Loons Led by Dunces

Is there no end to bonkers Education Secretary Michael Gove's buffoonery?  Is it possible for him to sink lower than his latest antics, which see him embroiled in an argument with Baldrick, a character from the long defunct Blackadder sitcom?  It wouldn't be so bad if the argument wasn't the result of the Education Secretary seemingly being remarkably ill informed with regard to twentieth century history.  Apparently, he's labouring under the misapprehension that anything that depicts the trench warfare of World War One's western front as being an utterly horrific and pointless slaughter, is left-wing propaganda.  Worse than that, it is left-wing propaganda designed to denigrate the memories of those who fought and died  in the trenches and obscure the glorious British victory which the Great War represented.  Clearly, Gove has never studied the inter-war period, or he would know that the perception of the First World War as a cataclysmic waste of human life was hardly a late twentieth century concept, dreamed up by the writers of TV comedies.  It was people who actually fought in the Great War who dubbed it the 'War to End All Wars' in the hope that the memory of its horrors would deter future conflicts on this scale.

As for the idea that this view of World War One somehow denigrates those who served in it, Gove is once again demonstrating his ignorance - this time of the very works he seeks to criticise.  The whole point of things like Oh What a Lovely War! and Blackadder, is surely that the ordinary soldier in the trenches frequently were heroic and self-sacrificing, unfortunately it was in service of a less than noble cause and frequently incompetent leaders.  Lions led by donkeys, to coin a phrase.  Coined, actually, by Alan Clark, a Tory MP and historian.  Most disturbing is Gove's belief that 1918 represented some kind of victory for Britain and its allies, that a conflict which cost over fifteen million lives and ultimately resolved very little, (by 1939 round two was kicking off), is something to be celebrated.  Let's not forget that 'victory' was achieved, in no small part, through the threat of revolution in Germany and the last-minute arrival of large numbers of fresh troops from the US.  Actually, I've changed my mind - the most disturbing aspect of this whole business is that someone like Gove is in charge of our children's education.