Politicians underestimate young people's critical faculties

 Peter Black draws attention to an appalling attempt by a Tory MP to skew the political climate of English education. One hopes this proves to be an isolated example of extreme prejudice, like the call in the 1960s for all civil servants who administered the transition to membership of the European Common Market to be tried as traitors, and will be ignored. However, under Johnson, who more and more resembles Mussolini as the days go by, one cannot be sure.

Apart from seeing a quite objective description of "white privilege" as an extremist view, Gullis also displays an exaggerated belief in the ability of teachers to indoctrinate their pupils. With rare exceptions, ones world view, including any political views, is formed at home and hearth. I recall that at the grammar school I attended, we had a pretty good idea of the leanings of those masters who were politically driven and were not particularly influenced by them. The senior history master was so conservative that he was part of the Wimbledon establishment, but he did not spawn generations of anti-Semites. Nor did the senior German master create loads of young Marxists, even though we knew he had communist views. (Perhaps he did try to groom me by lending me a Telefunken cast recording of Dreigroschenoper, but the only permanent result of that was a partiality to the word-setting of Kurt Weill.) The English master made clear his visceral loathing of Alexander Pope (one of the set texts in my sixth form years) as a person but, though he may not rank as one of the greats, Sunday's BBC4 presentation notwithstanding, Pope is still one of my favourite poets.

What has troubled me more over the years is what is not taught. I believe Margaret Thatcher first as education minister and later as prime minister attempted to influence the history curriculum to reverse the trend to more social history and to revert to the traditional kings and queens, dates and battles. In those pre-devolution days, that would have affected the teaching in Wales as well as England. Certainly, the debate leading up to the 2016 referendum betrayed a general ignorance of twentieth century history.  If my memory is at fault, and if the Welsh education curriculum is now more liberal, I am ready to be corrected.

Labour and global warming

 It is not surprising that a party which is kept afloat by money from trade unions, many in old polluting industries, is conservative in its views on the environment. To emphasise the point, here (belatedly) is DeSmog's take on Labour's 2021 conference:

It’s fair to say a lot of our stories at DeSmog focus on the actions of those on the right-wing of politics.

That’s no surprise, given the willingness of many on that side of the aisle to get in bed with big polluters or oppose carbon-cutting policies - if not to deny climate change is even, well, a thing.

This week, much of our coverage put the Labour Party under the spotlight - and not everything came out looking rosy.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves may have pledged to spend £28 billion a year on tackling climate change if elected - a big step-up from the government’s current plans - and shadow business secretary Ed Miliband may have hinted at an upcoming “net zero transition plan” for every sector of the economy.

But there were still moments at the party conference in Brighton that won’t have cheered the hearts of the climate-concerned.

On Monday, the party’s energy spokesperson, Alan Whitehead, said he backed the activities of biomass giant Drax “completely” at an event organised by the company.

The panel discussion was on how to build a zero carbon energy system, which is slightly awkward given Drax emitted almost 20 million tonnes of CO2 last year (which won’t be sucked up by all the trees it’s planting any time soon.)

And the next day, Labour’s transport guy rejected a call to hit pause on the UK’s multiple airport expansions currently going ahead - despite a recommendation from the Climate Change Committee for no further “net” airport expansion in the country. Which happened to be the same day a huge new research project was published showing just how emitting the UK's aviation sector is.

So a mixed bag, to say the least.

Johnson speech: it's not the lack of policy that troubles

 - it's the lack of truth

Why did the media not climb all over the plethora of fabrications and wild promises made in Manchester? Instead they gave Johnson a slap on the wrist for a "policy-free" leader's speech. 

Parliament is the proper place for presentation of government policy. Conservative conferences are no more than rallies, modelled by Thatcher's PR guru Sir Tim Bell on Nuremberg. Actual forming of party policy in public vanished long ago.

Who will lead the fight against Orban's illiberal regime?

 Hungary's parliamentary election system has elements of proportionality in it, but is even more weighted towards the party wining first-past-the-post seats than the Welsh one. In those circumstances, the parties opposing Viktor Orban's avowedly non-liberal government have felt compelled to concentrate on a single challenger in next spring's general election. 

First signs were that the newly-elected mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karacsony, would be that person. However, in the first round of voting to choose a joint candidate, the 44-year-old joint leader of the liberal/Green Dialogue party has been edged out by MEP Klára Dobrev, a vice-president of the European Parliament. A run-off round of voting is currently under way and it will be interesting to see where the votes of the third-placed conservative candidate will go.

If Dobrey wins, it is likely that Orban will (in addition to his continuing anti-LGBT and dog-whistle racist and anti-Semitic messages) fight on the ground of plucky little Hungary against the overweening European Union. The Commission has blocked funds to the nation because of Hungary's insufficient fight against corruption and the lack of independence of the judiciary. But it's not just the EU which is unhappy with Hungary's authoritarian turn: three of our old friends in the Free Trade Area have withdrawn funds.

 If Karacsony is the "Spitzenkandidat" then it will no doubt be the country against the Big City - Orban has put it on record that he hates Budapest. 

One would like to think that the combined opposition will win in 2022 and bring Hungary back in line with EU norms, but the success of populism over economic reality in our own country must give  us pause.

Nobel peace prize-winner campaigned against "virus of lies"

Congratulations to Maria Ressa and to Dmitry Muratov, joint winners of the Nobel Peace Prize this year. 

Maria warned years ago of the "atom bomb which has exploded in our information ecosystem". It seems that she feels that the situation has got worse since then. Indeed, the most headline-grabbing response from Facebook, one of the social media in Ressa's line of fire, was to appoint a more plausible public apologist in the form of Nick Clegg.

Muratov was one of the former Komsomolskaya Pravda journalists who founded Novaya Gazeta under the aegis of Gorbachev, who still owns ten per cent of the stock, in 1993. Since then, six of his journalists critical of the Putin regime have been assassinated.

Re-wilding?

 I contributed to our party's comments on PM Johnson's speech on Wednesday. Expanding on that, one must have grave doubts about Johnson's conversion to green politics. His endorsement of re-wilding will surely frighten his erstwhile supporters. Beavers are one thing - and even they must worry many Conservatives - but the prospect of wolves and lynx once again stalking the shires? Surely not.

Johnson outdoes himself in fabrications

 

Thanks to Labour-inclined campaigning journalist Jon Danzig for the graphic. One does not have to be a socialist or even a non-Conservative to see through our prime minister's fog of exaggeration, deliberate misunderstandings and downright lies. Having sat through yesterday's speech, I can add to more to the Danzig list: that we did not have control of our borders before Brexit and that we organised a perfect airlift out of Kabul.

Russia's role in gas shortage

 Euronews reports that the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline has been completed but Russia has not yet turned on the taps.

The 1,230-kilometre conduct running under the Baltic Sea and directly linking Russia and Germany is now complete but hasn't begun operations due to bureaucratic hurdles. The project has been heavily criticised inside and outside the EU for perpetuating the bloc's dependence on fossil fuels and extending President Putin's geopolitical influence. Gazprom, the pipeline's main backer, and the Russian government have denied any involvement in the energy crunch but insist the pipeline should be put to work "as soon as possible". Critics, however, think the timing of the crisis seems too favourable for the Kremlin's agenda.

Perhaps the Russians are waiting on German MPs' choice of coalition and who is to lead it. They may also hope to use the supply of much-needed gas to the Germans as a lever for German support for removal of UN/US sanctions.

(The Euronews article in full gives a detailed background to the gas situation.)