Operation Trojan Horse

[Digga]

Pickled Piper said:

NicD said:

scenario8 said:

I'm a little surprised that this dude's appointment to chair the investigation hasn't been commented upon here today (although i note a UKIP thread has provided fuel to the usual angry mob instead).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-27...

I'm sure he's a very capable man but is he honestly the "best" available person for this job? There's no-one with a less provocative or inflammatory cv in a position to investigate? Maybe I'm wrong. Let's hope we eventually get to the bottom of this and the situation isn't inflamed further.

He seems the perfect candidate. Experienced anti-terrorism investigator.

Good news.

rather better than a gravy train liberal barrister.

Gove was in a difficult position here. Had he appointed a lefty liberal type, who would have believed him if he declared "nothing to see here"?

Inflammatory? probably a bit. But very capable and experienced senior Plod. If his investigation gives the schools the "all clear" no one is going to argue.

No surprises as the the types that think the appointment unsuitable.

Aunty said:

The city council's Labour leader, Sir Albert Bore, said: "He [Mr Clarke] will have to build relationship with the community, the community of Birmingham, the Muslim community of Birmingham.

"And coming with a background which is that of counter-terrorism doesn't make for a good starting point.

"I think many of the community in Birmingham would not want an investigation to be conducted along those lines because they do not believe that the activities in the schools are the starting point for terrorism in the city."

Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, also questioned the appointment.

I sometimes wonder whether Labour's PR crew have a brain. If they do, given the weight of public opinion, they must surely have their heads in their hands?

[grumbledoak]

No. Labour long ago realized that poor immigrants vote Labour. There is no other consideration.

[Digga]

grumbledoak said:

No. Labour long ago realized that poor immigrants vote Labour. There is no other consideration.

Perhaps a fine plan, but when immigrants aren't poor to start with, or become middle class, it falls apart. What a great many commentators miss about Operation Trojan Horse is that it has been instigated by complains from immigrant communities as well as indigenous. Many of those who come here arrive with a desire, ability and motivation to work and become part of British society. Perhaps they, more than anyone else, are more attuned to and aware of the risks of, the sort of backward thinking that has appears to have been preached here.

[Pickled Piper]

The Guardian said:

Invention or not, tactics in alleged Birmingham school plot are familiar

Experienced headteachers say they recognise ploy outlined in document about alleged Islamic plot to 'take over' schools

The Operation Trojan Horse plot may well be a hoax, invented by nefarious schemers for their own personal gain. But experienced headteachers in Birmingham say they recognised the tactics outlined in the document as having been used by Islamic hardliners to try to gain influence in the city's schools for over a decade.

Sir Dexter Hutt, a headteacher in Birmingham who retired three years ago after 40 years teaching in the city, said: "I have no idea if it is a forgery or not, but from my experience, I am not surprised by the gist of it."

Christine Quinn, currently executive head of Ninestiles secondary, an academy deemed "outstanding" by Ofsted, said many of the strategies outlined in the document "echo what people have been saying for many years".

Quinn and Hutt say they had a series of "battles" with ultra-conservative Muslims when they were sent by the local authority in 2002 to raise standards at Waverley, then a failing school in Small Heath, a predominantly Muslim area of the city.

Hutt, who was Waverley's executive head for three-and-a-half years, on Thursday said he had to contend with criticism by people from "the ultra-conservative Wahabi sect" who "appeared to operate as a cohesive faction".

Hutt said he believed there were other schools in Birmingham that had experienced similar issues in the past nine years. Quinn said she knew of two schools where the heads had left after coming under similar pressure.

In 2008, most of the 1,350 pupils at Moseley school in south central Birmingham signed a petition demanding that the headteacher, Dave Peck, be reinstated, claiming he had been "forced out". In 2002, inspectors at Washwood Heath Technology College in the city warned that a climate of intimidation caused by some governors had affected standards and allegedly led to the resignation of the headteacher. Friends of Balwant Bains, a Sikh man who quit as head of Saltley school in November last year, have claimed he was "bullied and intimidated" by the school's governing body after some Muslim governors wanted to ban sex education and citizenship classes because they were "unIslamic".

