http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/borisjohnson/6435391/Teachers-need-the-law-on-their-side.html

An excellent article by Boris Johnson in the Telegraph today. For those of you outside the UK , Boris Johnson is a very well known Conservative politician, who is presently Mayor of London. He was elected Mayor as much to his owm surprise as that of many others, but I suspect he will be a proper politician in years to come. ( The Mayor of London is a bit of a joke appointment with no real powers, just my opinion, but shared by others I reckon)

He cannot of course advocate the return of corporal punishment, but there are some decent memories of it in the article. This includes a reference to the Jocari Bat, which I am sure was ridiculed by one of our fun pesters. Not that we needed confirmation , but there you are.

Good old Boris's sister, Rachel Johnson,is a journalist on The Sunday Times and has also related how she was slippered when she was at prep school. There is an account of this on , I think, Spanking Facts and Research, though this has had a few problems so I'm not sure if all the facts are still there.

It seems to me that what we need is a 'protective' legal shield for teachers as they have in yes I'll call them 'progressive' States in the US. ( Of course my definition and President Obama's view of progressive probably don't coincide by light years). Its time we set the agenda , not the liberal abolitionists who would willingly accept feral children on every street corner, as a price worth paying for maintaining the integrity of liberal orthodoxy in education and youth policy..

This type of law specified that a teacher can neither be sued , nor face criminal charges for incidents which take place under his/her duty to the employer, school or pupils, provided that he/she has made every attempt to comply with State law. This includes an absolute right of self defence.The law does not indemnify abuse of ant form.

Of course , progressive states still retain the options of moderate corporal punishment, Saturday school, and other necessary sanctions. But as Plato asked us ....to whom do you take a young horse for training- the horse trainer, or the rabble in the market square?

Hi Declan: You say:

The Mayor of London is a bit of a joke appointment with no real powers

Unless you count setting a consolidated annual budget of £3·2 Billion for 2009/2010, including The Greater London Authority, The London Assembly, The Metropolitan Police Authority, The London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority and Transport for London!

I agree with you that Boris ought to be destined for great things. Whether he will get there is another matter. People who choose to hide their ability under a veneer of buffoonery don't always cut themselves the best deal.

His article about the problems of teachers is absolutely spot on as you say, and has attracted a considerable amount of comment on the Telegraph site. Unfortunately unless our craven Government, or their quite possibly just as craven successors stick their heads above the parapet and tackle the dark forces of political correctness head on nothing will happen. At present political correctness decrees that the child is always right, and the teacher (or any other adult authority figure) is always wrong. Until we get a law something like that discussed by prof.n above things will only get worse.

A_L

It's worth remembering the last drunken buffoon to enjoy high office.

Without whose ability to "see the bigger picture", there would be none of us here today.

Nikita Kruschev, also co-incidentally previously MAYOR of Moscow, had the common sense to blink first in the 1962 Cuban Missile crisis. Otherwise, there's no two ways about it, the world was about to be turned into a very unappealing large chunk of burnt carbon.

Mind you, given Boris's already-proven ability to bring London's bus fleet grinding to a total halt on elf & safety grounds, I wouldn't hold out too much hope of a return to when men were men!(don't worry, Jenny, I'm not too sure I'D like to return to it,either!!).


Steve