Our politicians stink! Agree or disagree?

I thought he was just objecting to the Black Adder kind of jokes that are made these days about that war. I think for many, WW1 is a forgotten war.

The final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth was touching and tragic. It was by no means disrespectful to the many soldiers whose lives were sacrificed on the battlefields of the Somme. Read Wilfred Owen; read Sigfried Sassoon; read or reread Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy. Owen lost his life, Sassoon too was injured and mentally damaged in the course of his service. They knew what they were writing about.

"My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity."
(Wilfred Owen)

The "Lions Led by Donkeys", is interesting as Gove seems to have forgotten that one of the best known exponents of this view was that well-known left wing historian Alan Clark
I think that there is nothing in Blackadder or Oh What A Lovely War that dishonours the courage or the sacrifice of the soldiers of World War 1.
The spectacle of smarmy politicians making cheap political points does though.

Yes anno, that final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth was very touching, and showed the tragedy of that war in a way that did not disrespect the people who fought and died in it. Your comments about Wilfred Owen and Sasson gave me the shivers.

I simply don't see how Mr Gove can say that a series like Blackadder is disrespectful to those who fought and died. He seems to want to drag the country back into a jingoistic view of military action and might. As with the holocaust and the 2nd war, we should always remember the sacrifices of so many young men in the first ww.

I wonder what Mr Gove's family influences have been? Both my grandfather's served, one was a prisoner for 12 months and challenged my criticism of "the Germans" when I was about 12. He said of his captors, "They were just lads like us, your generation wouldn't and shouldn't do it. We knew no better, those banners saying 'your country needs to' and off we all went". He said the Guards shared the Red Cross Parcels with the prisoners, as well as boiling rats, and eating grass because there was often no food as the war drew to an end. His chest was damaged by gas, he had trench feet and stomach problems for the rest of his life. My other grandfather's job was to follow the fighting, and attempt to identify the dead. These young men were 18 years old, had never left England until they went to war. It makes me so angry that Gove takes the view he does, as though the rest of us are so stupid we can't see the humour and pathos in that brilliant series of Blackadder.

Gove is adopted so probably doesn't know what his grandfather did in the great war. Mine was gassed - i think he was in the medical corps, bearing stretchers etc.
Gove is choosing a version of history to grab a headline and help position him for a leadership bid whenever the knives come out for Cameron. It is in contradiction to the PM amongst others. He is also imposing his preferred take on history onto the national curriculum.

Yes I know he's adopted Jess, I was thinking about the influences of his adoptive family. I suspect a lot of our generation have been influenced by growing up somewhat in the shadow of two great wars. My family view was that the first war wasn't a just war, in the way that they felt WW2 had been. My grandfathers were very different politically, but were united in their view that huge social and class related changes followed the first war, with moves towards less inequality.

I agree with your analysis of what Gove is up to, by ensuring he is never out of the headlines.

I think the premise all are bent and on the take, out for their own glory is totally unfair. There are bad apples in any walks of life. In all my years in the UK I've known local politicians who were totally and absolutely devoted to their area and electorate- and work tirelessly- so many on a volunteer basis or for expenses (and most do not fiddle them). It is the same here in Switzerland, where I was elected last year as a Councillor (unpaid of course). Meetings after meetings, lots of hard work on several committees (education, immigaration and social for me). It takes a lot of time, and a lot of effort- if if it was not for people prepared to get stuck in, work hard to find solutions and implement them and stick their necks out, not much would get done or improved upon.

Much easier of course to sit at home and moan- than actually try to do something positive, of course. I am very glad I live in a country where one can only work by cross-party concensus, unlike in the UK where see-saw politics are to often the norm.

Apparently someone on irish radio alleged that a politician was "furthering his own nest"

I tend to agree with papaoscar judging by the current performance by all sides. I also remember the play referred to by Mishap and hope that many of them start off with the best of intentions, as did the heroine, but get sucked into the general way of doing things that seems to prevail. It would take a very strong and self-confident character to stand up to the "old hands" I imagine.
I think PMS Questions is a disgrace and Cameron should remember his pledge of no more punch and judy politics. Not that he's the only offender, but it was his promise.
As a further rant, why bother having any of them on Today or World at One etc if they never give an answer to a question unless it fits in with their prepared statement?
I know it's easy to sit here and moan, but these people are having a major influence on all our lives. It should not be too much to ask for some straight answers and grown up behaviour.

