Look Beyond Our Narrow Confines

This morning, news came through that UK net migration is up 21% on last year, which seems to have rather weakened the coalition's claims to trying to stem immigration. It is mildly surprising that so few Britons have upped sticks and left to work in more congenial environments - perhaps to places not threatened with imminent financial collapse - but rather less surprising is the provenance of many of our new chums. Being part of the EU, Britain is bound by laws from our excellent friends in Brussels to take all comers from within the European Economic Area, regardless of whether they're actually any good or not. The number of non-student immigrants who come without a job to go into stands at a six year high, just at the time when the political classes are rushing about wringing their hands over the vast number of unproductive wastrels making a nest of the benefits system.

While these statistics may be annoying, I do not think that they will be particularly significant to anybody who does not base their lives on what the Daily Mail tells them. What is useful about them is that they raise two questions which are very significant at the moment. Firstly, by far the largest single group of immigrants is that made up of students coming to take advantage of our excellent but creaking higher education system. Indeed, overseas students, through their higher fees, now contribute a significant portion of the income of many universities, particularly those with the great financial misfortune to be humanities-heavy, and their numbers increase every year. Meanwhile, British students are finding it increasingly difficult to get into university, such is the pressure on space, as well as having to pay a lot more. Since the market is quite clearly strong for foreign students wishing to come to study in the UK, why not put the squeeze on foreign students rather than our own?

The second point that the migration figures raise is that of the EU. Every time new immigration figures arrive, there are always calls to reduce it in some way, and that generally means capping extra-EU immigration. This, unfortunately, does not actually help as immigration from Europe continues to be allowed. All very splendid - many hands make light work and all that - but why must it only be EU immigrants?

I have a good friend and bridge partner who came to the UK from Australia having got a good degree from a very good university despite all the while serving in the Royal Australian Air Force Reserve. She now works for a well known law firm in the City and is a credit to her profession, but will shortly have to return to Australia for an extended period while renewing her visa. Not only does this remove a motivated and productive member of the work force who would otherwise continue to contribute tax revenue, it means that a subject of the Queen, a person who shares our Head of State, Parliamentary system, judicial system, military tradition, language and a good deal of our history and culture is ejected from the country in favour of immigrants who share none of these things and are not required to be at all qualified.

Now that the euro appears close to collapse, and even traditionally stable countries such as France are feeling the pinch and credit agencies beginning to look crititcally at AAA rated EU countries, is there much point in us staying in the EU? The English Channel has been described as the biggest cultural fault line in the world, and it is true that most Britons feel they have very little in common with their fellow Europeans. On the other hand, the Commonwealth provides a ready-made bloc of fifty-four countries, with the majority of which we have far more in common and has the excellent strength of having a much more diverse economic basis, and a much wider global reach. No single currency obviates the possibility of an bloc-wide default, and the diplomatic potential is arguably much greater.

Let's get shot of these CAP-munching, debt-reliant, orgy-indulging contintentals and remember why we never used to care about Europe anyway. The world is a big place, and there is a lot more out there than a Franco-German hegemony can offer us. At least I might be able to keep my bridge partner...

Modern Major-General?

In 1878 W.S. Gilbert penned the words of I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General in which he poked fun at the imbalance between erudition and actual military prowess of senior officers in the late 19th century British Army. Such was the importance of a good classical education that very little time was set aside for the actual learning of tactics, and if an officer was fortunate enough not to see much action, he would quite likely be no more a military man than the ghastly Lord Sugar is a credit to the Upper House. How far away that world seems now when we see hordes of barely literate roughs tumbling through the school gates waving around their n A* A-Level grades which nevertheless aren't quite enough to get them a place reading Crayon Sharpening at Luton Reformed Poly.

Perusing my Twitter feed today, I noticed a missive from an officer of the Students' Union of King's College London - an reputable and upstanding institution - telling the world that "pulchritudinous" is a noun. That a post-graduate student at one of the UK's leading universities should not only be ignorant of the difference between a noun and an adjective, but willingly show everyone that ignorance is a good illustration of the sorry state of affairs we find ourselves in now, for along with the rest of the country, Our Education System Is Broken.

Naturally we have heard much about this over the last week - badly (or even barely) educated thugs from the more rioty end of town charging about setting fire to things is a cause for much soul-searching among the Guardianistas, but they've got it all the wrong way 'round. Why does nobody now boast about being able to write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform? Because the state education and exam system is so busy trying to make sure every ineducable basket case feels included and special that those who want to actually learn rather than merely be taught how to get an A are stymied at every turn. To prove my point, I have a challenge for you. Go and find the closest jubilant A-Level student and ask them to describe, even in the vaguest possible way, the plot of any two Shakespeare plays except Macbeth. I bet you they couldn't tell you. In fact, ask about Macbeth too. They can probably barely remember that.

Now this is not to say that British schoolchildren are stupid. Far from it - many are vastly more worldly and well-read than I am, but the opportunity is not given to them to develop, purely as a result of the tyranny of the exam boards. These monstrous institutions set the public exams, like A-Levels and GCSEs and are paid to do so by the government. What a surprise then that 98% of A-Level students passed. Education statistics looking a bit woeful? Somebody whizz 'round to OCR or Edexcel and have a word... Even worse is the fact that somehow these clowns (who, remember, cannot even get the questions right) have managed to acquire a monopoly on intelligence. The only way to get a good job now is to have the right results. Don't have three As and a 2:1? Enjoy your box, you smelly homeless person.

The contagion has even spread to our universities, and more so now that they are commercial operations. The concern for league table rankings in all parts of the education system means that nobody actually learns anything from it - they just tick the boxes their teachers tell them to.

So how to fix Britain? Easy. Burn down the exam boards and have schools set their own tests. Such education built the world's biggest empire, but now look at us. Exam boards, j'accuse!