Battle of Ideas
It's time to battle on behalf of children, for the future
Over the weekend I had the pleasure of attending the
Battle of Ideas in London as a speaker for the to relay what the heck is happening in Scottish Education as children face the worst literacy and numeracy rates in decades, education authorities face budget cuts in the millions and teachers are leaving the profession in droves. We hear how children are the saddest, most broken, most violent we’ve ever seen. One has to wonder how society will function in another generation at this rate.
Thank you for reading. Please consider supporting my work. You can ‘buy me a coffee’ here. Or become a paid subscriber for as little as £4.00 per month, £30 for the year, or £250 for a founding membership. In January I am planning on launching a You Tube channel with regular posts, but I cannot do it without your help. Every penny makes a difference and allows me to keep speaking out about the failure in safeguarding for our children in schools and cultural institutions. We need to recognise, preserve and celebrate childhood. I really do need it and so very much appreciate it.
I didn’t realise how much tension I was carrying living in Scotland as I found myself in the company of thousands of individuals from every walk of life prepared to not judge me for ‘wrong think’. I was reminded of when I returned from working in the war zones of Sri Lanka wherein every corner was a soldier with an AK47, stories of overnight abductions were common and the drone of distant bombs the soundtrack for the day. Upon my arrival in Heathrow airport, I realised I could relax once more.
It is a sad and dangerous state of affairs when one feels the constant needle of destruction hovering over one’s home, one’s sovereignty for saying the wrong words. Scotland now has the most draconian speech laws in the ‘Western’ world - make the mistake of offending someone and they *could* report you on the basis of their feelings, not on any actual proof of harm. This report could have you locked up. Just this week we saw a mother jailed for an ‘offensive social media post’. For words. And to be clear:
There is no evidence whatsoever of a causal relationship between these kinds of objectionable comments on the internet and real-world harm. This isn’t even a matter for dispute; there has been over six decades of research into the subject, and we now know for certain that the public does not act on cue to suggestions or demands from the media - (Andrew Doyle)
What kind of world are we creating for our children?
I met Greg Lukianoff author of the book ‘The Cancelling of the American Mind’ and president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). Greg iterates that we need to reclaim a ‘free speech culture’. There is no knowledge without freedom of speech. We are cultivating a stupid nation.
I don’t want to live in a stupid nation, do you?
Meeting people from not just south of the border, but globally who would say to me ‘What the heck happened to Scotland’? And I have to concur. The Scotland I moved to 25 years ago, with its f*ck it attitude, is no more. But we cannot dwell, we must be proactive and positive if we are to do anything. And most certainly some exceptional voices are coming out of this dark swirling mess. If the Scottish Enlightenment evolved out of the dark ages, perhaps we too are gearing up. I live in hope.
In the meantime one has to wonder how Scottish Government feels justified in sending £12.5 million pounds to Africa for education in this climate. People defending it suggested we need to remind ourselves we are ‘global citizens’ and live in ‘one world’. I wonder if they fail to feed their own children every month so that starving children elsewhere can eat. It shows how disconnected they are to the real devastation our Scottish children are facing in many corners of our small nation. Here is a screenshot from a description I wrote for a project I worked on in 2021. I suspect things have not gotten better. I worked in many such environments over my 30 years of developing dance projects. Who is advocating for these children now? The LGBTQ+ Activists? The Anti-Racism Zealots? Shall we make it a Rights Respecting School? Or perhaps a bit of green washing with an eco-credential?
A good friend of mine has become a postie in such an area. She calls it ‘the land that time forgot’. Scotland is full of such areas and no one is paying attention. What are our politicians doing? Heading to America to campaign for Kamala.
Forget the Republicans I AM outraged. It’s not like everything over here is hunky dory.
of Faces and Voices of Recovery writesScotland continues to experience a drug death rate that is devastatingly high. In 2023, we saw 1,172 drug misuse deaths, a 12% increase compared to the previous year. This brings Scotland’s rate to 22.4 deaths per 100,000 people, nearly triple that of England and Wales combined.
The problem is deeply rooted in Scotland's socioeconomic fabric. People in the most deprived areas are more than 15 times as likely to die from drug misuse compared to those in the least deprived areas. This profound inequality highlights the long-standing neglect of Scotland’s most vulnerable communities. The gap between the richest and poorest, in terms of drug deaths, is much larger than in other causes of death, making this not just a health crisis but a genuine social justice one.
So what the HELL are they doing? Having a bit of a knees up in America? I am from Pennsylvania and I have to say if some British/Scottish yahoo showed up at my door to try and convince me to ‘vote for Kamala’ (or anyone) I would be like ‘uh, what’?.
In the meantime, here in Scotland - where I live - and where they have been elected to legislate we have a lot of sh*te needing sorted. It doesn’t take a bloody PhD to know that when people are secure, when they have jobs, when communities are safe life is statistically BETTER FOR EVERYONE. We also know that GOOD education is a good indicator of GOOD outcomes for people in GENERAL. As are STABLE RELATIONSHIPS.
Shouldn’t our politicians be working day and night for that?
Instead our schools are full of social engineering projects that make our kids dumb. How will they function in ten years time? I really want to know! Will there be some reality ‘Survivor’ styled program of Social Justice Warriors and Amish to see who wins? I know what team I’d rather be on.
Where is our democracy? Where is the people’s mandate for ALL of this? We need to get back to core purpose. We need to build consensus through robust discussions of ideas, all ideas, even controversial ones. And we need to take care of what is around us, the measurable seeable truth. Otherwise what world will our children have?
It’s time to battle on behalf of our children, for the future.
Thank you for reading. Please consider supporting my work. You can ‘buy me a coffee’ here. Or become a paid subscriber for as little as £4.00 per month, £30 for the year, or £250 for a founding membership. In January I am planning on launching a You Tube channel with regular posts, but I cannot do it without your help. Every penny makes a difference and allows me to keep speaking out about the failure in safeguarding for our children in schools and cultural institutions. We need to recognise, preserve and celebrate childhood. I really do need it and so very much appreciate it.
Spoken like a true Gael! Aye the services are full to bursting but the good apples in the barrel aren't able to do their jobs without it being seen through a pink a blue striped lens!
I genuinely think it's a final push to try and keep us plebs in line but all it's succeeded in doing is bringing the whole shebang to the public.
As I've been 'in this' for 6 hrs plus I forget that most people have no idea what their children are taught at school,most have no idea that their basic rights as women and children are currently down the lavvy pan .
I appreciate your kind words but in a weird way I also realise I wouldn't be who I am today without the bad as well as the good in life.
I have also never once uttered an excuse for crappy behaviour that begins 'well,my childhood.. '
It infuriates me too hear that from anyone who has been there,it should be an example of what NOT to become.
Thank you for fighting for my beloved home toon hun,I very much appreciate you😘
I think the feck it attitude is still in us Scots in spades but as you say,no one wants to go to jail,people care more about their jobs than their morals,and the kids..well I was one of those kids,shoes making my feet bleed 3 sizes too small.
There will always be shit parents,but as you see now it was then.
Social workers are too busy getting their Pride awards,their rainbow lanyards to actually do the hard stuff.
To see kids clearly abused and help them.
I must have had the police and social workers in my house 100 times before I was removed. I wouldn't be here today without that children's home. I wonder today what the point of such a swollen social work department is when most are just there to log data,pen pushers for the new gen.