' schools. Exclusively team games where athletic ability has clearly been carefully balanced between teams. As if there is a war on talent being conducted by people who have the education but not the talent.
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