A) Listen to the audio about the woman pictured above and do part A of the worksheet

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B) Read the article about this man and do part B of the worksheet

September 6th 2022

Rishi Sunak never failed at anything before. At 42 years of age, the Winchester head boy who won glittering prizes at Oxford and Stanford, earning millions in finance before marrying into the billionaire classes, and who was Britain’s most popular Chancellor for half a century, has finally suffered a professional setback : He has lost the Conservative Party leadership election to Liz Truss who will become Britain's third woman prime minister. 

Some commentators will claim this result proves Conservative members were not ready for an ethnic minority leader. Did the majority of Conservative Party members consider that a British Minority Ethnic could not win the next general election for the party ? Was pure "racism" a factor in the choice of many party members ?

Although it is right to ask such questions, it would be wrong not to take into account a lot of other factors when we analyze the defeat of Mr Sunak. 

The economic and political context changed everything. Six months ago Sunak would have been favourite in this contest, but since then he has made many costly mistakes. Firstly he was fined for breaking Covid restriction rules during lockdown (even if his boss, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson must take a great share of the responsibility in that). Then there was the family tax scandal, his wife having avoided paying up to ten million pounds in tax because of her "non UK resident" status. This obviously caused much criticism especially when, with his Spring budget, the former chancellor refused to increase benefits and pensions for the poorest members of the UK society in the context of rising inflation and fuel costs. 

But perhaps his biggest mistake of all was his decision to resign as Chancellor of the Exchequer before the resignation of Boris Johnson. In so doing he was seen by many as someone deserting a sinking ship. Breaking Covid rules and tax evasion are perhaps pardonnable to the majority of Conservative Party members, but maybe disloyalty is not. 

A) Speak about this picture

B) Click on the link to watch the film extract and do part B of the worksheet 

Télécharger « Bend it like Beckham extract »

C) Read the text and complete part C of the worksheet  "Indian culture in the UK"

Director Gurinder Chadha has said that the film « Bend It Like Beckham » was a “great healing moment for the world” following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in America.

The film, about a British-Indian teenage girl with a passion for football starring Parminder Nagra and Keira Knightley, is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

Chadha “first conceived” the idea for Bend It Like Beckham after former England footballer Ian Wright ran on to the pitch with a union jack, “triggering” her to write a film about the concept of Britishness.

“I had no idea the huge global impact the film would have and actually to this day it has one record that no other film has in the world – it has been officially released in every single country in the world including North Korea,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

The director, 62, said she was in Birmingham mixing the music for the film in 2001 when The World Trade Centre was attacked.

She said: “I think that had a massive impact on how the film was received globally because we came out after 9/11 and I think the world was quite shocked and beaten up by that and here comes this innocent film that is trying to make people understand what it feels like to be different.

“What it feels like to try and pursue something of your own when people around you aren’t really accepting of that, be it your own family or society.

“You’re invited into the home of a Punjabi Sikh family in Britain to understand the world from their point of view and I just think it was a great healing moment for many people and the world just to be part of something so celebratory and culturally poignant and diverse at that time.”

“There was a massive movement to redefine what British culture meant and what being British meant and so that was all happening in the 90s.

“I just thought why not put an Indian girl right in the heart of a male English world of football at that time and see what happens when the two come together,” she said.

The director added that she originally wanted to make the film because there was “so much pressure on girls to do what everyone expected them to do”.

The football film was first released in April 2002 and had an important cultural influence on British society both in terms of the acceptance of cultural diversity and of the acceptance of women's football. It is quite symbolic that it should celebrate its twentieth anniversary in a year when no less that six cabinet ministers are from ethnic minorities and the English women's football team has been crowned Champions of Europe.

A) Click on the link to watch the video and do part A of the worksheet 

Télécharger « Little Punjab video »

A) Read the article and complete the worksheet "A Constitutional Dilemma"

From the Summer of 2022, women in about half of the United States may be breaking the law if they decide to end a pregnancy. This will be, in large part, because a Supreme Court judge, Justice Samuel Alito, was surprised that there is so little written about abortion in a document crafted by fifty-five men in 1787.

Because these facts appear to surprise Alito, abortion is likely to become a crime in at least twenty states. “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision,” Alito wrote, in a leaked draft of the Supreme Court’s majority opinion.

He is, of course, right. There is also nothing at all in that document, which sets out fundamental law, about pregnancy, uteruses, vaginas, fetuses, placentas, menstrual blood, breasts, or breast milk. In fact, there is nothing in that document about women at all. Most consequentially, there is nothing in that document which suggests that its authors imagined women as part of the political community embraced by the phrase “We the People.” There were no women among the delegates to the Constitutional Convention. There were no women among the hundreds of people who participated in ratifying conventions in the states. There were no women judges. There were no women legislators. At the time, women couldn't hold office nor run for office. And, except in New Jersey, and then only for a brief period, women could not vote. Legally, most women did not exist as persons.

In response, the author Margaret Atwood has revealed that she initially put off writing her horrifying dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” because she thought it was “too far-fetched.” But after the Supreme Court's ruling on abortion, she’ll never feel that way again.

“Silly me. Theocratic dictatorships do not exist only in the distant past. There are a number of them on the planet today. What is to prevent the United States from becoming one of them?” she asked in a column published last Friday in « The Atlantic ».

In Atwood’s novel, women in America are used as reproductive slaves, strictly governed by a theocratic dictatorship directed by men. Atwood’s model was based on 17th century New England Puritan religious rules and jurisprudence.

And in the article Atwood announces her surprise to see that Justice Samuel Alito also turned to the 1600s to justify the Supreme Court's majority decision to deconstitutionalize the right to abortion. On several occasion he cited the 17^th century English jurist Matthew Hale, who opposed abortions, but who also excuted « witches »!

Atwood reminds us that the U.S. constitution barred women from voting until 1920. “Women were nonpersons in U.S. law for a lot longer than they have been persons,” she chillingly noted. “If we start overthrowing settled law using Justice Samuel Alito’s justifications, why not repeal votes for women?”

However perhaps the most significant point that Atwood makes is when she quotes the constitution herself : “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” And she reminds us that the USA was founded largely by men (and women!) who had escaped centuries of religious totalitarianism in Europe.

“That which is a sin within a certain set of religious beliefs is to be made a crime for all,” Atwood writes.

“It ought to be simple: If you believe that a fetus has a soul from the moment of conception, you should not get an abortion, because to do so is a sin within your religion. But if you do not believe that, you should not — under the Constitution — be bound by the religious beliefs of others.”

Atwood concludes that Justice Alito's reasoning, and the subsequent Supreme Court majority decision, will have the result of « establishing a state religion ».

“If Justice Alito wants you to be governed by the laws of the 17th Century, you should take a close look at that century,” Atwood warns.

“Is that when you want to live?”

(Combined and edited articles from the "New Yorker" and "The Atlantic")

Watch the extract from the series to complete part B of the worksheet "The Gender Traitor Enquiry"

Télécharger « The Gender Traitor Enquiry »