Real security comes from having a secure base at home — Keir Starmer’s reckless and renegade decision to get Britain deeper into the proxy war against Russia is as dangerous as it is wasteful, writes SALLY SPIERS
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An end to the academy school gravy train?
As the government moves to rein in academy freedoms, former darling of conservative education reform Katharine Birbalsingh cries ‘Marxism.’ Education columnist ROBERT POOLE examines how academisation has failed our children while enriching executives and empowering ideologues at the expense of democratic accountability
CONSERVATIVE POSTER CHILD: School head Katharine Birbalsingh
The plan is to stigmatise and destabilise South Africa in preparation for breaking it up while creating a confused and highly racialised atmosphere around immigration in the US to aid in denying rights to non-white refugees, explains EMILE SCHEPERS
ALAN SIMPSON warns that Starmer’s triangulation strategy will fail just as New Labour’s did, with each rightward move by Labour pushing Tories further right
From the 1917 Balfour Declaration to today’s F-35 sales, Britain’s historical responsibility has now evolved into support for the present-day outright genocide. But our solidarity movement is growing too, writes BEN JAMAL
DIANE ABBOTT MP warns Starmer’s newly declared war on foreigners and scroungers won’t fix housing or services — only class struggle against austerity can do that, and defeat Farage in the process
Ben Chacko talks to ALAN MARDGHUM of the Durham Miners Association about Reform UK‘s dangerous inroads into Durham’s long-standing Labour county council; why he cancelled his party membership; and the political class’s disconnect from working people
Speaking to a CND meeting in Cambridge this week, SIMON BRIGNELL traced how the alliance’s anti-communist machinery broke unions, diverted vital funds from public services, and turned workers into cannon fodder for profit
THERE is perhaps no more controversial figure in education than Katharine Birbalsingh, the head teacher of Michaela Free School in Wembley Park. Birbalsingh was the darling of the Gove-led Conservative education team and once boasted of having a framed letter from him on her office wall. So revered by Conservatives was she that she was invited to speak at Conservative Party conferences and was even appointed chair of the Social Mobility Commission.
Birbalsingh was the poster child for conservative education reform. Although she describes herself as a “small-C conservative,” her pedagogy is deeply connected with the Conservative Party. Her school, while an excellent exam factory that produces impressive results, is run like a military boot camp. Children sit in silence, walk down corridors in silence and sing God Save the King.
The question here is, first, do the ends justify the means? Second, who decides that the end result is what we really want anyway? Pupils excel in public exams based around a narrow curriculum focused on recalling knowledge, but is this the only metric that matters?
More from this author
The NEU’s annual conference promises heated debate, with motions on international politics, curriculum reform and union amalgamation likely to provoke strong reactions and challenge the status quo, writes Education for Tomorrow editor ROBERT POOLE
The series unveils uncomfortable truths about youth alienation and online radicalisation — but the real crisis lies in austerity and the absence of class consciousness in addressing young people’s disillusionment, says teacher ROBERT POOLE
From colonialism to the Troubles, the story of England’s first colony is one of exploitation, resistance, and solidarity — and one we should fight to ensure is told, writes teacher ROBERT POOLE
ROBERT POOLE reports back from his mission to Cuba delivering aid and learning from Cuban educators
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