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Whilst we hand wring over China, can we spare a thought for the mayhem that is Iraq right now, maybe Steven Speilberg can organise a protest on behalf of the many thousands dead...the result of 'American' foreign policy, just a thought.

But if Andy Burnham's skewering this morning shows anything, it is that with 拢15 quid a year per pupil budget, and zilch buy-in so far from teachers, and Govt. commitment amounts purely to it being an 'aspiration', people will remember the headline about '5 hours a week of culture' long after the fact that it is unlikely to ever see the light of day is uncovered..

This whole thing smacks of promising kids vitamin supplements because they can't be @r$ed to improve school food.

Couldn't you cajole John Tusa into coming on ? He has some trenchant views on how culture and the arts have been hijacked, because some imbeciles start bandying around loaded words like 'elitism'.

And if anyone wants a depressing view of how little people care about the arts in this country, pop over to Iain Dale's blog where philistines have truly taken over the asylum..

Patarkatsishvili appears to have been an economic asylum seeker, even if perhaps at the top of the range. It is disgraceful that the UK has become the backdrop for deeds far more suitable for a James Bond movie, than the genteel golf green areas of Surrey, or the glittering establishments of Mayfair and Park Lane. It seems that the socialists of Nu Labour will allow anyone to live here, grant them the right to buy up property, inflating prices which are already beyond the means of most native-born true citizens, and do not care that we are filling the country with expensive rubbish. In addition to our youth busily engaged shooting and knifing each other, we now have the more sophisticated East European style of murder, even using radioactive poisons as was the case in the not too distant past. Is making a quick profit worth the price of having "button men" despatched to murder in our already lethal country?

A bit rich, "Terror State". I live and work in Beijing - it is not a terror or even a police state, in many ways freer than UK for the vast majority of citzens. Don't imagine the rising professional and iddle classes are ignorant of the problems, but they feel they have bigger worries right now than pleasing the west on human rights and Democracy (a la G Bush??)BIgger concerns like poverty in the countryside and modernisation.

5 hours of culture would be good, but let's get the priorities straight.

Our schools are turning out pupils who don't have basic skills in mathematics, economics, critical thinking (which is what "science" is all about), or usable life skills.

I know that culture is something that really should be taught, but we are currently failing miserably to do even the basics, so let's re-introduce some cultural teaching alongside some proper skills.

Paxman mentioned the symbol for magnesium - that really isn't the point of science. We can look up the periodic table any time, but science teaches people to think properly, and that seems to be missing nowadays.

Interesting about the Georgian. Good discussion about China; particularly good was the Conservative Euro MP; what is his name again please?

Debates about culture in schools? Haven't the people running the country even worked out how to educate children yet? Blithering fools! How hard can it be to work out what subjects should be taught?

Even as someone who works in the arts, I believe it is essential school children must leave school with an understanding of the sciences. As a 'creative' person, I am nonetheless fascinated by developments in the sciences and find its theories at least as grounding, challenging and capable of providing a belief/value system as the arts.

It was therefore disappointing to hear Jeremy say 'what's the point of knowing what the symbol of magnesium is?' - a question a irrelevant as 'what's the point of knowing what onomatopoeia is?' when he knows full well it is the totality of the knowledge that's important. It provides a network for understanding and science in particular allows people to make rational choices based on evidence - essential in this ever irrational world.

If you want to know what global warming is and what to do about it, what food is healthy to eat and why or how people's ethnic differences are (biologically speaking) are irrelevant, then you need a grounding in science.

I'd prefer those 5 hours to be spent trying to teach a sense of wonder and interest in ideas - whether in the arts or the sciences.

Downgrading Science to 'an art' is the chilling Socialists means of subterfuge. Science stands alone as a means to solve problems. Art does not solve problems without scientific construct. Advances in science have been responsible for radical technological changes that have enabled culture and the arts to develop. The electric guitar, the compact disc, the loudspeaker. Yes the science behind nature has beauty, but it offers society so much more. The motor vehicle, the medicine cabinet, the internet. "...and as the band played on the deck of the Titanic, the gaping hole in the bow yielded to be swallowed by the depths of the ocean, while I pondered the fact that every atom of my body was created in the sun...". Ignore science at your peril.

Is it not enough we are introducing vermin repeller devices where teenagers congregate to offend their ears. If we don't succeed in ruining their hearing in one way, we will have another trick up our sleeves. We will probably play esoteric music to captive audiences, music such as Edith Sitwell chanted to. Shades of "A Clockwork Orange".

I hope the "concience" of Steve Spielberg would also not allow billions of dollars of even more deadlier arms shipment to Israel by the US which has only brought death and destruction to the Palestinians over the decades.

Alas, i forgot the rule is different when his co-relioginists are involved!

BAE SYSTEMS-see Yes Minister `The Moral Dimension` 1982
No change then!!