• Predictions for 2024

    1. General Election in UK – Labour landslide. PM – Sir Keir Starmer. (No great change in policies from the Tory government that Labour will replace).
    2. US politics will continue to be dominated by Donald Trump
    3. In the US Presidential election in November there will be victory for the Republican Party.
    4. AI/Deepfakes have a significant effect in electoral politics.
    5. Conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine unresolved by end of 2024.
    6. No progress for those wanting marriage equality in the Church of England.
    7. Twitter goes bust or is sold or both.
    8. The world will be warmer in 2024 than ever before.
    9. Another country will join Nato.
    10. A new agreement is reached between the UK and Greece on the Elgin/Parthenon Marbles that opens the door for at least some of them to be displayed in Athens.

One response to “British Values and Education”

  1. Alan McManus Avatar

    A friend of mine, blogging about Remembrance, remembered that: “[t]he Lancet estimated that over one million people were killed in our invasion of Iraq” (http://www.2ndcouncilhouse.co.uk/blog/2013/12/05/their-blood-runs-red/). There is no link between progressive values and the UK. We hide or deny our state sponsored genocide and torture, as British imperialism has always done. The Amritsar Massacre was not an anomaly but our modus operandi (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/apr/23/british-empire-crimes-ignore-atrocities). Our much-vaunted kindness to animals, surely the most heart-warming of ‘British’ values, along with our famous fairness, is not compromised by fox-hunting rather, as we torture animals to death in every university it is seen for the sentimentality that it is. Those of us who are not naive to the real motivation of this animal torture (exactly the same as the human torture) know that ‘getting in-vivo experience on my CV’ (as a friend of mine put it) is attractive to those who seek the material gain and prestige accompanying advancement in Academia. The eventual aid to humans of a tiny proportion of this sadistically inflicted pain is convenient – and keeps the funding flowing. All these values we can wrap up in the Union Jack. And then set it on fire. when these values can no longer be associated with that flag and when the explicitly anti-RC Act of Settlement is repealed and when liberal clergy have successfully railed against the sectarian marches (http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/orange-order-and-glasgow-council-at-war-over-marches.20248665) so that citizens and visitors can walk down (and across) the streets of our cities any tine they like wearing any colours they like, then AND ONLY THEN is it the time to talk about forcing parents and guardians to pay a premium if the values they want their children to be educated in differ from those of the British state.

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