One of the problems with ‘New Labour’ was
that they seemed to believe that the answer to everything was more legislation. It didn’t always achieve very much, but it
looked like decisive action was being taken.
The reason that it’s a problem is that passing legislation doesn’t
necessarily change very much, and many of the ‘new’ crimes created by Labour
could easily have been prosecuted under existing laws; what was missing on
occasions wasn’t so much the necessary legislation as the resources. Still, it made for good headlines at the
time, which was all they really wanted.
I wondered yesterday whether the outsider
in the Tory Donkey Derby isn’t in serious danger of falling into the same trap
with his promise to pass new legislation to abolish illiteracy. I’m not sure what such legislation would do or
why it’s required. I assume that he’s
not planning to criminalise illiteracy (although with the Tories, one can never
be entirely sure), so what would any such law say? If the problem is poor teaching or lack of
resources, there are already means of addressing those issues, and severe
learning difficulties won’t go away because the law says so. Just because one of the few things that
governments can do (although the current one has struggled even with that) is
pass new laws doesn’t mean that new laws are the right answer.
The aim – that every citizen should be
able to read and write – is noble enough, and it is a disgrace that a country
like the UK lags behind many much poorer countries in ensuring that the aim is
achieved. I wonder who might be to blame
for that situation. Isn’t it a pity that
someone like Hunt who can see the problem hasn’t been a member of a government which
could have taken action to fix it if it had wanted to over the past seven
years? Oh, wait a minute…
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment