Fine, so long as they are given the facts in a straightforward manner. But, judging by the past record of school history teaching, this is unlikely to happen in many classrooms.

More likely, they will be force fed a politically correct, bowdlerised version of the historical record, designed to make them feel guilt and self-hatred and to despise their own history and culture.

Will they be told, for example, that the slave trade existed, with the enthusiastic participation of African chiefs and Arab traders, for many centuries before Europeans became involved?

Or that not all Africans were victims? By 1770, for instance, the King of Dahomey in West Africa was making £250,000 a year – many millions at today's prices – selling slaves captured in war.

Will they hear the inspiring story of the abolitionist movement, led by evangelical Christians, which, in 1807, persuaded the British parliament to become one of the first in the world to abolish the slave trade?

Above all, will they be taught that without the British Empire, and, in particular, the might of the Royal Navy, the trans-Atlantic slave trade would never have been suppressed as quickly as it was?

In the first half of the 19th century, the "preventative squadron" of the Royal Navy's West Coast of Africa Station fought a long-running war against the slavers, seizing 1,600 ships and freeing hundreds of thousands of African slaves.

Historians estimate that the cost of these efforts in the 19th century far outstripped the profits made in Britain from slave trade in the 18th.

This battle continues, as slavery is still condoned in many parts of the world. As recently as 2006, HMS Illustrious tracked an Arab dhow packed with 758 people en route from Oman to Pakistan.

Give children the facts and they'll soon realise that history is more complex and interesting than the simple tale of goodies and baddies that the propagandists would have us believe.

But, according to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, school history is no longer about old-fashioned facts, but about "themes" and "social issues".

In a similar vein, science and geography lessons are now largely given over to global warming propaganda, and in religious education, pupils seem to spend most of their time learning about Islam.

Isn't it crazy that while learning about slavery is compulsory under the new curriculum, a child can go though their entire secondary school career without knowing who Churchill, Hitler, Gandhi and Stalin were?

How can children brought up without such essential knowledge ever hope to make sense of the modern world?



EU own goal

ISN'T it nice to know that your tax pounds are being well spent?

Take, for example, the Young European Federalists (no, I'd not heard of them either) which is based in Brussels and is funded by the EU – or in other words, you.

This body has called for a single team to represent all the countries in the EU at the 2012 London Olympics in order to compete with China and the US in the medals table, and to "combat nationalism and promote tolerance and mutual respect".

But, as events in Beijing proved, nationalism and respect are not mutually exclusive. Time and again, fierce rivals in competition embraced and congratulated each other once they had crossed the line.

Another objection is that while Britain won 19 gold medals, France and Holland won only seven, Spain five and Germany 16.

So we would be expected to put far more into the pot than any other country – and we'd receive very little in return.

Nothing new there then.