Earlier this week, I wrote about the (necessarily) harsh disciplinary regime in place at Michaela Community School in London, under the rule of its famously authoritarian headmistress, Katharine Birbalsingh. Michaela is located in a massively multi-ethnic area where, in order to keep a lid on religious and racial tensions, Headmistress Birbalsingh has developed a policy of effectively forcing her pupils to become British, or at least to temporarily act as if they are so during school hours. Children are made to figuratively salute the flag and sing the national anthem.
Meanwhile (as a recent court case has shown), Michaela students are quite rightly not allowed to do things like perform public Muslim prayer rituals in the playground. But, in the name of enforcing community cohesion – or a temporary public simulacrum of it, anyway – neither are the white Christian children allowed to eat any meat, of any kind, just to avoid alienating or offending the bacon-dodgers. And, just to make absolutely sure nobody talks about anything that might inflame delicate sectarian tensions, neither are any of the kids allowed to even choose their own topics of conversation during break and dinner times.
Well, a school is a school, and a school needs rules, as I well remember from my own time as a teacher. If that’s the only way Ms. Birbalsingh can keep order within an otherwise potentially unmanageable environment, then what other choice does she have? I find some of her more excessive measures rather unpalatable personally, but possibly the other potential option is even worse. Rather than facilitating the creation of an infant multicultural utopia, more culturally laissez-faire behaviour policies may instead just end up producing total chaos.
Police Academy
Consider the case of Pimlico Academy which, back during the height of George Floyd hysteria, found itself becoming a kind of accidental ‘Anti-Michaela’. Whereas, at Michaela School, pupils respect the flag (at least officially), at Pimlico during September 2020 the kids tore down their building’s own Union Jack, stole it away to a nearby housing estate and then set it on fire to what the Guardian described, no doubt approvingly, as “resounding cheers”.
The Guardian took rather a lot of interest in the Pimlico Academy affair (see its reports here, here, here, here, here, here and here – that’s a whole lot of heres). National newspapers don’t usually run over half a dozen separate reports upon obscure disciplinary disputes taking place inside local London schools. Why did the Guardian care so much about what was going on at this one? Because, I would guess, it represented in adolescent microcosm precisely the kind of country Guardian writers would like to see Britain itself henceforth become for its adult inhabitants too.
Pimlico’s problems began when the school appointed a new adult Headmaster (sorry, “Principal Designate”), Daniel Smith, who initially attempted to be a traditionalist Birbalsingh-style disciplinarian who flew the flag, introduced rigour into the curriculum and reformed the previously lax uniform policy. Good for him. Unfortunately, the wonderfully diverse cohort of kids locally didn’t seem as minded to obey the new school rules as those at Michaela – not helped, I imagine, by our longstanding Government policy of handing out to any foreigner who asks for one his or her very own Passport to Pimlico, no questions asked.
One of the issues objected to by children was that, under Smith, the school’s history curriculum had been rewritten chronologically, with the focus placed upon what were termed “white British kings and queens”, presumably on account of the fact that there have never been any non-white ones, due to Britain historically being a white country. This left less space in the curriculum for kids to learn about more recent non-white British individuals of supposed historic significance, such as Mary Seacole, Mr. Motivator and Paul Ince, to say nothing of the now sacred Black History Month.
A sit-in protest attended by hundreds of student rebels was held in school grounds, leading to constables being called out to Police the Academy, as teens picketed the main entrance bearing BLM banners and chanting “We want change!” Soon, graffiti calling for Governor Smith to be sacked and sent trailing back to the Foreign and Colonial Office clutching his pith helmet appeared on walls, alongside phrases like “White schools for brown kids are u mad” “Ain’t no black in the Union Jack” and “Pimlico Academy … run by racists … for profit!!!” which should actually be the true slogan of Buying Large Mansions.
New elements of the stricter uniform policy, which asked hijabs not be “too colourful”, and banned massive afros so large they “block the view of others” were decried as racist: pity those poor Pimlico dwarfs unlucky enough to be sitting in the back row of desks behind Sideshow Bob and the Jackson Five. A petition of dissent was drawn up by members of the local TeenWolf community, declaring that “We as students have the right to express ourselves however we choose, and also have the right to have our natural hair whether it be big hair [or] small hair or loads of facial hair or no facial hair.” The petition gained almost 1,200 signatures from those pupils and parents who had successfully learned to write their own names.
School Bullies
As things kicked off, kids began complaining about literally everything at the school – even the fact the walls were painted white. The level of self-righteous self-entitlement displayed amongst some of the Pimlico students interviewed by the Guardian has to be heard to be believed. Just listen to this little Junior Marxist:
We believe the school has unfairly targeted groups of students. The school should protect marginalised races, religions and other groups instead of target them. We should see ourselves and our backgrounds represented in our studies. … Previously, Pimlico may not have been the best school but we were represented and we felt we were heard when we raised issues but now that’s not the case. The [Union Jack] flag has become a symbol of us not being listened to. It’s strange but feels like we are being colonised.