It is thought the ousted heads signed confidentiality clauses banning them from discussing their experiences.

Quinn said some of the demands made were entirely reasonable, and based on the premise that Pakistani Muslim children had previously been very poorly served by the city's schools until the new millennium.

Hutt and Quinn moved on from Waverley when their contract ended and they returned to their own school, Ninestiles.

"But," said Hutt, " the issue is not really about academic results. It's more about ensuring that the educational culture in which the students are educated does not degenerate into a kind of indoctrination. I don't think that is in the best interests of Muslim students, or other students in our multicultural society."

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/mar/13/invention-tactics-alleged-birmingham-school-plot




Good Lord! even the Lefties at the Guardian concede that some shenanigans have been going on.

Edited by Pickled Piper on Thursday 17th April 19:20

[Mr_B]

Pickled Piper said:

Good Lord! even the Lefties at the Guardian concede that some shenanigans have been going on.

Edited by Pickled Piper on Thursday 17th April 19:20

I kinda like that such a thread as this gets people looking at their feet hoping it will quietly go away and who say nothing. Guess there's not much self congratulatory mileage 'look at my totally non racist qualities' to be had in commenting on some really quite sinister aspects going on in schools. Seems the various Ukip threads are where its at.

[smegmore]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creeping_normality

[Cupramax]

longblackcoat said:

civicduty said:

FFS send the lot of them packing.

Who are the 'them' you'd send packing?

"Them" who are attempting to radicalise multiple British schools, or would you rather it just continued unchallenged? this is Britain incase you missed that.

[Mr_B]

Oh dear, the leaked official report doesn't make for good reading. You would have thought that the act of inviting an extremist preacher alone into a school would be of greater concern to just about anyone in the country.
Someone remarked the other day about a time in this country when if you had called for the death of a novelist because of a book he wrote or a cartoonist, people would have looked at you as if you were mad. Seems the same thing today with the idea of extremist preacher and gender segregation being allowed in schools, no one is that surprised and it hardly gets a comment or raised eyebrow. Kinda makes a mockery of the 60 page Ukip thread.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews...

[nightflight]

Is anybody actually surprised by this? I would have said it was inevitable.

[MajorProblem]

nightflight said:

Is anybody actually surprised by this? I would have said it was inevitable.

Not surprised one bit, problem is that us British don't do anything about anything until it's way out of hand.

[Funk]

MajorProblem said:

nightflight said:

Is anybody actually surprised by this? I would have said it was inevitable.

Not surprised one bit, problem is that us British don't do anything about anything until it's way out of hand.

Because we're made to believe or feel that we're being racist and not embracing 'multiculturalism'. I don't care for multiculturalism; if someone likes the culture we have here, they're welcome to join us. But why live somewhere where the broader culture is one you disagree with and subversively seek to change?

Here are a few handy tips:

• If you want an Islamic culture, move to a country where Islam is the main religion. There are plenty of them.

• If you want to live in a totalitarian dictatorship, move to North Korea.

• If you want to live under Communism, move to China.

• If you want extreme Christianity, move to the Southern US states (although I hear Westboro Baptist are in need of some new members if you want to live in Kansas).

Religion in general is a cancer and should be treated as such. It should have NO presence in our schools whatsoever, it should be for parents to fill their kids' heads with mumbo-jumbo if they so choose. A school should be a neutral zone where children are able to learn, not be indoctrinated.

[RedTrident]

Mr_B said:

Oh dear, the leaked official report doesn't make for good reading. You would have thought that the act of inviting an extremist preacher alone into a school would be of greater concern to just about anyone in the country.
Someone remarked the other day about a time in this country when if you had called for the death of a novelist because of a book he wrote or a cartoonist, people would have looked at you as if you were mad. Seems the same thing today with the idea of extremist preacher and gender segregation being allowed in schools, no one is that surprised and it hardly gets a comment or raised eyebrow. Kinda makes a mockery of the 60 page Ukip thread.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews...

