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My Facebook newsfeed and various WhatsApp groups were full of outrage, vitriol and anger that the Prime Minister was providing money for free English Language lessons. The absolute cheek of it! People were posting their personal accounts of how "my mother/father knew little English and look how successful I turned out" as though their personal experience meant something and generally condemning the idea of free education for those who could benefit from it as a terrible thing.
You might have guessed by now that I think the reaction was ridiculous and misdirected and missed a fundamental point about politics - very rarely does anyone say what they actually mean.
Taking pride in not knowing something seriously annoys me. Coming from a mathematical background it's hugely irritating when people are proud of not knowing Maths or being able to do simple arithmetic. I frown upon ignorance in the life skill there and I will frown upon people who take pride in ignorance in essential communication. Pride in ignorance is ridiculous and should be shunned wherever it raises its ugly head.
Other parts of the outrage was directed at the conflation of poor English and extremism. I can understand the outrage here - it's blatantly nonsense to think that poor English leads to extremism. This is explicitly pointed out in the second quoted paragraph by Cameron himself - a point which seems to have been missed by most people.
So why would he say that it's to fight extremism and then contradict himself? Either because he's an idiot or because he's a politician and he knows what he's saying doesn't make sense but also that the media will report the first bit and give the contradiction less air-time. And if it's reported as being an anti-extremist policy he'll have a much easier time of gathering support for an initiative that will help a much maligned group of people.
If he'd come out and said simply "we've cut £45m from the ESOL budget a few months ago but we made a mistake and the government will now allocate £20m funding to give free English language lessons to immigrants and Muslims so they can have greater opportunity" the reaction would have been favourable in the Muslim community but sadly toxic across much of the media and electorate. No politician in their right mind is going to take that approach.
So what has happened?
In a nutshell - what has happened is that Cameron has been quite politically astute. In an era of budget cuts, he has secured £20m of funding aimed at teaching Muslim women and immigrants (who speak other languages) to read and write English. And by claiming it's for anti-extremism purposes the only people who are upset about this is the Muslim community that will end up benefitting the most from the fund - the Muslim community could do with the extra education.
Another interesting observation is that it seems the excuse of extremism cuts two ways. Call a policy anti-extremist and most of the electorate won't bat an eyelid and if no one's paying attention then you can, at least politically, do whatever you like. There's no denying that most of the time the anti-extremism label doesn't help but it seems that in the odd case it can actually lead to a benefit.
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The BBC article on the story (also with audio to an interview where he explains his position) begins as follows:
A £20m fund to teach Muslim women in the UK to speak English will tackle segregation and help them resist the lure of extremism, David Cameron says.
While there was no "causal connection" between poor English and extremism, language lessons would make communities "more resilient", Mr Cameron said.And later on in the article:
The PM acknowledged cuts had been made to free language classes for immigrants during the last Parliament, but said the new £20m fund was "more targeted".As mentioned above, some of the outrage was from people who had personal anecdotes of success despite coming from families with little English. I've used "despite" rather than "while" because I think it'd be detrimental to not speak the language of the land you live in.
Taking pride in not knowing something seriously annoys me. Coming from a mathematical background it's hugely irritating when people are proud of not knowing Maths or being able to do simple arithmetic. I frown upon ignorance in the life skill there and I will frown upon people who take pride in ignorance in essential communication. Pride in ignorance is ridiculous and should be shunned wherever it raises its ugly head.
Other parts of the outrage was directed at the conflation of poor English and extremism. I can understand the outrage here - it's blatantly nonsense to think that poor English leads to extremism. This is explicitly pointed out in the second quoted paragraph by Cameron himself - a point which seems to have been missed by most people.
So why would he say that it's to fight extremism and then contradict himself? Either because he's an idiot or because he's a politician and he knows what he's saying doesn't make sense but also that the media will report the first bit and give the contradiction less air-time. And if it's reported as being an anti-extremist policy he'll have a much easier time of gathering support for an initiative that will help a much maligned group of people.
If he'd come out and said simply "we've cut £45m from the ESOL budget a few months ago but we made a mistake and the government will now allocate £20m funding to give free English language lessons to immigrants and Muslims so they can have greater opportunity" the reaction would have been favourable in the Muslim community but sadly toxic across much of the media and electorate. No politician in their right mind is going to take that approach.
So what has happened?
In a nutshell - what has happened is that Cameron has been quite politically astute. In an era of budget cuts, he has secured £20m of funding aimed at teaching Muslim women and immigrants (who speak other languages) to read and write English. And by claiming it's for anti-extremism purposes the only people who are upset about this is the Muslim community that will end up benefitting the most from the fund - the Muslim community could do with the extra education.
Another interesting observation is that it seems the excuse of extremism cuts two ways. Call a policy anti-extremist and most of the electorate won't bat an eyelid and if no one's paying attention then you can, at least politically, do whatever you like. There's no denying that most of the time the anti-extremism label doesn't help but it seems that in the odd case it can actually lead to a benefit.
Next post: Tax and Google
Previous post: A light and dark perspective
