Ed Balls: Holocaust education is best investment

Schools Secretary Ed Balls has said the money put into Holocaust education is the “best investment” his department has made.

Mr Balls and his wife Yvette Cooper, the Work and Pensions Secretary, were among the 300 guests at the Holocaust Educational Trust dinner in central London.

Stressing the enduring importance of Holocaust education, he said young Britons were learning about the Shoah in a “relevant and sophisticated” way.

“The money we are investing is probably the best investment our department makes for the future of young people. To learn about the Holocaust is firmly part of the curriculum and HET brings it alive for young people with messages that are very powerful for our country today.”

The Department of Children, Schools and Families is giving the HET £1.5 million annually for its Lessons from Auschwitz project, through which sixth-formers visit the death camp site. HET also aims to raise awareness and understanding through teacher training and has taken more than 7,000 staff and pupils to Auschwitz.

But HET chairman Lord Janner says there is more to be done. “In some schools it’s good and in some schools they are doing very little.”

He was concerned at rising antisemitism and the ever-dwindling number of survivors to relay their stories to new generations.

“We work against racism of all kinds and we can’t let people forget about what happened. We’ve been very lucky to hear survivors’ stories but they are dying off, so we have to train more people.” continues here

Set texts

It is not the Government's job to hand out reading lists

When he launched the National Year of Reading, Ed Balls, the Children's Secretary, was pictured engrossed in a book called Keeping Pet Chickens. Now that the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill contains a clause that would permit the secretary of state to decide which books children must be examined on at GCSE and A level, it may not be long before Keeping Pet Chickens is mandatory.

”permit the secretary of state to decide which books children must be examined on at GCSE and A level...”

Ministers insist that the power would be exercised only as a last resort, in the unlikely event, for example, that Shakespeare had stopped cropping up in examinations. The reasons for using the power would need to be stated in a published memorandum between the department and the regulator. The secretary of state can already intervene in the curriculum because the relevant authority answers to him. The new clause refers, strictly speaking, to examinations. But nobody can be examined on books that they have not studied so it also refers, in effect, to the curriculum.

It is not that there is anything wrong with Mr Balls's taste in books. He has listed his favourite books as a child: Enid Blyton's Famous Five adventures, Malcolm Saville detective stories called the Lone Pine Adventures, The Wind in the Willows and, his professed favourite, Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome.

But there is no need to mandate specific reading from the centre. There is no need for this new power to be taken.  continues here

Ed Balls: minister fears rise of fascism amid economic gloom

The economic crisis could spark a resurgence in the Far Right, a close ally of Gordon Brown has suggested.

Ed Balls, the Children's and Schools Secretary, said the downturn was likely to be the most serious for 100 years, and his comments appeared to raise the prospect of a return to the Far Right politics of the 1930s and the rise of Facism.

His warning, in a speech to activists at the weekend, came after a trade union baron warned that far right parties were trying to hijack the campaign for "British jobs for British workers".

The row over foreign workers has gathered momentum in recent weeks and Mr Balls seemed to suggest the recession could trigger a return to the Far Right politics that prospered in the Great Depression of the 1930s.

He told Labour's Yorkshire conference: "The economy is going to define our politics in this region and in Britain in the next year, the next five years, the next 10 and even the next 15 years.

"I think that this is a financial crisis more extreme and more serious than that of the 1930s and we all remember how the politics of that era were shaped by the economy."

The remarks are significant because Mr Balls was a key adviser to Mr Brown during his decade at the Treasury as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Mr Balls said that he believed this to be "the most serious global recession for over 100 years".

He said: "We now are seeing the realities of globalisation, though at a speed, pace and ferocity which none of us have seen before. The reality is that this is becoming the most serious global recession for, I'm sure, over 100 years as it will turn out."

Last week Derek Simpson, the general secretary of Unite, gave warning that far right elements were hijacking a campaign against foreign firms bringing in non-British workers.

He said: "We are deeply concerned that other organisations like the BNP are latching onto the movement for their own racist agenda."

Last night, George Osborne, the shadow Chancellor, said Mr Balls' comments were at odds with Treasury forecasts suggesting a recovery in the third quarter this year.

He said: "This is a staggering and very worrying admission from a Cabinet Minister and Gordon Brown's closest ally in the Treasury over the past ten years.

"We are being told that not only we are facing the worst recession in 100 years, but that it will last for over a decade – far longer than Treasury forecasts predict.

"In this time of recession, a Cabinet rift over the economy could be deeply damaging.

"We need immediate clarification of whether Ed Balls is speaking for his colleagues in the Government."

The Liberal Democrats compared the comments with those made by Treasury minister Baroness Vadera, when she claimed she was seeing "green shoots" of economic recovery, echoing remarks by former Tory Chancellor Norman Lamont in 1991.

She was criticised for saying last month: "I am seeing a few green shoots, but it's a little bit too early to say exactly how they'd grow."

Vincent Cable, the LibDems' Treasury spokesman, said: "Instead of giving clear and consistent leadership, government ministers are oscillating between complacent optimism and this doom laden picture of Armageddon.

"Surely the truth lies between the two? This is a serious crisis but not hopeless."

The news came as the Financial Services Authority, the City watchdog, warned that the UK was at risk of a deeper-than-expected recession.

The authority said that the worst financial meltdown "in more than 70 years" has far from run its course and the British economy was predicted to shrink by 2.2 per cent this year.

It also said that Britain's 'vulnerable' banks need to make huge culture changes to survive the recession.

A spokesman for Ed Balls denied he had been trying to draw parallels with the Far Right.

He said: “The speech was about the difference between Labour and the Tories on the economy. It was not about trying to draw parallels with the Far Right. continues here

Lessons aimed at combating racism

Education officials hope a new programme teaching children about the Holocaust will help stamp out racism in schools.

The Think Equal scheme has been designed by The Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) to get teenagers thinking about what lessons can be learned from the World War II atrocities.

The term-long course, aimed at 13 and 14-year-olds, will examine the Nazi's attitudes to equality and human rights alongside racial tensions in today's society.

It will be launched at a dinner event to celebrate the Trust's 20th anniversary, attended by schools minister Ed Balls and Auschwitz survivor Elie Wiesel.

A Trust spokesman explained: "The project reaches disaffected young people from multi-cultural backgrounds and focuses their understanding of the contemporary lessons of the Holocaust.

"Students are given the opportunity to consider their own individual identity, learn about the dangers of stereotyping and reflect on their responsibility as citizens today."

The programme gives students the chance to hear a Holocaust survivor speak about their experiences.

It has been piloted in inner city schools in London, including Tower Hamlets, Newham and Haringey, where teachers say they have seen an improvement in children's playground behaviour. continues here

Is it just me that’s sick of it, sick of the constant use of the holocaust as a weapon, a weapon that cows us, leaves us reeling, whilst it is only our compassion and innate need to belong, that really holds us back, in essence we do not wish to appear hateful. Whilst we duck the assault meted out to us, whilst we cower on the floor, bludgeoned by guilt, the greatest crime ever committed, against a people, takes place, yet we dare not look, dare not take our eye off the weapon, hitting us relentlessly, wielded by expert hands. And so, cowed by this potent weapon, evil creeps in, its dark shadow slithers, covering all, blocking out the sun and blinding all to truth, all fall, all become bonded, stuck in dishonesties sticky goo.

It is a lie you know, all of it, the greatest crimes against humanity, have been carried out in democracies name, not that of National Socialism, not via the jackboot but by pleas for equality, repression of difference and the lie of sameness. Yet you don’t care, I know it, I see you everyday, a selfish swarm, metaphorically stepping on the fingers of others, in your race for material possession and the coveted prize of financial wealth. For most, nationalism is too altruistic, too hard, involves too much, better to let them tell you how to think, what to believe, exist in their artificial world, ignorant or worse yet, uncaring.

