Will the exam fiasco will trigger a new children’s crusade? I don’t mean a medieval religious crusade like the one in 1212. Only a lunatic or Donald Trump would consider an actual religious crusade now.
But might it trigger a modern children’s ‘Grade Crusade’ to reclaim the confiscated exam results stored in the vaults of the mean spirited Ofqual? Or a siege to set the department of education free from U grade management aka Gavin Williamson, perhaps?
Is this a new children’s crusade?
Looking at the news, this is what appears to be happening right now in the UK. History is repeating itself. Outraged by an algorithm, young people have actually taken to the street to protest and not just vented their spleen on social media.
Good on them. I am all for young people asserting their rights, especially when it appears the so-called grown-ups don’t know what to do. After all, if they won’t fight their own fights, who will?
I’m too busy worrying about Mother’s health, the miserably low annuity rate I’m going to get for my pension pot when I retire and England’s fragile middle order batting to do their protesting for them.
My days as a street fighting man are gone, so my only advice to them is not to sit down in the cycle lanes, because if you block Jeremy Vine’s cycle route home there will be all hell to pay.
Don’t organise a sit down in the cycle lanes
And protesting nowadays isn’t too tough. The young people on the original thirteenth century crusade to Jerusalem spent weeks trekking across the Alps by foot. This generation can get to Westminster by tube in thirty minutes, stage a sit-down and be back in time for supper.
Though it is true TfL have cut free fares for under 18s which means they’ll have to pay to stage their protest. This may stick in the throat of some young protestors or even dissuade them from coming. It may feel like another inter-generational kick in the teeth to set alongside Climate Change, Brexit and house prices. But let’s hope that doesn’t stop them.
I pray the fate of their medieval peers does not put them off protesting, either. Two dodgy dealers – William of Posqueres and Hugh the Iron – sold the original lot into slavery in Tunisia which isn’t likely to happen to this generation because of international human rights legislation. Besides, the logistical task of transporting thousands of young protestors to a foreign shore is beyond this government unless it recalls ferryman-in-chief Chris Grayling.
Why was Hugh called ‘The Iron’?
I am distracted from my outrage for a moment. Where did Hugh the Iron got his name? Did someone give it to him? Like Bob Monkhouse gave Bernie his nickname ‘The Bolt’ on the TV show the ‘Golden Shot’? Was Hugh the Iron a medieval metrosexual trailblazer who earned his nickname for ironing his own shirts when this a job for women and outlawed for men under Church Ordinance?
‘Listen to this joke,’ my son says. ‘What’s Gavin Williamson’s favourite type of shoe?
‘I don’t know,’ I say.
‘Flip-flops,’ he says.
I hope the joke is right. Sometimes flip flopping is the right thing to do, even if it makes you look a bit of a clown.