HISTORY LESSONS

History lessons used to be so simple, at least in principle. You were given a list of dates of great English victories, usually over the French and you had to learn them. I wasn’t very good at this, but I could see the point. You needed some direction as to who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. A bad guy could be one of ours, usually if he (and it was always a man) lost a battle against the French.

We won’t talk about relations between the English and the Scots, especially in these delicate times.

However, the French have come up with another wheeze. They are going to make history a matter of law. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16811533. This particular case is even better, as it relates to the history of another country.

I think that this raises all kinds of possibilities, which all countries should use. Instead of having a curriculum for history, you qualify as a lawyer and learn “The Historical Truth”, and if you don’t like it, you go to prison. There is a certain intellectual simplicity to this, and avoids the need to do any serious research or thinking for oneself, neither of which I am very good at.

There are other possibilities as well. I haven’t seen the French legal small print, but if they were to extend the law to such “Illegal statements made anywhere”, they could start locking up Turks, as soon as they came into France on holiday.

The border control guards on the French border could hand out multiple choice questions to travellers coming into the country. If they were incorrectly answered, then they would be locked them up.

Better still, Turkey could pass the opposite law and start locking up French business men (apparently, the French are better at exporting goods to Turkey that the Turks are at exporting into France). Wherever you are in the world, and whatever you say on the subject, you would be in trouble.

Extradition lawyers would have a field day, with the Turks and the French extraditing each other all day long. Planes would be full of Turks flying to France to be put on trial and Frenchmen flying to Turkish jails.

This principle could be extended globally. If the U.S. became involved, who knows where this might lead. The U.S. could pass a law, saying that it is illegal to state that England’s third goal in the 1966 Football World Cup went across the line. England, of course, playing fair by all this, will pass no opposite law, and before you know where we are, we are all being extradited to the U.S. This will merely reinforce a current trend, and we all end up in U.S. jails, something that is quite likely to happen anyway, courtesy of the English courts.

Do you have a favourite piece of English history? (I will leave the Scots to lobby Alex Salmon). Would you like it enshrined in English Law? Then lobby your MP, make the business case in terms of votes to be won and Bob’s your Uncle.

If you choose something that your neighbours disagree with, then you have the joy of seeing them locked up. Be careful though, in case they get in first. Answer all questions with “I think that Ipswich Town Football Team are the finest football team, the world has ever seen.”, until this becomes outlawed, which it ought to be. 

Easy, Innit.

By the way, as I travel across France in the car, from time to time, I should like to add that in my opinion Nicolas Sarkozy and all future French Presidents are very fine fellows (to the extent that this is not already a matter of law).