Simon from Norfolk has written his own alternative version of the British citizenship test. It’s a mix of popular culture and humour – which is exactly what is missing from the official test. Here are some of my favourites:
1) Did you see the game last night? (Pick one)
a: Yes, what were Chelsea playing at?
b: Yes, what were Arsenal playing at?
c: Yes, I really fancied the labrador but it seems it was the spaniel’s night.
d: No I was busy working and contributing to the economy.
2) What do the following have in common: The Queen, turkey, Noel Edmunds, silly hats?
a: They’re all things that Prince Phillip has shot at.
b: They’re all traditional elements of a Proper British Christmas Day.
c: They’re all things that you require a licence to transport on a public highway.
d: They’re all sacred to the Church of England.
3) Barker is to Corbett as Wise is to?
a: Morecambe
b: Whitley Bay
c: Southend
d: Lowestoft
Guardian reader Sirorfeo provides some interesting revelations on the initial draft of Great British Values (as photographed through a transparent folder on Downing Street).
THE THIRTEEN BRITISH COMMANDMENTS [... would 'Common Values' sound better? G.B.]
- Thou shalt celebrate the day of our patron Saint George every year, come rain or shine, on April the…. [to consult with Culture Secretary]
- Thou shalt lament the rain in the winter, and dread the heat of the summer [... should this be humidity? -G.B.].
- Thou shalt strive for fairness and equality in all walks of public life, via a series of statutory instruments signed by our unelected and hereditary monarch
- Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and inform on him for dog-fouling.
- Thou shalt whinge incessantly about inadequate public services, whilst simultaneously refusing to pay any more tax.
- Thou shalt for thine own safety and security carry ID cards, the data on which will be duly misplaced by an errant contractor.
The BBC reports that Prime Minister Gordon Brown is planning to spend part of his summer break doing voluntary work in his Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. A spokesman said:
The prime minister will be undertaking some community voluntary work during his time in his constituency. For obvious reasons he has agreed with the organisations concerned that any work he does will be private.
Seems a bit odd to me. Does this pledge have anything to do with the recent news to encourage would-be citizens to do voluntary work? It seems too much of a coincidence for it not to be.
According to our survey, only one in seven Brits are able to pass the government’s British citizenship test. The mock test was completed by 11,118 British people – only 1,585, or 14 per cent, achieved a pass score.
Earlier this week, the government proposed to increase the difficulty of the test and add extra topics on history and politics. However should this be happening when so few native Brits are able to pass the test already?
So how do we fix this? The citizenship test should be something that anyone who has lived here is able to pass. Anything but this is making a mockery of the process. If you’ve got a suggestion for a question that every good citizen should know, then share it with us by adding a comment to this post.
Update: Corrected the headline to match the stats. Tip of the hat to Next Left for telling us about this.
We were recently contacted by photographer, Daniilas Galickis. Dan was studying BA Photography at Bradford College and wanted to focus his Major Project on the issue of immigration, and it’s actual effect, on the future generations. The next generation being the dreams and hopes of people who came to this land.
Dan wanted to use some of the practice questions from our study guides in a series of photos on the subject of multiculturalism and citizenship.
Being an immigrant he is particularly fascinated by this country’s identity, including multiculturalism and the ongoing relationship between Britain and immigration, making it an incredibly diverse country that is like no other in Europe or in the world.
For this project he used a large format camera, which is a completely unique working practice in photography: the cameras size contributes to attracting peoples attention, therefore sparking a more intimate visual dialogue between the viewer, photographer and the subject.
He hopes to bring wonder to people who look at it, and think about the country that they live in or their background.
Are names and borders within that space so important to define who we are as people? Is it important to have an identity? Questions that are asked to the viewer are directed to them and the subject selected from the British Citizenship test. Essentially these portraits are of British people by birth who have roots in different countries.
You can see the full set of Dan’s work on our Flickr.
