(no subject)

[danohu]

[Edit: as predicted, this was a case of a misleading article in the Guardian. See i_am_toast's comment.]
Plans to make schoolchildren take part in citizenship ceremonies pledging allegiance to the Queen

Yes, it's the Guardian selling papers by angering liberals, and somebody's always willing to say idiotic things to get himself back in the news. But it still leaves me feeling sour - and yes, these things can matter.

Worse - I hadn't realised (or had forgotten) that we make immigrants swear to "be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her Heirs and Successors, according to law"

sorry; I will stop posting so much about politics eventually. I just seem to have remembered in the past few weeks how beautiful the world is, and therefore also how fucked up chunks of it are

Comments

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

Looks like they've edited that article pretty substantially since I linked to it. The text I linked was the first line of the article; I guess the moral is (yet again) not to trust the Guardian.

If it's a pledge to the country rather than the monarchy, then I don't have a problem with it. As for the national day: I'd probably spend it grumbling, but it doesn't seem a bad idea in principle.

So basically: yes, you're right. You haven't completely missed something; I have.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

Well the bit about pledging allegiance to the Queen was widely reported (and the BBC for example still lead with Pupils 'to take allegiance oath'). AFAICT the situation seems to be that pledging allegiance to the Queen is one suggestion - so whilst it's not correct to say this is a definite plan, I'd say it's still reasonable to be critical of this. Even if the pledge doesn't involve the Queen, there would be the question of whether pupils can not take part without being penalised.

It does seem to be the case that there are other parts of the report which are sensible, which have been given little coverage in comparison (the BBC briefly mentions this on one of their blogs), so to be fair to the Guardian, the entire spectrum of the media seem to have been guilty on this one.

(I'm not a Guardian reader btw, though I probably fit it's stereotypical demographic rather well...)

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

"I'm not a Guardian reader btw"

I don't actually think it's any worse than the rest of the British media. Plus, it still has easily the best website, prints the Bad Science column, and generally has opinions I at least half-agree with.