So, this is the BBC’s idea of what it means to be a citizen of one of the world’s oldest democracies, the country that invented the Westminster system and faced down Napoleon and Hitler?
One tourist attraction, the minimum wage, rubbish teeny-pop bands (or music attractive only to teenagers), the Queen’s birthday, the Welsh Assembly, the working time directive, Islam and minority languages…
Do you detect a left-wing bias here?
Firstly, the facetious and smarmy undergraduate tone of the quiz is presumably intended to ridicule Blunkett’s plans to introduce a citizenship test. While Big Blunkett is a terribly authoritarian Secretary of State and is criticisable all round for his anti-civil liberties ‘flog and hang’em’ mentality, this is an idea that plenty of other sane countries (like Australia) adopt (and hey, I am sure you have to pass a religious test if you wanted to become a Saudi citizen).
Secondly, the questions all deal with Labour/left wing issues – minimum wages (theoretically unsound to a non-Marxist economist), the Queen (she is so silly she has TWO birthdays – so let’s abolish her and become a republic), Welsh nationalism (hmmm…English bad, non-English good, two legs bad, four legs good), minority languages (we just love them don’t we – repeat after me – English bad…), Islam (what can I say – Western bad,…), consumer rights (kettles? obviously a plot by Western capitalists to screw good old workers who just want a nice cup of tea) and Labour Prime Ministers (Labour was only in power for about 25% of last century from memory – and did not in any real sense predate the 20th century in the UK – say it again, Conservatives bad,…).
What about an article about citizenship and toleration and respect for free speech, freedom of religion, the rights of minorities like gay people, and respect for womens’ rights, and whether one can be a citizen and espouse the violent overthrow of its democracy and its replacement with a grossly discriminatory and violent religiously based legal system?
This is a serious issue – and my taxes pay for this biased nonsense? Where is Cato (of Carthago delenda est fame) when you need him?
I don’t see anything wrong about having citizenship tests. America has been doing it for years. Classes are taught to new citizens on American history and civics (how the government and judicial systems are structured), and new citizens must pass a test on those subjects. Achieving citizenship is often a very emotional, prideful experience for new Americans.
The proposed British citizenship test just sounds silly though. Questions about how to use the NHS and the tube — how is that going to imbue new citizens with a sense of pride in their new country? Better they should study the Magna Carta, the English Civil War and other seminal evemnts in the development of British and Western civilization.
nothing to do with this story but i’ll like to point out this
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3186503.stm
Now this exerpt
“Amina Lawal’s plight has been highlighted by international human rights groups, who argue that stoning is both cruel and inhumane. ”
So for BBC theres doubts that stoning is a bad thing, now comparing this extreme no-values for the BBC to other news…
>> “Better they should study the Magna Carta, the English Civil War and other seminal evemnts in the development of British and Western civilization.”
Why teach immigrants that stuff? We don’t even teach it to natives. (No, this is probably not the BBC’s fault.)
I think there are much better examples of BBC bias than this article. To read a darker conspiracy into it is being slightly paranoid in my opinion. It gives me the impression of having been put together by a young inexperienced reporter who couldn’t be bothered to do the research and write a proper report (“Hey, I’ve got this great idea…”). The main editor probably just rubber stamped it through.
What it does seem to illustrate – worryingly – is the fact that the sort of people now working at the BBC are so tuned into left wing thought that it dribbles out everywhere despite their attempts at even handedness and impartiality.
Where I definitely agree with the main posting is the shocking waste of taxpayers money to fund this tat. Instead of a well written and researched article on the proposals (after all this is only the main BBC News website), we’re served a quiz that wouldn’t look out of place in Hello! magazine or whatever.
The sooner the licence fee is scrapped, the better.
For a look at the ‘glue’ that holds Britain together (oh yes Greg?- Scare quotes added by me) and its claim to be the high quality arbiter of true Britishness, take a look at SteynOnline, which is running an archive essay on the subject under the heading ‘The problem with the BBC’. He illustrates just what an out of touch organisation the Beeb has always been- the only thing it hasn’t lacked over the years is public money (not that you’d know from its bleatings).