Rate this postHumanists UK teamed up with their Vice President Professor Alice Roberts to explore the humanist approach to life in their brand new animation for children: ‘One Life, Live It Well.’ 🎥 Please watch the video below; just two minutes of your time, you will love it. Humanists UK hope that ‘One Life, Live It Well‘ will be of value to teachers and schools as well as engaging a wider public audience with what it means to have a humanist
Rate this postThere is no simple solution because we have no charismatic, statesman-like politicians speaking common sense to the people; and we have our own broadcast media talking endlessly about pointless fluff. Until that states-person arrives on the scene, our rivers will continue to be polluted by our poo and China and Russia will continue their aggression unopposed. My book poses a quite possible, but radical solution and I wish all fifth and sixth form school kids and students plus
Rate this postMy main message is that if we carry on with our current ‘Party’ based political system we speed up Britain’s further decline. You might just recognise the cover because I am re-publishing ‘The Normal Curve’ as ‘British politics is broken’. The reason for this is that a thoroughly detailed review of the book was given to me by Tim, who remains a dear friend despite a fair amount of negative but valid criticism 😉 As a result of
Rate this postMy second book is the first to be published and is all about the danger that faith creates for society. Perhaps not something that most of you might think about, but hopefully this might provoke some discussion. The book is on Amazon in paperback, Audible and Kindle versions. You can read the first twenty or so pages by using the “Look inside” feature. I started my second book six months before the Covid-19 virus appeared so the use
Rate this postLiz Truss announces her resigantion – 46 days! Liz Truss’s main features : Incompetence ignorance pomposity delusion and hopefully her train arrives soon I give her 10 days at most… If you haven’t seen Michael Spicer on YouTube and fancy a belly laugh please watch “An MP said to me”
Rate this postWords and their changed meaning The process of that change fascinates me. First we need a definition from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Then I will move on to what happened at Batley Grammar School. The OED states that a phobia is an irrational fear of something. So Islamophobia should therefore mean ‘an irrational fear of Islam’. Now it apparently means “a hatred of Islam”. That change of meaning has turned into that ridiculous recent creation, viz. a
Rate this postThe media & our dear Aunty BBC explored Recently, the many difficult issues that the world continues to face have been overwhelmed by the media focussing on trivia spouted by self interested spoiled brats and endless pages on the health of a man who is nearly 100. It would be interesting to hear from those of you who might agree with me and those that think I am a grumpy, disillusioned old man who has lost the plot
Rate this postNigel’s response to my letter is just underneath my response to his response. Dear Mr Huddlestone Thank you for responding. I hope to change your mind eventually because we really have no real alternative. However, once again you miss my point entirely. The very existence of “faith” (i.e. irrational) schools is divisive and it has to be up to government to force the change. Government seems set on actively, but blindly, promoting a path of societal division and
Rate this postThere are a few simple truths at the heart of our disillusion with politics & politicians No political party has dared to tell us that we can’t afford to pay for all our pensions, the NHS, social care and all those public services that we now demand “as of right”. The welfare state has weakened the government’s ability to break even? It was never envisaged, back in 1947, that is was to become such a huge part of
Rate this postSuch an important issue this, as is evidenced on front pages everywhere and QuestionTime on BBC 1 last Thursday. Opinions ranged from Rory Stewart(*1) saying “Kill them, there is no alternative”. Then the leftist intellectuals saying “understand them, hug them but then imprison them”. Finally the Questiontime audience saying “don’t let them back in, they have lost any rights, they might have had as British citizens”, by going out there to fight for ISIS etc. What I think
Rate this postTheresa May is robotic in her endless “strong & stable” meanderings containing little detail and has no interesting vision for Britain. She has repeatedly shown she cannot handle ordinary people whereas Corbyn has scored well. I can’t remember a general election where I have found it so difficult to summon up the enthusiasm to vote. I have voted in every general election since I was in my mid twenties. Both May & Corbyn look and sound like geography teachers instead of
Rate this postOh I know the title of this piece is a bit Daily Mail! But, while the press & TV concentrate on Theresa May’s announcement promoting grammar schools, a far more important part of the new education bill she proposes gets hardly any air time at all. May wants to increase both the number, and the selective power, of faith schools, by effectively removing the current 50% non-faith element! For god’s sake ( 😉 that is today’s only attempt at humour) will all our
