White poppies – a left-wing agenda?
White poppies have prompted debate
The decision by over 100 teachers to support the campaign to sell white poppies in schools, made at the recent National Union of Teachers conference, has prompted a lively public discussion on the subject of war, peace and remembrance.
The scheme is organised by the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), which is opposed to the ‘glamorisation of war’ through the sale of red poppies, and involves sending a pack to schools that contains 100 white poppies, as well as leaflets, educational resources and posters. The PPU has sold an average of 100,000 white poppies each year for the past three years and hopes to increase this figure by distributing their poppies in schools ahead of Remembrance Day on 11 November.
The former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan, colonel Richard Kemp, criticised the scheme and said in an interview with The Telegraph: ‘I think it is perfectly reasonably for schools to discuss different political perspectives, but they should not be indoctrinating children with a left-wing political agenda.’
Symon Hill, PPU coordinator, explained: ‘The last thing we want to do is indoctrinate children. We are a pacifist organisation. We make no apology for that.
‘We share a commitment to working for peace –rejecting militarism and attempts to glamorise war.’
He added that his organisation doesn’t have a problem with schools also selling the traditional red poppies alongside white ones, so that pupils have a choice.
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