The Indy whipping up hysteria with fake news here.
The prospective students of Eton are then asked to imagine they are the prime minister and write a speech to explain how they would convince the public that they did the right thing.
The full question goes:
The year is 2040. There have been riots in the streets of London after Britain has run out of petrol because of an oil crisis in the Middle East. Protesters have attacked public buildings. Several policemen have died. Consequently, the Government has deployed the Army to curb the protests. After two days the protests have been stopped but twenty-five protesters have been killed by the Army.
You are the Prime Minister. Write the script for a speech to be broadcast to the nation in which you explain why employing the Army against violent protesters was the only option available to you and one which was both necessary and moral.
Of course, the Twatterati are all over it like a poisonous rash, as are the Farcebookers. Along the lines of top public school is training pupils to kill the public. No, it is not.
Clearly these cretins have never encountered a thought experiment before. This one is very similar to the situation Edward Heath encountered in 1972, so not exactly unprecedented.
All this question is doing, is placing the candidates in a difficult moral situation to see how they deal with it. Nothing to see here, move along, but no, the hysterical reaction is the usual fake news and tribal bullshit I’ve come to expect from political debate in this sodding country. FFS!
Wake me up when political debate moves beyond kindergarten.
This particular thought experiment seems designed to convince the kids that Dad is doing the right thing in snowflaking the troops now.
I think that these kinds of idiots have always been among us. The difference is that they can now broadcast their stupidity globally whereas formally they could only inflict it on those within hearing distance.
But surely the question is wrong anyway.By 2040 everyone will be driving electric cars on the land remaining after sea level rises have drowned most of the population.
2040 – When we’ve boiled Flipper in the dregs of the last ice floe.
Like all Warble Gloaming predictions, a bit hyperbolic.
We used to debate stuff like that at school. Makes you have to think on your feet.
Would you get full marks for: The only good commie is a dead commie?
You should
The more important thing is that this essay question is set to TWELVE YEAR OLDS.
The maturity, background general knowledge, sense of moral compass and ability required to produce a cogently argued essay on this sort of topic is so completely and entirely beyond the output of your average state school that it stops you short.
That’s the thing that the Indy really hates – actual excellence.