Granjura - I think you make a vital point - Swiss consensus politics sound far more satisfactory than the constant seesaw confrontations of British politics, which often end up in bad-tempered point-scoring pantomime performances by all parties. Oh, yes I do! Oh, no I don't! Etc., etc. Couple that with the need for British politicians to limit their actions to the 'quick-fix' necessary to satisfy the five-year electoral period and you can see why the British political system is in trouble and the public are apathetic. Long live Switzerland!

Certainly the antics in the House of Commons, from all sides btw, are famous throughout the world and give the worst impression of what the UK is all about, sadly and shamefully (btw I lived in several location in England for 39 years- and a big part of my heart will always be there- as well as so many friends, daughters and grand-children).

Yep, the last episode of Blackadder Goes Forth had me in tears, they certainly played it for respect.
The same was true of the Wipers Times tv program that was on recently.
That level of slaughter needs humour to make it marginally more bearable. So I agree, knee jerk policies from politicians need to be shot down in flames, whether on immigration, second bedroom tax or whatever. That's good democracy I think.

BTW, you might be glad to know that here, in Switzerland, I am forever saying 'but in the UK we do it like this, or like that... as there are many things the UK does better than most (sadly though, often so well that it becomes the victim of its own success, like the NHS and social services, because they are the best and most generous in the world).

I believe that most MPs want to enter parliament because they want "things to be better" according to their value system. I am wary though of the career politicians who have their sights set on high office and have had no experience of actually running something or doing a professional job before they get elected. In them I think ambition is an additional, powerful driver.

You are, of course, right, granjura; I was being unnecessarily cynical when I tarred all politicians with the same brush. But there are enough self serving or just plain ignorant ones to make my hackles rise. Oh for MPs who have actually been out in the real world!

I'm sure the system we have is not as bad as most and lots of politicians are doing as good a job as possible. As Ariadne says some seem to be just plain ignorant. This being a case in point, mentioning no minister by name.

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-our-ancient-woodlands?bucket&source=facebook-share-button&time=1389008415

I know that people's problems are pressing in the here and now, but in the long term the environment matters hugely. We can't just wreck everything as a knee jerk solution.

I seem to be a Tory mailing list. Yesterday I had a missive from Mr Cameron and I took the opportunity to inform him about toilet closures and the problems of mobile workers finding a loo in the course of their work - many are actually refused toilet access at the places they visit because there is no statutory requirement [although there are regulations for on site employees]. This is something that affects 100% of the population - we all need a loo several times a day. Today I received an email from Mr Osbourne and guess what? He's going to get a reply too . I'm not expecting replies but a drip feed doesn't do any harm.......

As far as Mr Gove's take on the World War I patriotism is concerned, it's more "swimmers into cleanness leaping" than "What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?". 'Twas ever thus. When R. C. Sherriff's "Journey's End" was first staged, the politicians harrumphed and wanted it banned because it suggested that the mere boys/junior officers who had spent three years on the Western Front leading their men into certain death could only cope with the horror by drinking large quantities of whisky. Of course, the politicians in Westminster knew best then as they do now; Sherriff was a captain at Vimy, Loos and Passchendaele and, clearly, knew nothing.

WTF does ""swimmers into cleanness leaping" mean?

I can understand the dying as cattle thing.

www.warpoetry.co.uk/brooke3.html

(Had to google it myself, though...)

jingle

Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His Hour
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping.

Rupert Brooke, who never got to see the cleanness of the Somme or Ypres.

Crossed posts, absent - thought you might have gone for your breakfast!

Oh right. Prefer his Grantchester one tbh. Isn't he buried somewhere out there. "corner of a foreign field that is forever England"? Or is that one of the others?

Have refreshed my memory. (Google) Died of blood poisoning on the boat. So sad.

absent, that Brooke poem has always made me shudder. It seemed that he, and perhaps his generation, thought of war as a purification. He was dead before he could see action. I wonder what kind of poetry he would have written if he had survived as long as Owen and Sassoon.