British Values

In recent weeks, a clearer picture has started to emerge of what current British values really are. As the politicians seek to take the moral high ground in their endless quests for power at all costs, I take the opportunity to reflect on what values we have in Britain.

We are obsessed by our relationship with Europe and are about to be dumped by the Scots as the Union begins it's inevitable demise. We have just returned to the economic levels we enjoyed before the financial crash even though the resurgence has largely been achieved by the same route which got us here in the first place. Levels of personal debt are being promoted by another cynical Government more concerned with it's own chances of re-election next May.

We have a worryingly high rate of teenage pregnancy. We have a bigger public sector than France. We have a health time bomb ticking underneath the very foundations of our allegedly beloved NHS in the form of booze, obesity, diabetes, smoking, lack of exercise and diets dripping in the high glycaemic index sugar procured from supermarkets who could scarcely do more to destroy whatever community spirit we might once have had. We obsessed with moaning about the quality of our free health service while the majority seem oblivious of their role in it's downfall.

We bemoan immigrants having their faith having long since discarded our own. As church congregations dwindle, mosques and temples continue their relentless spread. Where we do little to promote the benefits of faith to our young, immigrant families have the good sense to retain their faith. Go to the Law schools and Medical schools and see the students. Every picture tells a story.

British people have new Gods. We have gambled a fortune in recent days on England winning the football world cup. Football and money continue to attract the British although both remain bereft of real value. As I write, the England footballers who are paid morally indefensible sums of money for reasons I will never understand are being urged to try and sing the national anthem at the beginning of their forthcoming matches. Being urged to try?

At the recent European elections, an outcry was heard when it became obvious that the anti-European UKIP had won the day. British values dictate that in the centenary of the beginning of the Great War in which our forebears laid down their lives so that we could enjoy our freedom, only a third of us can even be bothered to exercise our right to vote.

A recent school trip to Barcelona made the headlines because of another set of British values. The teachers were so drunk, they started to fight with each other and thus the example was set for another generation. Where I live, the local council wants to close two of the last remaining faith schools in a cynical attempt to finish the secular job off.

The modern British value is to borrow as much we can in the vain hope we will ever be able to repay it thus guaranteeing a return to the previous recessions for the same reasons.  

A British value which has come to the fore in recent times is our ability to eat mountains of food of dubious nutritional content as food banks continue to prosper. We throw away as much food as we eat and the greedy supermarkets are equally culpable. And still the waste goes on less than fifty years after the end of the rationing which guaranteed such a good start in life for our grandparents. We still have the same number of legs as our grandparents but prefer the car even for short journeys.

We pertain to love and cherish our NHS and yet there is little evidence to support that view in the lifestyle choices of the many.

Our prisons are full at a time when our churches have never been so empty.

The British values to which Michael Gove refer are not clear to me but if he intends to teach the values to which I have referred, God help us all.