They have changed the world you know, leftists; we have to give them that, have to acknowledge the brilliance of their plan, decades of hard work, a vision relentlessly followed, until the triumph in the years before my birth. What a wonderful thing, at least for them, such scheming, such perseverance, such a dazzling display of crafty craftsmanship, they have us now, all of this is merely icing on a cake. To shake of the vicelike grip now, is a task indeed, taking many brave souls and some lifetimes, to forestall this they now must change us, they must make us anew, willing victims of enslavement.

Better the end of white skin and the rise of brown, better for the unfortunate races, the luxury of western enslavement than the woe of the dark continent, here they live to serve, there they die to give, so they come, a flood of fools, greed governs their step, anger clouds their view and need speeds them. Oh the left welcome them, this ravaged army, this tide of woe, this wave of souls, consumed by envy, steeled by anger and programmed to take. Yet where are they, those that would oppose this army’s tread, that would block the pass and sound the call to arms.

There is nothing, nothing to oppose them now, merely words, words simply the dying vibrations of a culture and race, we must not you see, we must not rise to the challenge, we must not contest our end, just wallow in possessions, whilst death steals in to claim us and not a one of those left to witness, will mourn our passing, the world will still turn, finance will still enslave and evil still hold hegemony, except it will be a brown world, a world devoid of the hated white.

Battles will still rage and animosities fester, hostilities between the haves and have nots and yes difference will still rear its head, the constant and undying battle between the dissimilar, light skin versus black, ideology against ideology, creed against creed, east versus west and so on and the white man, cold in the grave. No trusts for us, no enforced education for them, no study, just the grave and an end to our like, will there be guilt, will non-white minds ponder, will what ifs abound, will any weep for us.

We are gone you see, disappeared, existing now in paintings, imagery and books, if they are allowed, permitted, perhaps a dusky child’s voice, will ask one day, why, perhaps not, you see it is easy to alter the thinking processes of a child’s mind, corrupt it, until abnormal becomes everyday. It is easy to fend of the questions of children, harder however, to counter those of an adult, corrupt the young therefore and deny a platform for the mature, a workable solution, catering for all, with victory a certainty.

In impressionable minds, minds that should be full of wonder, full of magic, full of joy, violence affects, death holds horror and reason has no set foundation, tell the child, that the way they think, the way their friends think, the way their family thinks, their community and finally their people thinks, is wrong, evil and abhorrent, add a pinch of violence, mix with death dosed with cruelty and the child has changed or in most cases has, until all generations are pliable.

We see it now, as young teenagers barely children, stride through our towns and cities, pushing children of mixed genotype, we must say not a word, utter not one word of caution, for it is racist they tell us, we must see the phenomenon grow, until so many indulge in miscegenation, that doom is our only future, death our races release. It is all to counter nationalism, in fact more than even this, it is all to thwart nature, to, as man is want to do, change things to suit his needs, whilst ignoring peripheral suffering or detrimental change.

I am sick of it, as mentioned before, Jewry’s plight, Jewry’s woe, what of my people, here, now and in the future, you have your land now, your cherished Israel, stolen land maybe, taken, robbed from its true inhabitants but by skulduggery, violence and terror you have made it your own, can we not now have ours. We have not stolen our land, it is ours by birth and by the toil of our ancestors, what right have you to poison our children against us, to corrupt them, to use the deaths of individuals to prop up your reprehensible scheme.

Moreover, where is the clarity, why no discussion about the holocaust, of all events, why this one, if we cannot discuss it, cannot bandy figures and expose irregularity, then you have no right to use it, no right to scare our children into line. Yet we know the reason, it is not justice for the dead, not a lament for the fallen, it is to prevent resistance, prevent our little ones from countering their genocide. For all the films and there have been many, conjuring up the imagery of psychopathic sadistic Europeans and suffering Jewish victims, nothing shown even nearly, depicts the true evil, abroad in the world today, the intentional and planned genocide of the white race.

If as alleged, you are victims, then you should acknowledge our plight, not stand in our way, as we fight for our very existence, yet the opposite is true, Jewry stands firmly in our way, blocking each and every attempt made, by the assailed white race, to ensure our continuance, this I am afraid, is merely one of many, in a long line of assaults, against us. 14