The Tories' Second-Best Recruiting Sergeant...

TomTom

Ed Balls has doctored his Wikipedia entry to remove his full name and replace it with true proletarian simplicity. Public schoolboy through and through, Ed missed his calling by about 75 years and would have worn his little armband with bombastic pride.

He is the kind of bovine thug that fee paying schools can produce if their parents wish them to succeed rather than progress through the court system, graduating from Oxford rather than The Scrubs, but ultimately the 'innere Schwein' surfaces whatever track they are presented with

SarahJT

Jury Team suggest that parents need to have more choice and control when it comes to their child's education. Balls suggesting that it is a waste of time to study Latin at school just shows that he does not care about the needs of individual children. There will be some parents out there who would like their child to study Latin.

The Jury team suggests that the best way to stop Balls micromanaging the curriculum is by opting out of local authority control and handing the control and choice back to the parents. Parents are in the best position to make choices about their child's education.

Fair enough some parents may want their child to study Latin, but that is for them to decide. This decision should not be left in the hands of Balls. A man who is so clearly out of touch with what children want and need.

Olaf Rye

This man is an ignoramus of the highest order. What does he know about what business wants ? He is, after all, a socialist apparatchnik. All he wants is a servile electorate that will always look to the government for protection. The problem for Labour, and especially for the sort of vile creature that is Ed Balls, is that the public is sufficiently clever to realise that he is a reptile that could not exist outside the rarefied air of self delusion, arrogance, incompetence and mediocrity that characterises life in the public sector and politics more generally. Would this tosser even be hired to manage a corner shop ? I certainly would not let him do anything ... if anyone should be paid to sit at home and shut up, it is this vile insect.

ndm

Superabimus and all, but the guy has a point. It is not as if people are clamouring to study Latin in my neck of the woods. And, anyway, Greek would be more useful given the need for scientists and engineers to know the names of all these squiggly characters. And, on a more personal point, I've seen more Greek plays and read more Greek translations than Latin ones. Homer 2 Virgil 1.

Alex

What is the point of this post?

Ed Balls says most parents are not clamouring for their kids to be taught Latin, a statement so transparently true that it doesn't even need saying...

...but which proves, to the satisfaction of BORIS JOHNSON!, that Balls is an idiot..

If it's not meant to be some sort of satire, it is some sort of madness...

BTW will Latin become compulsory if Dave gets in...?

Don't thiiink sooo!

teledu

There's a fair proportion of our schoolchildren who don't speak English as a first language. Maybe Balls was just thinking of them?

MetroD

Boris' article in the 'Telegraph' offered some cogent criticism of the philistine Mr Balls. In short, I agree with Boris, that the state sector sells its pupils short, as so few schools offer Latin, and of those State schools that do offer it, few offer it at GCSE level or higher. There is a good reason why private schools - over 60% of them - make Latin compulsory for years 7 and 8, and then optional after this - they know that Latin gives their pupils a huge advantage when it comes to analytical ability in English.

The fact is, ordinary English discourse is around 60% Latin, but once one enters a specialised academic field, this can jump to over 90%. Students with Latin have less trouble negotiating the language in advanced textbooks, and have far better vocabularies. They are able to pinpoint the definition of a Latinate word, and use it accurately. The private schools know they are onto something. This is why they keep insisting on Latin.

Boris attacks Balls for entrenching the position of the elite. He points out that many great socialists - Marx himself wrote his doctoral thesis on Lucretius and Epicurean philosophy - - were classicists.

Then there is the little matter of European civilisation. We now rest on our laurels, and the days when Civis Romanus Sum was uttered in sincerity by an Englishman are long gone, as are the likes of Lord Hamilton....and the speeches of the patres conscripti in the House are no longer peppered with quotes from Cicero............but the entire fabric of European civilisation, the fundamental ideas and ideals that underpin it, remain those of the Greeks and the Romans, and their concepts are transmitted to us through their language.

From Roman times, until the mid 1700's intellectual discourse across the whole of Europe, was carried out in Latin. In some fields of endeavour, such as biology and mathematics, this continued into the early 1900's. Modern Europe was shaped by thinkers who wrote in Latin - Erasmus, and Ludovicus Vives, the progenitor of our modern educational landscape, and the modern idea of a university. Then there are the poets, playwrights and novelists - some of the greatest literature ever penned on these shores, was penned in Latin. More's Utopia. Buchanan, Milton, Barclay's Argenis....and countless others wrote in Latin to continental acclaim. Without a knowledge of Latin, all of this British literature is lost to us. Little of this material has ever been translated. And unlike reading Shakespeare, or Milton's English works, due to the immutable nature of Latin, a poem written by Milton in Latin reads as freshly as new cut grass. This is the paradox of writing in a dead language.

A Europe without Latin, would be as bereft of the heart of its civilisation, as a China without Chinese.

Latin is not just for toffs. Boris also pointed out the huge efforts being made by volunteers, in the absence of State patronage, to promote the language - two substantial volunteer-run projects spring to mind - the huge LATINUM project, (google for it) which is broadcast as a podcast from London, offering an entire Latin course in audio for free, that has thousands of episodes downloaded every single day - it is possibly the most popular podcast on its network (mypodcast). So, to talk about the lack of demand for Latin is nonsense.

Then there is the IRIS project, bringing Latin to deprived inner-city schools, also run by volunteers.

fifer

Yet more evidence why, of the 7 billion human beings alive today, Boris is the only one who could persuade me to vote conservative.

TC

Boris is a rampant self-publicist.

Google it and you will see hundreds of the world's ills that Boris has said would be improved with Latin.

All he ever does is remind people that he can speak Latin. What's he actually doing see that this latest flight of fancy actually happens?

Has he commissioned a study into finding out the benefits of Latin-teaching? Is there a test-run being conducted right now with 15 or so students? If not, then all this talk is premature and, as I suspect, a way for Boris to keep his currency up in the media.

Sarah AB

What a cumulus coleorum (please correct my Latin if necessary!) My support for Labour just got still more grudging. I think looking at what private schools offer can give a fairly good idea of what *many* parents want - and'useless' subjects will continue to be offered at such schools whatever Ed Balls says. I just wish they were available more widely - I'm glad someone mentioned the Iris Project which is excellent.