The segregation of children where girls are made to feel inferior and the Islamification of the curriculum is very worrying. Not just that it happened but that the checks and balances failed to pick up on it. The letting in of a preacher that holds views like this one does, is also really worrying. How comfortable must these people have been to have done something as overt as this?

I expect a root and branch investigation across the Land as a consequence of this. We cannot allow the minds of our young people to be trained to ripe for indoctrination into this dangerous ideology.

[RedTrident]

Mr_B said:

Sticking kids in Burkas and putting "we as Muslims oppose the lifestyle of the West" on your schools website may have given a clue that they couldn't give a fk about anything other than their own agenda.

Did they really do that? Be interesting to see what the Minister does now. He doesn't come across as the type who suffers fools. Hopefully the Trust and the Governing Body are immediately replaced.

[grumbledoak]

RedTrident said:

I expect a root and branch investigation across the Land as a consequence of this.

I don't. This is all a done deal.

[RedTrident]

What's a done deal?

[unrepentant]

We have similar issues here in the USA with fundamentalist Christians trying and suceeding to have creationsim taught in schools. Not surprising as half the wackos in the republican party think the earth is only a few thousand years old and started with Adam and Eve.

[FiF]

RedTrident said:

Mr_B said:

Oh dear, the leaked official report doesn't make for good reading. You would have thought that the act of inviting an extremist preacher alone into a school would be of greater concern to just about anyone in the country.
Someone remarked the other day about a time in this country when if you had called for the death of a novelist because of a book he wrote or a cartoonist, people would have looked at you as if you were mad. Seems the same thing today with the idea of extremist preacher and gender segregation being allowed in schools, no one is that surprised and it hardly gets a comment or raised eyebrow. Kinda makes a mockery of the 60 page Ukip thread.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews...

The segregation of children where girls are made to feel inferior and the Islamification of the curriculum is very worrying. Not just that it happened but that the checks and balances failed to pick up on it. The letting in of a preacher that holds views like this one does, is also really worrying. How comfortable must these people have been to have done something as overt as this?

I expect a root and branch investigation across the Land as a consequence of this. We cannot allow the minds of our young people to be trained to ripe for indoctrination into this dangerous ideology.

Not sure I follow Mr_B's logic.

This is of extreme concern to all, or at least it should be.

Phil Clarke is completely the right guy to be investigating this providing he gets the right support regarding education specialists.

[Mr_B]

FiF said:

RedTrident said:

Mr_B said:

Oh dear, the leaked official report doesn't make for good reading. You would have thought that the act of inviting an extremist preacher alone into a school would be of greater concern to just about anyone in the country.
Someone remarked the other day about a time in this country when if you had called for the death of a novelist because of a book he wrote or a cartoonist, people would have looked at you as if you were mad. Seems the same thing today with the idea of extremist preacher and gender segregation being allowed in schools, no one is that surprised and it hardly gets a comment or raised eyebrow. Kinda makes a mockery of the 60 page Ukip thread.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews...

The segregation of children where girls are made to feel inferior and the Islamification of the curriculum is very worrying. Not just that it happened but that the checks and balances failed to pick up on it. The letting in of a preacher that holds views like this one does, is also really worrying. How comfortable must these people have been to have done something as overt as this?

I expect a root and branch investigation across the Land as a consequence of this. We cannot allow the minds of our young people to be trained to ripe for indoctrination into this dangerous ideology.

Not sure I follow Mr_B's logic.

This is of extreme concern to all, or at least it should be.

Phil Clarke is completely the right guy to be investigating this providing he gets the right support regarding education specialists.

Maybe I'm just odd in that some of these practices are extremely backward and verge on child abuse in schools with religious education and in some areas dragging people back to a past, when it should be going forward.

I find it odd and disturbing that many are not in the least surprised by this, that it was almost a given that it's happening and don't think of it as an abuse or even raise an eyebrow, but who are prepared to stay silent and adopt the view that you cant interfere or that because it's religion, anything goes or you'll be abusing someone human and religious rights.

