The BBC has branded Guy Fawkes an ‘astonishing activist’ in a Bitesize educational game for primary school children, ranking the would-be regicide alongside Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks and Emmeline Pankhurst. The resource, apparently created in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, invites children to play as Fawkes as he evades guards beneath Parliament. The Telegraph has the story:
The BBC has called Guy Fawkes an “astonishing activist” and likened him to Nelson Mandela.
In history resources for children, the plotter who tried to blow up Parliament and King James I is counted among civil rights activists “who wanted to change the world”.
The BBC Bitesize material for primary schools ranks Fawkes alongside Rosa Parks, the civil rights activist, Emmeline Pankhurst, the suffragette, and Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader.
The material takes the form of an educational game titled “Back in time with… Astonishing Activists”, which invites children into the world of the campaigners, including the would-be regicide.
The game appears to have been created in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, and the tagline of the resource on the BBC website states that children can “take a trip back in time and learn all about the people who fought racism, campaigned for women’s rights… and changed the world forever”.
The game explains Fawkes’s involvement in the failed 1605 plot to detonate gunpowder beneath Parliament during the state opening, potentially killing the king and several hundred courtiers.
The plot was intended to remove the new king, amid disappointment that concessions for Catholics did not materialise when he took the throne, and to bring about an armed rebellion that would install a sympathetic ruler.
Fawkes was caught, tortured and executed. His co-conspirators, including Robert Catesby, the plot leader, were hunted down and killed.
Children can play as Fawkes on the Bitesize game, helping him evade the royal guard in the basement of Parliament, and kill rats while held in the Tower of London.
Factual material alongside the games explains that Bonfire Night on Nov 5 celebrates the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot, and players go on to build their own digital bonfires as part of the game.
Worth reading in full.
Presumably, this is the kind of content from a ‘trusted’ public service media source the Government wants to force social media algorithms to give more prominence to.
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I hope that ‘Guido Fawkes’ political commentator milks this BBC ‘endorsement’ for all it’s worth 🙂
They’re just trolling. Best ignore them and let them fade into the abyss of their own fundament, which is their relentless direction of travel.
Rosa Parks was the only one who was not a terrorist of the four mentioned.
“The BBC Bitesize material for primary schools ranks Fawkes alongside Rosa Parks, the civil rights activist, Emmeline Pankhurst, the suffragette, and Mandela,
the anti-apartheid leaderthe convicted terrorist!”Let’s be honest, if Guy Fawkes was about now how many of us would be supplying his gunpowder? I, for one, will be paying my respects to the man on November 5th.