Rant: Tories should know their history
29 Jan 2005 by Paul Davies
The Tories are going manifesto mad at the moment. As they stare their worst election defeat since the beginning of time in the face, they're trying everything to persuade people to vote for them. Last week saw them play the race card. This was a bit disastrous – it's far too early in the race for the controversial shock tactic – and those former-blue UKIP voters they are aiming to win back will probably have forgotten about it come May. Furthermore, plans to offer free cake to everyone promising to vote Conservative had to be abandoned when John Prescott broke into the warehouse and scoffed the lot.Thus, finally realising that they have nothing new to offer, the Tories are going back to basics and that fundamental bastion of Britishness – a good old-fashioned sense of tradition.
Britain has been characterised by a sense of complacency and getting things done by simply talking rather nicely since the industrial revolution. By cunningly getting in first, inventing absolutely everything worthwhile and wearing rather dapper suits, Britons have been able to sit back and watch the world go by, leaving plenty of time to complain about the weather.
However, with the transformation into America's auxiliary army and the alarming rise of the Chav, Britain is losing its way. The nation is still complaining about the weather, but it's looking and talking like MC Hammer. We're losing the global respect that the early industrialists so kindly handed us on a silver platter.
Part of this is the fault of the unimpeded influx of American culture, but our education system has to shoulder some of the blame: kids these days just don't know their history.
Showing unusual political acumen, the Tories have jumped on this state of affairs and turned it into a potential vote-winning policy, although maybe one for the long-term.
The Conservatives have described the erosion of historical knowledge among the young as an "outright scandal". And they should know.
Shadow education secretary Tim Collins has announced that his party wants history to play a more important role in the national curriculum – making it compulsory for children up to the age of 16 – they can currently ditch it at 14 and take up Britney Spears studies instead.
By championing the compulsory teaching of history, the Tories hope to make kids remember the years before Tony and attach a sense of atavistic duty to voting Tory when they turn 18.
Whether they wish to teach the part that mentions it was a Conservative government that dropped the compulsion to teach history to 16 in the first place is unknown.
