Monday 9th June

Another Sunday, another row within Government, but this time among the Tories exclusively.  Ostensibly it is about how radical extremism should be tackled; softly softly as per Theresa May, or short sharp shock as per Michael Gove.  Now most people will not care and actually whatever the rights and wrongs of the argument Government policy ‘aint gonna change either.  But it does expose a fundamental problem.  This Government and Gove in particular have been so keen on so-called “free schools” that they have bent the rules for them and even robbed other budgets to help set them up.  This is the real Trojan horse.  If more and more schools are free schools, directly funded out of Whitehall and though supposed to be non-profit making are often linked to Business then sooner or later everyone will only have the choice of almost privately run schools or academies.  But part of the problem is that many of these “free” schools are religious schools, where any concept of free choice, either in what is taught, or what the kids are supposed to believe or actual intake is totally missing.

Religion should be banned in schools – in my opinion.  It is always divise, backwards looking and in many cases extremely dangerous.  Hence the problem – several new free schools are simply re-inforcing hard-line Muslim ideas on kids who if they attended normal integrated state schools would have been open to a much wider range of cultures and opinions.  So these free schools may indeed be radicalizing kids who may end up the terrorists of the next generation.  Which incidentally, how to deal with that extremism was, the what the row was all about.  Durghhh !!!!!  Elephant  !!!!   in the very classroom!!!!