Prince Harry and the History Paradox

A Head of History in my constituency not so long ago told me that he was having trouble recruiting history teachers who could teach anything other than the history of the Second World War, and that he wanted to offer a wider range of options than this to his pupils. Yet the evidence of the last few days is that not only is the third in line to the throne ignorant of the issues, but also, according to the polls, are large numbers of other young people.

The only explanation for this can be the decline of history teaching in schools - or rather the absence of compulsory history teaching after 14. History is central to a sense of citizenship. I don't care if I do sound like the right-wing historian Andrew Roberts on this. Some of what he says in today's Daily Mail on this subject is quite sensible.

The Daily Mail coverage today is extraordinary, by the way. Almost out of character. Stephen Glover even suggests that the middle class is getting fed up with the monarchy.

One thing there did make me laugh, however. Apparently John Redwood is now proposing to cut back on quangos. Strange he didn't do that when he was Secretary of State for Wales.