So, how hands-off is the Glorious Tory Government™ going to be?















The Roman Invasion [no, this is still broadly correct]

The Dark Ages [sic]












  1. Laws really said that? I might have to have his babies.

    In History, I seem to only remember learning about the Blitz, and even then all I can recall is that children had gas masks in little cardboard boxes on pieces of string around their necks. It might be my early onset alzheimer’s but I pretty sure that was the entire syllabus when I was at school.

    As for British history pre-1939, I am an autodidact:

    Divorced, Beheaded, Died;
    Divorced, Beheaded, Survived.

    I am sure that is all you ever need to know.

  2. As for British history pre-1939, I am an autodidact:

    Divorced, Beheaded, Died;
    Divorced, Beheaded, Survived.

    I am sure that is all you ever need to know.

    So much fascinating stuff happened then of which King Henry and his wives was just a side-show.

    Taking away people’s sense of history is a way of controlling them, since if all they know is the here and now they can very easily be pushed around.

    One of the most interesting things about history is the way the same vent can be seen completely differently depending on which way you look at it. The English reformation is a good example. Part of the evolution of liberalism, throwing off the yoke of the Catholic Church and establishing freedom of thought and ull English independence from Europe? Hmm, yes, one way of looking at it. The new rich seizing control, taking away the church welfare system and giving the land to themselves, imposing a top-down state directed ideology on what was the rich diversity of English mediaeval culture? An equally valid way of looking at it.

    We don’t need to know how the Enclosure Acts were the final steps in taking away the rights of Englishmen and imposing a boss class on us, forcing people to flee to become proletarians in industrial hell holes, or colonisers abroad? Maybe not, maybe as you say all of that doesn’t matter at all and we can just think of it as funny tales about Henry and his wives.

  3. Well I’ve been enjoying the Tudors on the BBC so much I’m going to have to get that Booker booky book thing about Thomas Cromwell.

    They could have done with casting somebody less attractive as Anne of Cleves, I suppose, but that’s television. Everything else must be true, or if not, better than the boring old truth.

    1. Anne of Cleves wasn’t necessarily unattractive, the problem seems to be that Henry’s taste in women was for petite brunettes, and she was neither.

  4. Dear Auntie Alix,

    I am looking at Mr Cove’s list of IMPORTANT topics in History and I am confused. I wonder if you can help answer a few questions for me:

    Did Great Britain stop interacting with EUROPE after 1066 for some reason? In fact did anything actually HAPPEN in Europe between the Normans and Napoleon?

    Queen Victoria and Great Victorian scientists – did the Great White She-Hephalump DO a lot of science? Did Prince Albert hold her test tubes for her?

    Also, was there not some business to do with an EMPIRE or something? If not, where do all the ELEPHANTS come from?

    Look, I know they’ve got to end up with some sort of examinable subject at the end, but couldn’t we have some sort of broader range of topics so that schools and teachers could better fit their teaching plans to their own specialisms and enthusiasms? Or even – shockingly – what their pupils want to learn?

    Or am I being silly?

  5. Well I would have thought that having had the biggest empire in the world that the British history would be the same as world history? universally accepted and universally taught. LOL’

  6. Alix, I agree with you about the authoritarian and top-down nature of Gove’s approach to history. But Gove’s list doesn’t even work in terms of giving people some of the basics of British history – for instance, apparently we still have the American colonies and the Irish independence struggle never happened. And don’t mention Scotland or Wales.

  7. The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history

    – Freidrich Hegel.

    There is a problem in that at some point this argument becomes ‘do we have a national curriculum or not?’ And the problem with that is that before you can say “falsifiability” someone’s teaching creationism as historical and biological fact.

    1. Yea and nay. If you had a curriculum that simply said any subject could be taught so long as it involves teaching source criticism, alternative viewpoints and evidence handling, I think that would rule out creationism-as-history. You’d have to be extraordinarily devious to critique the Bible as a historical source without falling back on faith at some point.

      When I was at school they were shit-hot on the source-criticism bit, for some reason. I think there must have been a directive. And the loser there was the history of ideas because I came away with a GCSE in the Russian and Chinese revolutions without having much idea of what Communism really was.

      That’s the trouble with any history curriculum – somebody loses, somebody wins.


        Lucky you. I came away with a GCSE and an A Level in the Nazis, Henry VIII, the nazis, Henry VIII and the nazis. Admittedly at one point we did Weimar Germany (viewed in the light of subsequent events).

    2. Easily sorted by separation of Church and State.

      Great post Alix.

      But while we’re doing quotes, how about:


      – Karl Marx

      (Well he had to say at least one smart thing).

      Pretty apt for the coming Tory government.

  8. Hmmm, sockpuppet, don’t we already have creationism being taught? National standards doesn’t mean high standards.

    Oddly, RE is one of the few subjects with a locally determined syllabus (by the SACRE). Because it deals with, er, universal truths….

  9. Hmmm, sockpuppet, don’t we already have creationism being taught?

    not as scientific fact. And the whole ID argument has come about precisely because some people want to teach it as that.

    I doubt that RE has a locally determined syllabus because it ‘deals with universal truths’. I mean, physics deals with universal truths too and that doesn’t. I suspect it has more to do with the fact that when they made RE compulsory in the 40s the links between community, school and church were a bit stronger than they are now. And there were fewer mosques, gurdwaras or mandirs otherwise they’d be on the educational board as well (as I assume they are in faith schools).

    1. Wait, the ID argument came about because people want to teach creationism as scientific fact? Can you rewind and explain that one for me? I’m intrigued.

      1. Certainly. I am not a scientist by any means, I might add, but this is not a scientific dispute, it’s a legal one. In the late 80s, a case went to the US Supreme Court concerning Louisiana public schools teaching creationism in science lessons alongside evolution. The ruling rested on their decision that creationism is dogma, not science, and since the US Constitution prevents the government from either advancing or prohibiting a particular religion, it was unconstitutional. However, they did allow that it might be valid to teach a variety of theories in order to enhance debate.

        Shortly after, Intelligent Design started to become a more often-used term, not least thanks to a sustained campaign by the Centre for the Renewal of Science and Culture who, much like the People’s Democratic Republic of China, appreciate the wisdom of getting the tricky bit out of the way in the title. By cunningly refusing to state who they thought had done the designing they got round the promoting religion bit. It’s worth looking at the stated beliefs of people who profess ID though. You’d think there’d be more agnostics.

        There have been some unintended consequences, not least the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which you’ll find referenced in one which you’ll find referenced elsewhere on this blog.

  10. Nice post. There was another example of the authoritarianism with Chris “Nobody tells me anything” Grayling on Newsnight on Tuesday. In two sentences he said (paraphrasing, obviously) “police forces each have their own helicopter, I’m sure we can get rid of some of them” followed by “I want to give Chief constables more power over their budgets so they can police how they like”.
    Not only was the “you can be free as long as it’s our type of free” line, but also the “It’s a cost! It’s a cost! Kill it!” idea without any consideration of what the benefits might be.

  11. Apparently he wrote a book about Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster, who was beheaded at the gates of Pontefract Castle. It was here that King Richard II died imprisoned by Bolingbroke who road with the Teutonic Knights. This is now Yvette Cooper’s constituency. Is this a coincidence?

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