Minister for planning, Nick Boles has managed to make some more headlines, following on from his comments in late April when he suggested that planning rules would be relaxed as long as people design attractive homes. This of course upset all involved as no one would want to build homes judged to be ugly and more importantly part of the role of local planners is to ensure that developments are sympathetic to the locality and suitable for present and future residents. Equally those who want to protect the countryside are not happy that rules that have been developed over decades will be overturned just because the house is judged attractive by an unidentified non planning body. Nicks latest comments are not about planning which he does have some have responsibility for, but as reported in this weeks Sundays Express he is advocating that our children and in time presumably all of us develop a habit of acknowledging the Union Flag and repeating a pledge of allegiance, as people in the USA do (acccording to the article since 1892) and as UK Parliamentarians do.

The idea is wrong on several levels, although perhaps he and the man who did become the first Conservative MP in Hove since Tim Sainsbury, Mike Weatherly have been discussing daft ideas together (Nick was the unsuccessful candidate against in Celia Barlow in 2005). As I have previously commented Mike would like to see each School and every public building being forced to erect a flagpole so that a Union Flag can be unfurled from it each day. The lack of flag poles and flags is certainly one of the reasons why Nick Boles idea won’t work (although it is by far the most superficial).

In the first instance if Schools and indeed other institutions wanted to focus around a common motto to repeat each day, we already have a National Anthem and whilst I am no apologist for it and all it stands for, it is at least something that many people already recognise and some of us already know at least one verse. One can only imagine how ridiculous the competition would become if we attempted to create a new pledge of allegiance and the opposition to any words that were finally adopted, perhaps leading to a new political party for all those opposed to the new pledge.

Secondly as the article points out, the USA has had their pledge of allegiance since 1892 and given the problems in the USA in terms of cultural disconnect over many generations it is bizarre that Nick thinks that something similar is needed here despite the relative harmony that already does exist in the UK.

The final flaw in this particular Boles-up is the idea that something similar to the Pledge of Allegiance taken by our MPs or perhaps like the one used for the Police and Crime Commissioners will be helpful for society at large. Whilst the Parliamentary pledge is no doubt well written and very worthy, we are in the midst of yet another scandal caused by men (and perhaps some women) who did swear to these words. Equally although our PCCs all promised to remain free from party political bias, several of them including Katy Bourne, the Sussex PCC have failed to honour this promise. In the light of these failings is now really the moment to suggest that all of our children should be associated with such a pledge?

Let us by all means focus on strengthening our communities and reducing inequalities, there are many ways of achieving this and not all of them would cost the sum required to establish a national pledge of allegiance and buy flags and flag poles. What we don’t need is yet another idea from the Government that will be imposed top down and do more damage than good. Perhaps for instance Nick could find someone to apologise for all of the promises and programmes in our schools that were made by the previous government in good faith, that his Government has reneged on for no other reason than the idea was ‘not invented here’! Next could we have honest answers to the questions that he and his colleagues are asked on TV and Radio on a daily basis. As a planning minister in the department for Communities and Local Government would he and his colleagues abide by the democratic mandate given to all of our local Councillors and stop attempting to subvert this by their own decisions. If we could have an agreement on these matters then perhaps we could ask teachers if there are new elements that they believe would help instil cohesion amongst the children they teach? This would be a much better approach than that taken by Nicks colleague Liz Truss who chose not to meet with any of the representatives of the preschool teachers during the consultation period of her new bill!