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British values

Teaching staff
The only British culture I want is our lovely mash-up mix – like, say, William Blake, Zadie Smith, Tommy Cooper, Shane McGowan, Steven Gerrard, Polly Harvey, Dizzy Rascal, Alan Bennett or the greatest Englishman – Samuel Johnson. “Patriotism” said the goo

Chalfont St Peter village fete, 1953. Coronation flags flutter across the lush lawns of the local manor. A vicar smiles and solicits pennies for Black babies. Cubs and Brownies skip merrily around a large Maypole, threading ribbons round it. Bonny mothers in proper frocks smile benignly at their tiny tots, cavorting with such wild abdomen round what none of us realise is a colossal willy. A pretty piece of Paganism, which rather runs counter to the soft Christianity peddled in our infant classrooms.

Ah, proper British values! Charming, White, feudal, deferential – the best of all possible worlds. The prime minister seems to think so. 

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