A Child's Game That Labor Hates

Insight on the News, June 26, 2000 by Stephen Goode

The Duke of Wellington is supposed to have remarked, "The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton." As revisionists would have it, since the remark did not appear in print until 36 years after the duke's death, he may have exclaimed on a visit to Eton nothing more than "It is here that the battle of Waterloo was won!"

But the legendary British soldier and statesman today would have the chance to say neither about the value of games in preparing men for war if the present British Labour government has its way. A new booklet sponsored by Tony Blair's Labour government, for instance, condemns the longtime children's game of musical chairs and urges British teachers to ban it from their classrooms because, says the booklet, the game encourages aggression and teaches kids to be mean to one another.

Sue Finch, who authored the Labour Party booklet, primly explained to the London Times, "A little bit of competition is fine, but with musical chairs the competition is not fair because it is always the biggest and strongest children who win."

Finch admitted that the advice might surprise adults. (It certainly surprised for the people, which has distinct memories of small and fast kids winning more often than big and clumsy ones.) According to a dispatch from Reuters, the Labour lady recommended children play something called musical statues, a game unknown to for the people's games experts but which Finch assures us is better because "it's a game which everyone wins."

Ugh! But don't despair. The unspeakable Finch does have a sane counterpart in the Conservative Party. Theresa May, Tory spokeswoman on education issues, loudly slammed Labour Education Minister Margaret Hodge for allowing the booklet's distribution, aptly describing it as "political correctness gone mad." As May rightly observed of the game of musical chairs: "Children have played and enjoyed it for years."

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