Curiously, as Scotland lays palms before the feet of all new minorities and gathers the world’s oppressed to its breast, a campaign of harassment and intimidation is being waged to silence and alienate the country’s biggest minority: those who profess the Christian faith. A particularly insidious tactic has been used. Rather than campaign for an outright ban on Christian iconography or Christian gatherings, some long-held and benign beliefs have been targeted, distorted, misrepresented and held to have no place in modern Scotland. Read more
Family is by far the most important influence on a child’s life. Yet family policy is a relatively modern invention: 30 years ago, the state played a very limited role beyond the financial in directly supporting families. There have been many positive developments since then, but family policy continues to place too little emphasis on fatherhood. Read more
Towards the end of Denial, released in cinemas this month, the lead character, played by Rachel Weisz, argues passionately that historical truth exists. It is a point that historian Richard Evans, president of Wolfson College in Cambridge and a key player in the events that inspired Denial, has been making for most of his professional life. It is also something that, he argues, has become even more important in the era of ‘alternative facts’ and Donald Trump. Read more
In the future, if you want a job, you must be as unlike a machine as possible: creative, critical and socially skilled. So why are children being taught to behave like machines? Children learn best when teaching aligns with their natural exuberance, energy and curiosity. So why are they dragooned into rows and made to sit still while they are stuffed with facts? Are we just teaching children to be redundant? Read more
Public and political understanding of young people’s mental health is growing; the prime minister herself emphasised recently that mental illness too often starts in childhood and that, ‘when left untreated, can blight lives’. Theresa May’s plans to offer every secondary school in the country mental health training, as well as strengthening links between schools and NHS specialist staff, are important steps in the right direction. But it is equally important to prioritise support in primary schools. Read more