Rate this postI summarise some recent news and offer a long term solution as human misery is being played out at Europe’s borders. Hundreds of thousands of foreign Muslims are trying to migrate to northern Europe from Syria and Iraq, to name but two countries. A few hundred British Muslims have left for Syria to help set up an Islamic Caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq. I wonder if those travelling to Syria have wondered why so many of
Rate this postOur dumbed down BBC news A BBC reporter was interviewing one persistent, but unsuccessful, immigrant on the recent death of his friend. “How are you feeling?” she asked. They were in a tent, “in the Jungle” the Calais camp site, where he had been living for the last month. “Oh it must be so sad for you to still see his shoe on the floor over there…” said the reporter, interviewing the man who cousin died last week
Rate this postOur Dave wants to defeat the poison of radical Islam, jolly good eh? Well, no, he still defends state funded faith schools. His use of the word poison, copies Blair, his hero, who has used the word poison in the same context many times since 2010. Yet, despite agreeing on the word, neither Blair nor Cameraman have the slightest clue about the nature of so-called radical Islam. Cameraman’s Birmingham speech on the 21st July was welcome, but several
Rate this post In February 2015, Home Secretary Theresa May said ‘ …authorities need to look at the ideology which drives young people to travel abroad and join extremist groups.’ This was in the light of her studied shocked reaction to the fact that three intelligent, apparently well educated, schoolgirls were off to Syria to join Isis as jihadi wives. Ms May said it was important to look not just at terrorism but ‘extremism across the whole spectrum’. Did she
Rate this postA terrorist attack at the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine, left at least 12 people dead. Paris January 7th was a wake up call to all politicians in the west, and to the vast majority of people who do and say nothing about the slow rise of radical Islam in Europe and Great Britain. Appeasement to the religious vote is no longer acceptable. Radical Islam is being silently and ignorantly supported by moderate Muslims,
Rate this postIn the UK we have private schools treated as charities for tax purposes for no good reason that most of us can see. Other than, perhaps, the establishment who made those tax rules to save themselves money on their children’s education. After all, they need to separate their offspring from the great unwashed (that’s you and me if you were wondering) and therefore invented charitable status to protect their socially divisive academies. We also have a divisive education
Rate this postThere is currently a daft & pointless row between Michael Gove (Education Secretary) and Theresa May (Home Secretary). The argument is about who’s ideas are best to fight ‘religious extremism’ in schools. They have not, and cannot, define extremism, yet the ill-defined argument nevertheless rages in the ‘poli-news’1 Both want to gain credit for ‘fighting extremism’ in the wake of the UKIP earthquake, which has woken up the Tories. This is a further example of how our party
Rate this postHere are two items of ground breaking news that you will not find mentioned at all on the BBC. French Education Minister Vincent Peillon unveils secularism charter for schools The first is so important to the philosophical development of mankind that it should be shouted from all roof tops. It is this:- The French Education Minister Vincent Peillon has unveiled the controversial secularism charter which is to be displayed in a prominent position in every school to remind
Rate this postMuslim nutter calmly murders soldier Those chilling words spoken to camera by the calm murderer of a British soldier in Woolwich, London needs very careful interpretation. Islamic extremism engenders nationalist extremism – neither is the way to go, but how on earth can we stop it? There is no quick or easy solution but surely the education of Britain’s children is a solid place to start? Those with a voice, i.e. the government, the Muslim Council of ‘g’reat
Rate this postThe GCSE exam debacle continues. Many pupils who had been expecting a C grade were given a D as a result of the grade boundary changes made half way through an academic year! Students are to be ‘allowed‘ to resit the exam instead of having their grades automatically brought in line with January 2012 results says £138,000 / annum Glenys Stacey. This is yet another sordid example of public sector highly paid self important bean counters getting it
Rate this postI find David Starkey an interesting man in many ways and admire his perspective on today’s events. I love hearing his “but of course, we have seen all this before …” routine. I am not with him on his love affair with the monarchy. In almost all other respects he is largely in agreement with me. <ahem>. He sounds far too posh which makes him an easy target, but the man is right! White is the new Black
Rate this postSupreme Court of Wisconsin “There is no such source and cause of strife, quarrel, fights, malignant opposition, persecution, and war, and all evil in the state, as religion. Let it once enter into our civil affairs, our government soon would be destroyed. Let it once enter our common schools, they would be destroyed. Those who made our Constitution saw this, and used the most apt and comprehensive language in it to prevent such a catastrophe.” (March 18, 1890)
