Stonehead wrote:Same story, different spin
But it aint, though. Completely different stories. Compare and contrast:
From the Evening Standard:
"Parents could be forced to go to special classes to learn to sing their children nursery rhymes"
From the BBC:
"Parents will be able to get advice from a new parenting centre from next year"
The difference between those two is startling. One is a story of compulsion and trivialisation, the other is about what would seem to be a worthwhile community asset.
From the Telegraph, 14th November:
"A national academy providing reliable advice on which child-rearing techniques actually work..."
From the Telegraph, 15th November:
"The Government should stop interfering in the nursery"
From the Observer, quoting the government minister's actual words:
"It is not the Government's job to tell parents how to nurture their children"
Which ones are fiction? You decide.
Several of the links you point to are predictably anti-Labour, and stick with that particular bit of monotonous axe-grinding without ever once seeming prepared to let mere facts emerge. One item discredits itself by perpetuating that old chestnut, the persistent myth that Baa Baa Black Sheep is banned by some authority or other on the grounds of racism[1]. It's just another load of old cobblers that some papers seem unable to survive without, along with similar stories about schools not being allowed to refer to blackboards, and set books including 'Billy Lives With Daddy And His Friend Michael' or some such.
These are manufactured stories to support a position; their only purpose is to discredit someone, not to report upon events. Doesn't matter much who's in the firing line, but politicians in power are always good for a drubbing, and an easy target for a lazy journalist, regardless of what the actual issue is. I have little doubt that this 'parents forced to take parenting classes' story is just more of the same.
Really, I wish the Great British Public would get more angry about this type of 'reporting' - don't we deserve better than that? It's worse than just merely objectionable, it's a form of low key manipulation, and I think merits as much protest as the wrongs that any government does.
[1] That myth has been doing the rounds in some form for at least 25 years. This time around a class of children in Oxfordshire were encouraged to use their imaginations and sang new verses about red sheep and blue sheep and much else besides - the story in the papers wrongly reported that references to black sheep had been banned. It was a lie, but who cares about that? A member of staff was interviewed live on the radio about it and specifically set out the case - nothing more was afoot than what all children do anyway - make up their own words to a rhyme. They were simply being encouraged to do more of this, but the papers don't care about that, and never reported it. Their only interest seemed to be in perpetuating their original lie.
What does that matter; the public wants what the public gets - watch them lap it all up.
