Do you have to be left-wing if you want to teach politics?

[Phanerothyme]

If teaching politics was obscenely well paid, there'd be more right-wing politics teachers.

 

So a bit of an own goal there by the tories, grinding the FE sector into the dust in the 80s - I was taught politics by a town councillor for the Liberal party (post SDP liberal, so pretty leftist - he even had a bust of VI Lenin on his desk). He would get the whole class to recite his (not Lenin's) favourite mantra:

 

"What is the biggest room in the world?"

"The room for improvement"

 

Not content with being a leftie, he was also a twunt.

[I1L2T3]

In the 80s I was taught economics by a chap who had been an economist at the National Farmers Union. He was pretty right wing.

[Phanerothyme]

Should there be more left-wing economics teachers I wonder?

[ronthenekred]

What "mental achievement"?

 

That would be difficult to explain considering your level of education. Mind wealth over financial wealth may go to help you understand though.

 

What "ground breaking comments" have you made?

 

Non, but I'm not one one who constantly blabbers out one liners about the left as though it was some sort of philosophical revelation.

[WeX]

Why aren't there any right wing libertarians on that chart?

 

Milton Friedman was a right wing libertarian.

[RootsBooster]

Silly Left & Rightists

[WeX]

Silly Left & Rightists

 

well if you don't know which side you dress, your trousers can become a little uncomfortable

[RootsBooster]

well if you don't know which side you dress, your trousers can become a little uncomfortable

 

Why "wear trousers" ?

Just go au naturel

[saunaman]

Prof Matthew Flinders recently got himself quoted in the Star as saying that the destruction of quangos wasn't working , and that this would be a blow to Ukip who campaign against quangos . This article is therefore on public record .

 

Please have a look at Professor Flinders' pretentious article entitled " Beastly Eastleigh and the "none of the above party" ". ( sorry Mods , work full-time and haven't yet worked out how to do links ).

 

Is it just me , or do any of you think that a "highly respected" ie Labour-supporting politics professor is unable to work out why working class people are turning away from the 3 main political parties ? When the average person on the street can tell you exactly why ? Jeeeeez

[Eccentric]

It is so very old-fashioned to be left-wing or right-wing. I can conceive of myself as nothing else than a green objectivist anarcho-libertarian meritocrat. I hate the collective, because I hate dealing with people. That would make me right-wing. But wait — right-wing means supporting family values and a big society, doesn’t it? I am effectively against both families and society. Equal opportunity? All in favour of it, and I shouldn’t mind paying taxes to further other people’s schooling and emancipation. It follows that I can be neither right-wing nor left-wing. Ergo: no party represents what I, as an individual, stand for. The distinction is clearly outdated.

 

As for Ukippers — well, somehow being a foreigner from the evil heart of the EU does not seem to prevent me from, frankly, knowing more about Britain than most of them do, and certainly not from speaking better English than they do. They rather remind me of that Swiss politician; Blocher, I think his name was. He was massive for a few years, ranting about the encroachment of the EU and UN on Swiss sovereignty, foreigners draining social security and minarets spoiling the beauteous vistas of the Alps. It held sway for a couple of years, but his might has now dwindled considerably. Populist parties that gain power in the end always prove to be terrible at actually governing a country. One need only recall the Pim Fortuyn party in Holland that made a gargantuan breakthrough after his murder. Their cabinet lasted for about 3 months, mainly owing to infighting and unpredictability.

That is exactly what UKIP is like. Without Farage, they would soon knock one another’s heads in and disband. Parties that live on ill-thought through gut feelings and irrationality are by definition unstable.

 

So the answer is: no, to teach politics, you have to be aware of what politics is. Frenetically shouting vacuous slogans bewrays a lack of such awareness.