You are right that it is probably of concern to most, where that fails though is the number of people that will openly say so and be critical. The reference to the Ukip thread is to the difference in which some will quite happily infer you are racist/xenophobic/ under educated and generally of lower intellect than them because they disagree with your view, but who wouldn't dream of doing the same to someone who came along and may defend the idea of sending their kid to a school with a burka dress code or where they get 9 hours of religious education. I find those people strangely absent from comment on such topics and I wonder why that is.

Whatever you think, I know I was lucky to only have to sit through half hour a week of RE and could sit there bored to tears and not have to pay any attention to anything other than my 15 year old priority in the choice of Jeanette's good looks and style, or Kerry's overly developed upper body and that fact that I heard she was pretty wild at parties.
There was a time not that long ago when religion in general looked to be dying a death and had less and less relevance. Now it seems to be coming back and the old battle ground of getting to them as young as possible is being played out in schools once again to be the Jimmy Savile of their minds.

[FiF]

Mr_B said:

FiF said:

RedTrident said:

Mr_B said:

Oh dear, the leaked official report doesn't make for good reading. You would have thought that the act of inviting an extremist preacher alone into a school would be of greater concern to just about anyone in the country.
Someone remarked the other day about a time in this country when if you had called for the death of a novelist because of a book he wrote or a cartoonist, people would have looked at you as if you were mad. Seems the same thing today with the idea of extremist preacher and gender segregation being allowed in schools, no one is that surprised and it hardly gets a comment or raised eyebrow. Kinda makes a mockery of the 60 page Ukip thread.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews...

The segregation of children where girls are made to feel inferior and the Islamification of the curriculum is very worrying. Not just that it happened but that the checks and balances failed to pick up on it. The letting in of a preacher that holds views like this one does, is also really worrying. How comfortable must these people have been to have done something as overt as this?

I expect a root and branch investigation across the Land as a consequence of this. We cannot allow the minds of our young people to be trained to ripe for indoctrination into this dangerous ideology.

Not sure I follow Mr_B's logic.

This is of extreme concern to all, or at least it should be.

Phil Clarke is completely the right guy to be investigating this providing he gets the right support regarding education specialists.

Maybe I'm just odd in that some of these practices are extremely backward and verge on child abuse in schools with religious education and in some areas dragging people back to a past, when it should be going forward.

I find it odd and disturbing that many are not in the least surprised by this, that it was almost a given that it's happening and don't think of it as an abuse or even raise an eyebrow, but who are prepared to stay silent and adopt the view that you cant interfere or that because it's religion, anything goes or you'll be abusing someone human and religious rights.

You are right that it is probably of concern to most, where that fails though is the number of people that will openly say so and be critical. The reference to the Ukip thread is to the difference in which some will quite happily infer you are racist/xenophobic/ under educated and generally of lower intellect than them because they disagree with your view, but who wouldn't dream of doing the same to someone who came along and may defend the idea of sending their kid to a school with a burka dress code or where they get 9 hours of religious education. I find those people strangely absent from comment on such topics and I wonder why that is.

Whatever you think, I know I was lucky to only have to sit through half hour a week of RE and could sit there bored to tears and not have to pay any attention to anything other than my 15 year old priority in the choice of Jeanette's good looks and style, or Kerry's overly developed upper body and that fact that I heard she was pretty wild at parties.
There was a time not that long ago when religion in general looked to be dying a death and had less and less relevance. Now it seems to be coming back and the old battle ground of getting to them as young as possible is being played out in schools once again to be the Jimmy Savile of their minds.

OK thanks for that, now I understand the reference to the UKIP thread. We are pretty much on the same page on this I suspect.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

unrepentant said:

We have similar issues here in the USA with fundamentalist Christians trying and suceeding to have creationsim taught in schools. Not surprising as half the wackos in the republican party think the earth is only a few thousand years old and started with Adam and Eve.

In 200 odd years the USA has gone from independence to moon landings, NASA, Silicon Valley, cutting edge medical research and being at the forefront of science and technical innovation.

Yet 45% of the population believe the Earth is less than 10K yrs old. You have to multiply 10K by 4700 to get the right answer. If you said it was a mile from NY to LA, you'd be more accurate, because you only have to multiple that by 2800 to get the right answer!

Just imagine what they could have achieved in nearly half the population weren't so fking stupid.