I had three statistical questions on the test. One was this: In 1971, what was the population growth of England ? I knew the answer – it’s 7.7% But how does knowing this, teach me anything about England or acclimate me into my new life here? Will the fact that 65% of all children in the UK, live with both parents, ever factor into a daily conversation?
This is a completely valid point. The test is completely sterile in terms of what it means to be British. It’s an English test on whether you can memorise rules and statistics. You can’t blame the civil servants who were tasked with writing the questions though. When you look through the materials that they had to use for the test; statistics are very tempting question fodder. Just be thankful they didn’t ask you for the telephone number for Energywatch or perhaps the website address for any of the numerous departments which are listed in the testable section of the study materials.
So what would’ve you liked to know more about?
I would have rather learned more about location of regions, cities, climate and geography of smaller islands that lie on the outer perimeters of UK. And although it touched on government – I wanted more details on how parliament actually functions
Good points. There’s actually nothing about geography in the test – which I personally think is missing a trick. Basic UK geography is easy to test and it’s really useful in day to day life. And as for the smaller islands surrounding the UK, why not? I’d love to be able to understand the Shipping Forecast. And although I don’t even own a boat or go sailing it would at least have a bit more relevance than knowing the percentage of ethnic minorities that live within the London area (another brilliantly irrelevant statistic).
The Guardian reports that the UK’s new ID cards will not display the Union Flag or even the EU flag. The rationale being that they wanted to respect the “identity rights” of Irish nationals living in Northern Ireland.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said ID cards had been unpopular for so long that few remembered their genesis. “They were part of a clumsy cohesion agenda to unite us around flags rather than values. They were to fight the multiple identities that make up modern Britain by forcing us to choose between the various ties that bind us. Ironically, in forgetting the very ‘un-Britishness’ of ID cards, the government has united the country against them.”
Monica Ali writes in The Atlantic about the British citizenship test and how it fails to present a true picture of the real Britain.
I remember taking one of the online tests that immediately sprang up, to see if I knew enough to be truly British. I did fine on the historical questions. The other stuff was trickier. I couldn’t name the four national saint’s days in order (Saints David, Patrick, George, and Andrew). PG, I guessed, was one of the nation’s favorite brands of teabags. It is—but in the book, PG was the “Parental Guidance” part of the cinema classification system. I did guess right that if we spill someone’s pint in the pub, what we are supposed to do is offer to buy them another. (Although I had been tempted to plump for another option, which was to prepare for a fight in the car park. That might be more accurate, in certain pubs at least.)
The Gurkhas have had a very raw deal, and I’m surprised by the way the government is dragging its feet on this one. The government claims that if they allowed all veterans to stay then Britain would be flooded with 100,00 new Gurkha citizens. I seriously doubt this. But, even if they all did decide to come to the UK, then they would deserve it anyway.
People who are prepared to fight and die for our country should be entitled to live here.
I completely agree with him. If the government isn’t prepared to make good on this entitlement then perhaps they shouldn’t be asking Gurkhas to contribute to Britain’s wars.
The sci-fi film Starship Troopers has brilliant propaganda snippets on this very theme - Service Guarantees Citizenship: Would you like to know more?
A bit of Gurkha background and trivia
The Gurkhas were initially enemies of the British Army during the Gurkha War.
After agreeing a peace treaty, the British Army started recruiting them into their own forces.
The Gurkha motto is, “Better to die than live a coward”.
The Brigade of Gurkhas have been a part of the British Army for nearly 200 years.
The brigade recruited a peak of 112,000 men during World War Two.
Over 43,000 young Gurkha soldiers lost their lives during both World Wars.
I’m looking forward to Matthew d’Ancona’s radio series on Britishness. He explores whether Britishness is the glue that can hold us all together or just a word that has lost its meaning.
If you’re resident in the UK then you will be able to listen to this on BBC Radio 4 at 9am on Tue 31 Mar 2009 or on the BBC iPlayer.
