Suggest a story for 23 August
Got some ideas worth spreading? Seen something online worth discussing? Or have a concern that needs investigating? This is the place.
Comment or email us.
You can also pick up on some of the ideas posted from earlier weeks.
Email us
Our Twitter
Join our Facebook group
Listen to iPM
Technorati
Google
Ice Rocket
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~37~RS~)
Comments
Sign in or register to comment.
Dear Eddie
Watching the Olympics this week I was struck by the issue of national identity and the oft posed question “what does it mean to be British?”, as a succession of hard working athletes strive to collect that medal and hear the anthem playing as the flag is raised.
Originally from Northern Ireland, British friends often ask me if I consider myself Irish or British. My standard response is to ask them the name of the country they are a citizen of. They are almost never able to give the correct answer, which is of course The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
I have lived in 5 countries around the globe and cannot think of another single country where people would struggle with the answer to this question.
The reason for the long full UK of GB & NI name is largely geographical. GB is the island comprising England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland is not in GB. Thus the United Kingdom, which is the sovereign nation must be the UK of GB and NI.
There is some politics as well of course. The presence in the UK and NI is something some people in the UK have strong opinions about. Therefore referring to the sovereign nation as GB rather than The UK of GB & NI is politically insensitive at least. – Like mixing up Georgia, South Ossetia, Russia and the Soviet Union at the moment would be.
So it is amazing to me that the Olympic team of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland should call itself “Team GB” and that the athletes should have vests with the legend “Great Britain” emblazoned on the front. If we accept the need for an abbreviation of the sovereign nation’s long name surely UK would be the way to go. What is wrong with “Team UK” (Accepting many will not like the Team anything approach!). At least this is an accurate abbreviation. Abbreviating the team to Team NI would be as accurate (or inaccurate if you like) as using the abbreviation Team GB. But I can’t see many people from the island of Great Britain considering it sensible to compete for a team called Team NI as an abbreviation of Team UK.
It reminds me of a story from a few years ago when BP merged with Amoco and the merged company was briefly called BP Amoco. The joke at the time was how do you pronounce BP Amoco? The answer was you pronounce it BP, the Amoco is silent. Sure enough the name soon contracted to BP again.
I was watching the Olympics (gymnastics and swimming) with some young nephews and nieces the other day. I asked them what sport they would like to compete at in an Olympic games. Football mad, they answered football. I hadn’t the heart to tell them that, despite the fact that association football began in the UK, and despite the fact that the next Olympics would be held in the UK’s capital city, and despite the fact that having been born in Northern Ireland, they were entitled to Irish and UK passports, that they would not be able to compete at soccer at an Olympic games.
Unique among all sovereign nations, the UK has four teams, none of which is a sovereign nation, that compete in World and European competitions. The Olympics allows only teams representing sovereign nations and the 4 football associations in the UK cannot cooperate to put up a UK team, the only team that would be really entitled to stand under the Union Jack and listen to the national anthem.
With regard to the Irish team, almost unique among all other Olympic sports people born in NI with Irish passports are not entitled to play soccer for Ireland. Athletics no problem but soccer no way.
So I wonder again what does this all say about what the British, and their sense of national identity.
Complain about this comment
I agree with The Economist that the name of our country is Britain. There is a difference between Britain the country and Britain the island. Northern Island is in Britain the country but not in Britain the island. Belfast is in Britain - just like Corsica is in France, Bornholm is in Denmark, Majorca is in Spain and Alaska is in America.
Is Sardinia in Italy? Of course it is - but it is not as close to the Italian mainland as Northern Ireland is to the British mainland.
If you live in Bornholm you are Danish, Corsica you are French, Majorca you are Spanish, Alaska you are American and the people of Derry are British.
The introduction of UK was and is absurd. Are we to be ukayish or speak ukayish?
I wish the BBC stopped using UK and would dearly like to know why and on whose authority it changed its description of this country from Britain to UK. Surely it did not just happen?
Complain about this comment
Dear Eddie,
The GCSE results are out today and a couple of weeks ago we had the A Levels. Following publication of the results schools will get their stats ready to present to the school governors and there will be a great interest in the league tables showing how well schools have done in comparison to their neighbours or previous years. None of these figures reflect how the school has really done as they don’t take into account how many students will have had extra tuition, paid for privately by anxious parents.
We often see articles about how schools with socially disadvantaged children are not getting results as good as their wealthier counterparts. I think this isn’t simply due to class or the lack of aspiration (is that the same as pushiness?) seen in those middle class parents we so often hear about, I think the difference money makes is whether parents can afford to buy good teaching as an additional extra when the school lets them down.
I live in Harrogate, this is a wealthy town and we are lucky to have several excellent secondary schools, but every school has its share of dead wood in the teaching profession and a school that may be excellent in almost all other ways will have to carry certain members of staff along. If your child is unfortunate enough to be taught by someone who is not up to the job and all complaints are side stepped, then to avoid creating an awkward situation for your child and to keep the peace and enjoy all the other benefits the school has to offer, you put you hand in your pocket and pay for extra tuition.
As you might have guessed from this comment this is something we had to do for two of our children. They certainly benefited from it and came out with good grades, took up their places at University, and so far have been happy. Since their school days I have heard of many more parents who have done exactly the same as us and I find it very frustrating to see schools celebrating fantastic results which have only been obtained after the extra expense and hard work involved in this external effort.
I don’t want to name names and start a crusade about this, but I wonder if it might be possible to ask schools to survey their pupils and see who has extra tuition and in which subjects, they could learn where the teaching problems lie. They might also do the stats on the results both as a whole cohort and, for comparison, by excluding the results of those pupils for those subjects for which they bought extra tuition. Then we could really see how well the school was doing and how much the results reflected the work of those unsung heroes, the private tutors.
Are good schools doing well because their pupils come from backgrounds where they can afford the additional bonus of extra tuition as the solution to poor teaching? When parents and pupils are unable to face the prospect of less than an A grade it is the obvious answer.
Complain about this comment
Severn Valley Flooding in 2008.
Over one year on there is still a lot of talk about this subject and a lot of people are still suffering.
I remember a BBC News film from an aircraft flying down the valley showing the extent of the flooding. Towards the end of the film, the last weir before the tidal part came into view and the tide below it was clearly out.
I've always wondered, with mudbanks showing below the weir and extensive flooding above the weir, why the Environment Agency weren't letting more water flow over the weir to drain the flooded area.
Perhaps you could investigate.
Regards,
Miss Monkpie
Complain about this comment
With regard to Simon Clegg's comment that Team UK would not include those in the IOM or overseas territories, their own website states "Team GB is the Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic Team."
What IS the problem with using UK and not GB?
Complain about this comment
View these comments in RSS