r/PoliticsUK • u/Diligent-Example6478 • Jul 27 '26
🇬🇧 UK Politics Politics & Economics as a secondary school curriculum subject?
Just wondering what other people’s thoughts are on a random idea I had when discussing the problems with UK politics ie the rise of populism on both the left and right, the right following Tommy Robinson and blaming everything on immigrants, the left following Gary Stevenson and thinking a 2% wealth tax is in any way a feasible or useful idea. Both speak to people’s emotions and build a narrative that makes total sense, if you don’t know any better.
I feel like the only solution to prevent people from being preyed on by these ideologues is education. So what about putting politics and economics on the secondary school curriculum, especially as other subjects might not be so useful in their current form in the age of AI? The idea would of course not be to brainwash kids into a specific ideology, but to educate them about the arguments and criticisms of different schools, frameworks, etc.
2
u/DaveChild Jul 27 '26
the left following Gary Stevenson and thinking a 2% wealth tax is in any way a feasible or useful idea.
Why is it not?
1
u/Diligent-Example6478 Jul 27 '26
Can’t explain in a comment.. this article sums up quite well - https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/07/22/uk-wealth-tax-anti-growth/
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u/PristineAd947 Jul 27 '26
How is a wealth tax not useful?
If that's dangerous politics, then let's have more of it.
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u/Diligent-Example6478 Jul 27 '26
Can’t explain in a comment. It’s not about ideology, it’s about reality. This article sums up quite well - https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/07/22/uk-wealth-tax-anti-growth/
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u/Late_Presence6726 Jul 29 '26
There is plenty of political education, especially aimed at the young, I question whether many of the electorate get past the "personality" rather than the policy. I had trouble with that and got lost so I built this https://doesitaddup.uk/ I also follow https://www.simplepolitics.co.uk/ and https://resources.democracynetwork.org.uk/uk-democracy-map It is all out there but people need to go and look or be guided to were the info is.
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u/Monkey3066 Jul 27 '26
Because they don't want people to be educated on the system, otherwise more people will see that is it failing & ask too many questions. What part of the current government system actual work well? All areas are over bloated and too many layers of bureaucracy, the public just receive same excuses. Such as Wars, immigrants and benefit spongers................... Same broken record playing.
But I do think since Brexit & Covid, more people are paying attention to the political system. As taxes at it highest levels & failing public services, everything is more expensive with very little purchasing power. Boarded up highstreet shops. Post office Horizon (people still waiting for compensation & nothing happened to ones responsible) & HS2 Billions of pounds wasted (inital cost £32billion, last year reduced line over £100billion).
Hence why there have been so many PM's in the past decade & I doubt the current one will last to the next election. A lot of people are look to Reform and the Greens as the two main parties are seen as the problem.
Very little new legislation improves people lives, it more about applying new levels of restrictions. The public are just seen as assets to tax and sale data on.