Gary's views

FAMILY

What will you be celebrating this Christmas? The new jumper so lovingly knitted in the latest colours by Aunt Agnes or the latest games consul? The likely success of Rachel Stevens in strictly come dancing, or the return of Doctor Who? Might I suggest that we make a conscious effort to celebrate something different instead – our family, warts and all. It would be a suitable toast over the Christmas lunch table!

I read that the busiest time for divorce lawyers is in early January when another batch of couples decide, after the festive season, that they cannot stand each other, and I am sure that is true. We have also had a terrible spate of child abuse within the family, not least the horrors of baby P.

But these truths relate to a tiny minority of homes, a horrible distortion of a bigger, happier picture. I have lost count of the people who have come to see me in need in my surgery whose only source of support has been their family. I am regularly inspired by couples pursuing the right school or medical help for their children, deeply committed to the futures of the ones they love. How many children now find security in the presence of their grandparents while their parents juggle the hours to pay the bills? I heard just this week of a retired couple who have moved house twice in three years just to be able to help their daughter care for their grandchildren at a time of prolonged sickness.

Strong families are the backbone of our country. Families come in all shapes and sizes and include some people who are nigh on impossible to please, but that is all part of the tapestry too. In the end, blood is thicker than water.

I don’t care what presents I get this year, although I hope that the sock and pants department will receive its annual boost. I am looking forward most to sitting in front of my fire engaging with two young human dynamos bouncing around the room.

Christmas is a time when we can consciously celebrate our family despite its flaws. Joseph stood by Mary when she told him she was expecting a child that was not his, a child then born in a lowly stable, a child who turned their lives upside down and then later did the same for the rest of the world.

Have a very Wonderful Christmas.

EDUCATION FUTURE

A report released at the beginning of the week called for massive changes to the way we teach primary school children. Traditional subjects like history, geography and religious studies would be removed from the curriculum as separate subjects and merged into a “human social and environmental learning programme,” with much more emphasis on computer technology and so on.

It may not be quite as barking as it sounds. I certainly support the aim of producing education for the twenty-first century, rather than teaching things are children no longer need to know. I studied Latin at school and although it still gives me great pleasure to recite chunks of “my lady’s pet sparrow is dead” and other classics from Roman literature, my family are now thoroughly fed up with it and it has added little to my career. I wouldn’t recommend studying Latin now, even though I enjoyed it.

A combination of the traditional and the cutting edge is likely to produce the best results. It is not important for young children to slavishly learn the names of capital cities, but it is important that they have an understanding of the tensions between developed and undeveloped countries which will form a large part of the geo-political world in which they will grow up. It is not important to be able to recite the kings and queens of England but it is important to have an overview of the various stages of historic development of this great country, not least to help make sense of the present. What skills does the next generation need to succeed? It has to be different to those we needed, many of us going to school when the Ford Anglia was cutting edge. Amongst others, they will need to surf the net in safety, work out how to run complex household finances, strike the right work/life balance and learn how to build stable relationships. Isn’t it galling that when many of us want to do something clever with our TV/DVD/ home computers, we have to ask our children or grandchildren? Their world is different.

They must be taught about tomorrow’s world at school, but here we must avoid the pitfalls of every other educational revolution of the past. We must not throw out the baby with the bath water. Some values and truths are eternal and some raw facts are necessary to understand the world and have a successful life, whatever the generation.

ARRESTING MPs!

MPs come in all shapes and sizes; some are better at constituency work than others, some clearly destined for high office, some love robust campaigning and others prefer a more academic approach. But the one thing we all have in common is that we should be utterly fearless in carrying out our duties on behalf of our constituents and our country without the spectre of being hauled into custody for the way we do our jobs.

The arrest of my colleague Damian Green last week for nine hours, the searching of his house and computer, has plunged the body politic into uproar and chaos. Even seasoned journalists, not easily outraged, have taken off in high dudgeon. A local photographer said to me recently that a good MP needs to have something of the street-fighter about him to do the job properly. I agree with that. We often make mistakes but we should be free to do our job as we see fit and it is the people who elected us who can keep us in check, not the constabulary. This is not because we are born special, but because we are elected.

Don’t get me wrong, members of parliament are not above the law. If I commit a traffic offence or steal from a shop or batter my wife I deserve the full force of law to be thrown at me. But if I ask questions of any government department which embarrasses them, whether based on leaked documents or not, I do not expect the boys in blue to come around and cart me off to Charles Cross. It takes us to the edge of a police state. Having visited some countries where people are regularly dumped in prison for opposing the government, I never thought it could happen here. The fallout from this is very serious and likely to be long-lasting. At a time when we should be focussing on sorting out the economy, we do not need this.

In the early sixteenth century Richard Strode represented this area and upset local tin miners for bringing in an act of parliament that prevented them mining the Plym. In their fury they had him seized by bailiffs and thrown into Lydford gaol. As a result of this the first Act of Privileges was introduced in Parliament preventing us from being arrested for doing our job at Westminster. My illustrious predecessor must be turning in his grave.