Human Rights and Wrongs.

"Ickle baby-waby want potty-wotty time - or the rest of kindergarten gets it!!"


Today is indeed a black day in the history of education. The erosion of civil liberties in this country, so frequently highlighted in this blog, has spread to the classroom now with the coming into force of a neo-Stalinist power granted henceforth to teachers......to search any of their little charges they suspect of carrying a knife!
Prior to this, teachers, quite rightly, had to call in two police officers, a social worker, two child psychiatrists, a counsellor and any available members of Take That to carry out a search if they suspected Wilkinson Minor of 4B of concealing a thermo-nuclear device under his dufflecoat.

"Snetteron!! Come here! Are you sure this is just a bottle-opener?"

All that has gone now, thanks to the trendy, pinko, Commie, lefty, Guardian-reading types down at the DFES. It is ridiculous. How have we got to the state where the flower of our youth is no longer allowed to turn up for geography with a concealed hand grenade or garrote without the indignity of being frisked and then having their weapon - something it no doubt took the proceeds of four street muggings and a couple of playground heroin scores to buy - taken from them? It's political correctness gone mad.
What is wrong with the teachers of today? Are they so Lily livered as to think it is unacceptable to stand in front of pre-pubescent hordes who are armed to the teeth while possessing the reasoning power of a rhino on acid? When will this merciless persecution of our little loved ones end?
We had come so far along the path of educational enlightenment before taking this U-turn. Just before I started primary school they abolished capital punishment for handing in your homework late - truly a landmark piece of legislation. After I left secondary school they also scrapped corporal punishment. In those intervening years, children of my generation were, would you believe, not only strip-searched if they were suspected of carrying so much as a catapult or a spud gun but also actually physically punished for exercising our God-given right to be an arsehole? Not only was it frowned upon to drive your own tank around the playing fields, the macheteing to death of any member of staff was actively discouraged!!
Thankfully, those days are long gone. The marvellous European Convention on Human Rights, incorporated into English law in 1998, at last gave all miscreants legal protection to behave any way they wanted. It is their right, after all, to do whatever they want, whenever and wherever they want. Don't oppress them, you bastards. Those trendy, pinko, Commie, lefty, Guardian-reading types actually wanted to introduce a Human Responsibilities Act to sit alongside this legislation but, fortunately and thanks to the new rights offered, they were gunned down in the street.
Yes, we have come a long way since those dark days of the '60s when some Trotskyite lunatic in the United States said: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."
He too was gunned down in the street but, without the backing of human rights law, those who disagreed with his views and so had him shot were actually deemed to have broken the law!
Television adverts in this country which promote ambulance-chasing lawyers - sorry, personal injury solicitors - also highlight how far we have come. Would you believe that in the bad old days, if some bloated tart who wasn't looking where she was fucking going slipped on a floor then everyone said "Dozy, fat cow!" and not "You can sue 'em for that"? If some bloke was installing an alarm system and fell and injured himself because he "had been given the wrong ladder" ('I wanted one on which the steps went up, not down'?) then his mates would gather round his prone body, laughing and saying "Frank, you really are a fucking twat" and not "Call Vultures R Us and they'll screw some cash out of the company for you". Things really were that bad in those days.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, the Human Rights Act - essential though it is but all too easily abused without the counter balance of a Human Responsibilities Act - can go to Grantham, along with the "nothing is ever your fault" society.