Our country's foolishness

LONG AGO (TO THE MODERN GENERATION) our prime ministers and senior politicians were well grounded in the history of the country they served. It all came to a head however (and this is the un-researched view of a 60year-old) in the 1960s; that facile decade that dealt in the abandonment of tradition and the bombardment by satire of what were regarded as Victorian morals, by those who belonged to what was known, in part, as the ‘counter culture’.

It was the decade of nihilistic impulses. Everything was up for grabs, especially for the middle class children. I say middle class because it was from that standing that the decade of the radical and the hippy were drawn. The working classes never had a look in, unless you belonged to a successful pop group. But even then they were few and far between.

Of course many a red-brick student imagined themselves to be from the working class, which is why they had their heads filled with Marxist ideology fed liberally to them by their social science lecturers from guilt ridden middleclass backgrounds.

There followed from this radicaldemia yet another feature of the late 60s and early 70s, the university sit-ins; where radical chic fashion was, it now seems, always on display to the media. Denim and cheesecloth were the style symbols of student radicalism, and our education system is paying the price today for their inanity. Especially, as I believe, many of them went on to teach another generation, and remain part of the educational establishment to this day.

THE INTENTION OF THIS PIECE is to show how those who govern us and call themselves statesmen seem to have disregarded this island’s history through personnel ignorance, and how the 1960s, to a great degree has to take the blame.

Our history is our birthright; it tells us how we came to be here, and hopefully instructs us how to behave in the future as well as telling us our story. But the modern politician has abandoned all but history’s bare bones – the Roman occupation, Alfred the Great, 1066, the Battle of Britain. These bare bones are the sole remit for the modern politician, made up collectively by media arrivistes such as journalists, PR men, and lawyers. This is part of the modern curricula vita of the modern politician. Personnel ambition it seems, has been allocated the priority.

Just the bare bones: no love or enthusiasm for history or tradition, let alone knowledge of it, is left to guide them and enforce their patriotism.

But are they even patriotic in the traditional sense? I think not. The modern politician from whatever of the three main parties, looks increasingly toward Europe and agonises not about when, but how they can deliver our nationhood up to becoming a mere federal state within Europe; while also hanging on to their jobs- viva cynicism!

BRITISH HISTORY HAS TAKEN TO THE back burner on the school curriculum and it is no accident that it has done so. Regarded as it is by social liberalism as a monster enslaving other cultures in the interests of the British Empire; no wonder so much of British history has been edited out - which is why British history now appears so low down on the curriculum.

It is about time, instead of ignoring our colonial past, that a British prime minister for the first time should promote our legacy, especially to India. We left this country with a fully functioning civil service, a road and railway system as well as an architectural inheritance.

There were many wrongs done, but also many rights done when it came to our departure. So when David Cameron visited this great country, I hope he reminded the Indian prime minister of the many favourable legacies left by the British. But, no doubt, he was as ignorant of them as were his Foreign Office advisors, educated as they probably were under the ‘post-colonial’ curriculum and taking their anti-colonialism for granted.

Someone once forecast the end of history, well as far as our educationalists and politicians are concerned, British history may not yet be deadt - just never spoken off.