It behoves political leaders to be careful what they say on prominent public platforms about inflammatory subjects that can easily spark trouble Plenty of sensible people laugh when anyone suggests that Gordon Brown could still win the election. I sometimes do myself, though yesterday I bumped into a prominent Thatcherite Tory who spoke to the prime minister recently and was unexpectedly impressed....
David Cameron was accused of playing politics with education today after he said the government had sanctioned "inappropriate use of public funds" to support two independent "extremist" Muslim schools. The Conservative leader used prime minister's questions to ask Gordon Brown to explain why he had not stopped the funding of schools that Cameron claimed had links to a radical Islamic...
I hold no truck for Hizb ut-Tahrir. I would certainly share Tony Blair's instincts that they should be banned. But they are not. Nor is there any evidence that the organisation is running two independent schools in Slough and Haringey which receive state funding under the government's under-fives programme that has relied largely - as apparently will the Tories' new schools programme - on the private...
Head teacher of school Cameron claimed had links to an 'extreme Islamist foundation' rejects allegation and claims Tory leader has a 'political agenda' David Cameron was today accused of criticising two Muslim schools for political reasons. One of the schools hit back after Cameron claimed two private schools have been established by an "extremist Islamist foundation", the ISF (Islamic Shakhsiyah...
Cranmer has written about Hizb-ut-Tahrir before: here , here and here . They are not very nice. Not nice at all. So it comes as something of a surprise (or perhaps not) to learn that this amoral, deficient, anti-Christian Labour government are subsidising a terrorist-supporting, kuffar-hating, strife-inducing Islamic agenda for world domination. His Grace has been sent a very interesting letter by...
Westminster 1440 GMT : Gordon Brown was caught on the hop at Prime Minister's Questions by questions about schools in Slough and Tottenham which the Conservatives claim have links to alleged Islamic extremists - and which, although they are independent, have received some taxpayers' funds. The Tories' aim, I believe, was to show that the government has not kept its eye on protecting Britain from extremists...
Gordon was asked about alleged links between Hizb-ut-Tahrir and two schools funded by the taxpayer, with Michael Gove getting a mention as the one who raised the issue. He must be enjoying finding some kind of connection between his political brief and his extracurricular interest in neoconservatism. Clegg stumped Brown on the Chilcot inquiry by pointing out that Whitehall had reserved the right not...
I don't want schools run by Hizb ut Tahrir. But nor do I want every state school in England to be controlled, either by Michael Gove of the Henry Jackson Society, or by Ed Balls of Labour Friends of Israel. How many wars has Hizb ut Tahrir started? How many seats in our legislature has Hizb ut Tahrir sold in its criminal purchase of British foreign policy? It was David Cameron whose vehicles toured...
The latest shadow cabinet league table with rating equal to percentage of members satisfied minus those dissatisfied (the previous two month's numbers on left): William Hague +83% | +85% | +72% Liam Fox +61% | +70% | +71% Dominic Grieve +60% | +62% | +62% George Osborne +61% | +63% | +61% Philip Hammond +55% | +59% | +60% Michael Gove +54% | +61% | +59% Eric Pickles +49% | +53% | +55% Lord Strathclyde...
The bets are on. Apparently, a hung parliament is a highly likely outcome of the next general election, following decades of gerrymandering and Labour-favouring boundary reviews. And in such a scenario, the Liberal Democrats have indicated that they would support the Conservative Party: Yes, Nick Clegg would be prepared to climb into bed with David Cameron, if the Conservative leader would entertain...
• Aim would be to restore trust after expenses row • Emergency budget as soon as June if Cameron wins A new Conservative government may keep parliament sitting through next August in an attempt to show its determination to implement its manifesto commitments, a source has disclosed. The move would send a message of a symbolic break with the current parliament's self-serving practices, the...
By James Valentine Yet again education is a political battleground and it’s worth examining the Tory thinking about schools. They see little future for conventional state schools, which are “bureaucratic”. Head teachers are seen as battling against the forces of the State. Once they are set free then, hey presto, wonderful schools will arise. Basically, that’s it. The argument...
'Civis Romanus sum' was the proudest boast any citizen of the ancient world could make, writes my old ' friend Michael Gove in The Times this morning. It was a declaration of allegiance that entitled the individual to the full...
This is deep music nostalgia - positively subterranean. I'd completely forgotten about this band until I heard them on the radio recently. They're a hard rock outfit called UFO. In retrospect it's an unfortunate name for them because today on Google and YouTube rankings they have to compete with people looking for shit about alien autopsies. Quite a few bloggers who are around the same age as me talk...
Welcome to the latest LDVideo instalment, featuring three of the most memorable video clips doing the rounds on the blogosphere. First up is Ed Balls – the guy might have a debating style reminiscent of a school bully demanding tuck money, but here he completely out-smarts tongue-tied Tory education spokesman Michael Gove: (Hat-tip: Sam Coates). The second [...]
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