Esther McVey MP is a Minister without Portfolio – but she’s been nicknamed the Minister for Common Sense.
It isn’t an official title, but it’s a very loud advertisement for the lack of common sense ruling this land for the past few years.
The good old term ‘common sense’ is being thrown around by every Tom, Dick or Harry hoping for a vote.
Now that people can’t really talk about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ without raising someone’s hackles, there has to be some other way of taking the moral high ground. ‘Common sense’ appears to be it.
The latest hero to join in is our future Prime Minister, Sir Keir. But no sooner does someone start talking about common sense than you begin to wonder whether their argument fits into that newly fashionable box.
Hence Sir Keir’s ‘big new idea’ – to get schools to teach children how to brush their own teeth. And to anyone who thinks this a little bit (ahem) nanny state, he has an answer: ‘If anyone wants to fight me on this question of the nanny state or common sense – bring it on.’ ‘Bring it on’ is a favourite phrase of his.
We teachers of older ‘kids’ won’t have to be in charge of brushing their teeth. I’d be frightened that some of them might bite me if I tried. But Starmer is transferring another job, that should be the parents’, onto hard-pressed teachers. Next, he will ask us to sort out the obesity of ‘kids’.
I’ve done many things in my career as a teacher that have nothing to do with how to analyse A Christmas Carol. I’ve handed a pregnancy test over a lavatory stall to a sobbing child. I’ve quietly suggested to a stinking boy that he ask his mother (father/guardian etc) to wash his shirt.
I’ve given advice, mopped tears and listened to tales of woe, ambition and fear. But they all happened in the moment, and came from what I suppose is my heart. I have never been instructed to do any of those things by the Government.
I’ve seen children with black teeth and wobbling bellies and wondered about their parents and how they let their children get to such a state. But I haven’t considered it my business to interfere.
I also know the parents and the children would be furious if I did.
There are no dentists. The South- West, where I teach, is one of the worst-affected areas of Britain in this respect. Everyone is poor, and fast food is cheap. Aren’t those the areas politicians should tackle first? Rather than have teachers brushing little Johnny’s stumps, shouldn’t dentists be sent into schools to give check-ups in the way nit nurses used to turn up and check us? Expensive, yes, but, luckily, cancelling non-dom status is going to pay for almost everything we are promised. Set up short courses at cookery schools to teach parents how to cook cheaply and well. Teach the children the same. The lockdown did make many parents realise how much more we do than teach. We are babysitters and advisers. We encourage the good and discourage the bad. Sometimes we even make our pupils laugh.
What we are not is doctors, nurses or dental hygienists. If this carries on, we’ll be asked to shave their downy cheeks and wax their stubbly legs. Please can I go back to Dickens and Shakespeare? That is, after all, my forte.
