M FOR VENDETTA: BBC calls Guy Fawkes an ‘astonishing activist’ similar to Mandela.

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.

Isn’t this more of a Reuters exercise? As Stephen Jukes, global news editor for Reuters infamously instructed his contributors after September 11th, “We all know that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter and that Reuters upholds the principle that we do not use the word terrorist. To be frank, it adds little to call the attack on the World Trade Center a terrorist attack.”