After approximately five minute in her new job, Nicky Morgan has managed to float an idea so resoundingly idiotic that it almost deserves applause for effort.
In a consultation document published today, the Minister for Education suggests that local authorities should strip funding for early years childcare provision if the provider does not adequately teach ‘British values.’
This, of course, demands to be mocked and parodied. My instantaneous reaction on Twitter was to say “My 6 year old is at playscheme today. If he doesn’t come home wanting to conquer Ireland and shout at foreigners I’m reporting them to Nicky Morgan.”
Even the Guardian’s explanatory note that this would include such topics as ‘liberty and democracy’ doesn’t help. Believe me, as someone who has helped a couple of kids traverse a route out of babyhood and toddlerdom, the last thing you want to teach them about is liberty. The world is a benign dictatorship until your kids are at least five (but ideally about 27.)
Once I’d stopped swinging wildly between hilarity and despair, I popped over to the consultation document to have a look for myself. And you know what? Brace yourself, but there’s a germ of something not too silly in there. As the great philosophers once said, it’s a fine line between stupid and, uh, clever.
The relevant section of the document describes ‘exempt childcare providers’ as those:
which the local authority has reasonable grounds to believe—
(aa) does not actively promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs; or
(bb) promotes, as evidence-based, views and theories which are contrary to established scientific or historical evidence and explanations;
Now, let’s clear the stupid out of the way first. It is highly inaccurate and (let’s be kind) a bit xenophobic to describe belief in democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and all the rest as ‘British values.’ Most of them are originally Greek values, come to think of it, the remainder are shared by the overwhelming majorities of cultures on Earth. In an accompanying statement the DfE said early years education providers “will be expected to teach children about fundamental British values in an age-appropriate way. For children in the early years, this will be about learning right from wrong, learning to take turns and share, and challenging negative attitudes and stereotypes.” Because filthy foreign kids don’t learn any of that stuff, right? Damn it, they barely know how to queue.
Describing these values as ‘British’ is a dogwhistle revelation of the thinking behind this clause. The government is (or wants to appear to be) worried that it might find itself funding a creche run by some Abu Hamza-type radical who is ta king taxpayers’ cash to indoctrinate tiny kids into extremist beliefs.
As Beatrice Merrick, the chief executive of the British Association for Early Childhood Education noted “there is no evidence of extremist values being promoted in nurseries anywhere – not Islamic ones, at least.
However, strip away the nonsense about Britishness, and this would be rather a welcome change. It would prevent religious groups of all flavours – including Christians – accessing early years grant funding in order to run Bible classes or the equivalent, or to operate under an ethos of bigotry. While the proposed rules may look to be targetting those from non-white, non-Christian communities, I could easily imagine that those falling foul of these provisions (notably the ‘bb’ section) may turn out to be evangelical Christians.
It is rather ironic that including the rather redundant words about ‘British values’ Morgan will win the admiration of the conservative right and the ire of the radical left, but if adopted, the measures would be likely to create a welcome safeguard for secularism and may one day end up with the Daily Mail bleating about persecuted Christians not even being allowed to teach kids that the world is 4,000 years old and that the gays will burn in hell.
It is indeed a fine line between stupid and clever.