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Anorak News | Mind The Gaps

Mind The Gaps

by | 27th, January 2005

‘WE all have such short memories these days that, like Kirsty Gallacher, it’s very easy to forget what we said only a month or two ago.

Some old bat from long ago

How are we supposed to remember then what happened a century or two ago – or even longer?

The Tories have got an idea – it’s called history and the Mail says it should be compulsory to plug ”yawning gaps” in our children’s knowledge.

In a speech today shadow education secretary Tim Collins will argue that ”nothing is more important to the survival of the British nation than an understanding among its young of our shared heritage and the nature of the struggles, foreign and domestic, which have secured our freedoms”.

”When surveys show nearly a third of all 11-18 year-olds think that Oliver Cromwell fought at the Battle of Hastings,” he will say, ”and when fewer than half know that Nelson’s ship at Trafalgar was called HMS Victory, we have to take action.”

Indeed, and where better to start educating youngsters about the dim and distant past than with a lesson on that now defunct institution, the Conservative Party?’



Posted: 27th, January 2005 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink