History Matters

Tristram Hunt wrote in a Guardian article in 2011 -


"Our national story is being privatised, with 48% of independent pupils taking the subject compared with 30% of state school entrants. And academy schools, so admired by government ministers, are among the worst offenders.


This elimination of the past is nothing short of a national tragedy. We can rehearse the arguments about the "competencies" history provides – the ability to prioritise information; marshal an argument; critique sources. But such utility fails to do it justice. History is so many things: the material culture of the past; understanding lost communities; charting the rise and fall of civilisations.

Yet history also provides us with a collective memory; it gives us a sense of connection to place, time and community. And that sensibility is being lost. As Eric Hobsbawm has put it: "The destruction of the past or, rather, of the social mechanisms that link one's contemporary experience to that of earlier generations, is one of the most characteristic and eerie phenomena of the late 20th century. Most young men and women at the century's end grow up in a sort of permanent present lacking any organic relation to the public past of the times they live in.""


The current government is happy to see children brought up with the myths of British history - Kings (and Queens) and Generals. Celebrations of the great events which saw power taken away from an elite by those who sought freedom have been sanitised and appropriated by the very people who are now taking away rights! What an irony that Cameron has been celebrating the Magna Carta which is significant because of the principle that no one is above the law. The extension of the franchise is being celebrated by the very people who are making it more likely that fewer people will appear on the electoral roll.


There is a great deal in British history that we should be telling our children. Ours in not a country which has been submissive. Power was not benignly given to the people by generous Kings - our forefathers and foremothers fought for the rights we now take for granted. Read Parliamentary history for the story of the resistance to abolishing slavery; to extending the franchise - and look at the family history of some of our current MPs! Let's not forget that the creation of the NHS was opposed by the party which , while today claiming to be the protector of the NHS, is quietly letting it fall apart.


This blog will not shy away from retelling the history of the British people - and of the heroes who stood up against tyranny.