Anna Nicholas: My Column

So the British government has come up with a cunning plan to introduce a pub passport that will enable publicans to refuse entry to those wicked citizens who have not yet had the Covid-19 vaccine.

The fact that most of these poor chumps will not yet have had the opportunity to be vaccinated due to their younger years, appears not to cut any ice with Bojo and chums.

Publicans are furious for several reasons and I’m with them all the way.

For starters, under this new passport system, beleaguered publicans will have to employ an extra staff member to hug the front door to ensure that all those who pass inside first provide proof that they have either had the vaccine, have just had a negative PCR test or are immune. Those not complying will be thrown out.

As many publicans have pointed out, the reaction from some of those hoping to enjoy a pint and who are refused entry might prove quite aggressive and become a serious problem for security staff.

There is also the tricky point about civil liberties and the fact that the vaccine is not supposed to be obligatory.

Furthermore, many of those in the BAME community in areas such as the Midlands where there is fear circulating about the vaccine, will not have had the jab, so the passport takes on a racist undertone too.

Until every member of the British community over the age of 18 has had the opportunity to receive the vaccine, this bizarre and knee-jerk scheme should be abandoned.

Furthermore, if the British government intends to create a new ‘unwritten’ law insisting that everyone must be vaccinated or risk becoming a pariah, so be it but it’s time for the general public to hear the truth.

Let’s not lie about freewill when it is clearly not the case. If Covid-19 passports become mandatory in all walks of life, the British government must admit to the public that it has no intention of allowing people to make their own choices. That way at least everyone will know where they stand.

Free speech in schools

There was a time when teachers could voice opinions in the classroom, distribute material that might prove polemic and trigger discussion and debate, even if it angered some pupils but that’s all changed.

Nowadays, tiptoeing through the school curriculum and pupil and teacher etiquette is a veritable minefield and I will forever be grateful to my mother for begging me not to enter her profession.

She could see the writing was on the wall, long before she retired.

The beheading of a French teacher at the hands of an Islamic terrorist in France on 16, October 2020 shocked the world.

The man had shown cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad and this had enraged and offended the local Muslim community.

I must admit that when I read the alarming story, my reaction was one of disbelief, not about the murder but that any teacher would be insane enough to consider such a move.

What was he thinking of? Was this his idea of free speech in the classroom? What did he think might happen?

And here we are again, witnessing another teacher doing the very same thing, this time in Batley Grammar school in West Yorkshire. The teacher has been suspended having caused outrage in the Muslim community.

The man has received death threats and the police had to be mobilised to avoid tensions rising.

Did I feel sympathy for the renegade? Not a jot.

Surely by now teachers know the score. How could this fool have missed what happened to French teacher, Samuel Paty last year?

In the new world we live in where offense is caused at the slightest trigger, the best that teachers can do is follow the syllabus, keep their thoughts to themselves, not cause friction in a multicultural environment in any shape or form and abstain from polemic or debate in any form.

This is stifling free speech, you say. Maybe, but the alternatives and consequences of such reckless and bold actions are one heck of a lot worse.