Nadine Not Living And Growing

In The Hitchhikers’ Guide To The Galaxy, the discovery that the question to which the answer was 42 was “What do you get if you multiply six by nine?” prompts the observation “I always thought there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe”. It is an observation equally applicable to our old friend (yes, it’s her again) Tory MP for Mid Bedfordshire Nadine Dorries.

Take her observations on politics Stateside, for instance: the fragrant Nadine clearly believes that Presidents are elected for a period of five years. And belief can be a powerful tool when placed in such hands. Ms Dorries’ beliefs include her Christian faith, and allied to that faith a further belief (along with the why-oh-why part of the Fourth Estate) that Christianity is somehow under attack.

Thus she has Tweeted a rhetorical question in the style of Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse): “Is the Coalition Goverment secretly implementing an anti-Christian agenda?” she asks, following this with “And if so, who is driving it, Cameron and Osborne or the LDs?”, knowing that the answers will be clear to those of like mind. And one thing she considers anti-Christian is sex education.

So yesterday she took to Twitter to pass severely adverse comment on something called Living And Growing. What that? Well, to Ms Dorries, this video is “EXACTLY (one for Sun readers there) the kind of video any parent would be shocked to know their child had been shown at school”. It is? Ah well. Living And Growing is produced by Channel 4 Learning, which means it is A Very Bad Thing.

Moreover, Nadine has heard a rumour – as you do – that it is “2 be sneaked into science curriculum 2 prevent parents exercising right 2 withdraw kids”. So what’s it all about? Well, the C4 Learning blurb tells of a “Resource for 5 to 11 year olds developed in response to requests from teachers for a resource that promotes sex and relationship education as a developmental process”.

Note “in response to requests from teachers”. But for the Christian Institute, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, and especially the Daily Mail, it is an “explicit sex video” (there are cartoon characters), a “sexually explicit DVD”, a clear link to teenage pregnancy rates, and full of “X-rated topics”. Good Christian families have withdrawn children from schools over its showing.

So Nadine is in good company, then. Perhaps she would rather we return to the time when cutting edge sex education was exemplified by the headmaster of a boys’ public school who assembled his sixth form one day and simply said “Now pay attention. If you touch it, it will drop orf. Dismissed”.

There are so many ways to keep people both frightened and ignorant. I’d hate to add to the list, or for the likes of Nadine Dorries to do so.