An oaf's oath

At a time when the boom in commodity prices signals that the world's resources are getting scarcer, we should note that there's one commodity that's still in super-abundance - the sheer jaw-dropping imbecility of our rulers:

Lord Goldsmith suggested that schoolchildren should swear oaths of allegiance in a bid to tackle a "diminution in national pride".

There's one thing to be said for this. It's a great university entrance test. Any student who, when asked to swear such an oath, fails to use the words "shove" and "arse" should be declared unfit for higher education.
What Goldsmith fails to see is that this would be counter-productive. One reason why some of us still have vestigial pride in our country is precisely that we don't go in for such posturing.
And if you force a youngster to choose allegiance between the UK and - let's be honest - Pakistan, you'll only risk a backlash; has this idiot never heard of the power of counter-suggestion?
Insofar as a diminution in national pride is a problem, why doesn't Goldsmith consider Edmund Burke's solution?:

There ought to be a system of manners in every nation, which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.

But then, as this government has done so much to make our country unlovely, this would be asking too much.

Comments

[a very public sociologist]

This is a silly proposal, designed to warm the cockles of Daily Mail readers' blackened hearts. Like so many other daft New Labour ideas it will fall by the wayside. But if not, could this give the popular argument for a republic a shot in the arm?

[Don]

Typical NuLabour. Problem: how to encourage integration, community, civic pride in a modern disconnected society. Deep issues with deep historical roots connected to all the social, economic, political, environmental issues in this country. Slightly complicated, then.

Solution: Waste 10 minutes of a surly teenagers time pledging allegiance to entirely arbitrary, constitutionally irrelevant, historical curiosity.

AKA: NuLabour has no ideas at all, but if they don't come up with some bollocks solution to a problem once a year (and when everyone calls it what it is, claim it was to "encourage debate"), then it looks like they are doing nothing (which they are of course).

[Rohan]

For a lawyer Goldsmith is remarkably ignorant. At common law every subject of the Crown owes allegiance without the need for an oath. This truly is a PR exercise.