Are you sure you’re not the one doing the colonising here? The insufferable infant continued: “In September, many students expected assemblies… in light of the Black Lives Matter movement to show solidarity and support for black students, but were disappointed. Instead, students were told to form a club to discuss their experiences, rather than uplifting the voices of black students.”
And here’s another one, a mixed-race individual named Lucinda Merritt: “I always thought Pimlico was a beautiful, diverse place. It was where I felt the safest and it would have been my dream to teach there. … The flag issue has become a bizarre symbol. The school were aware of how it was making students and parents feel. The timing of putting it up was so insensitive and inappropriate – where students felt like they were backed into a corner and that’s why they removed [i.e., stole and burned] it.” Any student who feels the Union Jack to be “a bizarre symbol”, but the raised fist logo of BLM to be perfectly normal and unobjectionable, may not really be all that well integrated into our national way of life, I would suggest.
Except, actually, Ms. Merritt was not a Pimlico student at all, but a parent. A parent whose day-job was being a drama teacher in another London school, evidently not a terribly strict one. Prior to Headmaster Smith’s arrival on-site, she told the Guardian, Pimlico Academy was not only “beautiful [and] diverse” but also “a rambunctious, rebellious place” – presumably the latter two allegedly ‘positive’ qualities being a direct result of the former. (Although, to be fair, one of Merritt’s other, more valid, complaints was that her daughter had been pointlessly suspended for “eating a sandwich in the school playground contrary to new Covid policies”.)
Merritt would probably have fitted right in with the actual Pimlico teaching staff had she indeed ever found employment there: disgusted by their new Head’s policies, many of the Lefties working there threatened to hand in their notice or strike, calling and winning a vote of no-confidence in Mr. Smith with their union’s collusion. One such educator complained to the Guardian that: “Part of education is to experience lots of different perspectives… If you are only hearing the perspective of the white middle classes it becomes very restrictive and shuts off our ability to build empathy with those from different backgrounds – it becomes isolating for students from minority backgrounds.”
That sounds to me like a comically stereotypical illustration of the average Guardianista-style “perspective of the white middle classes” in and of itself to me. Incidentally, within the specific context of Pimlico Academy, white kids are in fact the true “students from minority backgrounds”, making up only around a quarter of the student body according to data from the time, so should this teacher not have been delighted to see theh history curriculum rewritten to focus upon such long-forgotten and marginalised figures of Caucasian royalty as Alfred and Aethelred?
Other adults were also on the kids’ side. After letters were sent home threatening student protest ringleaders with expulsion, several Labour MPs, including Jeremy ‘two Es at A-level’ Corbyn and Diane ‘the human abacus’ Abbott, wrote their own threatening letter to the school leadership team, saying that “as Members of Parliament, it would concern us deeply if their faith in democratic principles were shaken by incidents like these, rather than nurtured”. The MPs’ definition of ‘democracy’ here would appear to be ‘racial mob-rule’.
Eff Off, Mr. Chips
Coming under intense pressure, Mr. Smith and his senior leadership team met around a table with the rival senior leadership team of the pupils themselves, before bowing to their demands to remove the flag, end the “discriminatory” anti-afro policies and “make students from a black and minority ethnic background feel more welcome”, like good little subaltern natives should. “Being part of a diverse community is exciting but not without its challenges,” Headmaster Smith now declared, quoting an old Lebanese proverb. Capitulating to the multicultural mob, Smith about-turned and promised now to “celebrate our differences”, rather than ironing them all out by force, as Katharine Birbalsingh would prefer.
Meanwhile, he even went so far as to issue what amounted to a public ‘thank you’ notice to the kids for ritually sacrificing him to the dark gods of multiculturalism in the middle of the playground:
The right to protest is a civil liberty which, in the United Kingdom, we all enjoy, one that was hard-fought for and which not everyone in the world is fortunate to have [e.g., the people in all the countries the ungrateful kids’ parents came here from]. Our students are bright, courageous, intelligent young people, passionate about the things that matter to them [i.e., themselves] and acutely attuned to injustice. I admire them hugely for this [staging protests] though I regret that it came to this.
But, still this wasn’t enough, and on May 18th 2021, Smith waved the white flag (certainly not the Union one, that would have been racist) and resigned. I think there’s a parable lurking in here, isn’t there, about what kind of likely fate awaits the adult world outside the school gates once racially radicalised kids like these grow up and begin throwing their weight around the nation more widely?
Politics of the Playground
So, in these two contrasting London schools, Pimlico and Michaela, we see outlined in embryonic form the potential future political fate of our country. Personally, I wouldn’t wish to send a child to either of them. But, in the end, a parent has to choose: and, understandably, many would choose the regimented military boot-camp over the chaotic anarchic training-complex.
Katharine Birbalsingh’s school/compound is, I believe, massively oversubscribed. Well, in the middle of a war, who wouldn’t want to live inside a big, well-protected castle? If you give people a choice between two competing dismal options – tyranny or anarchy – then a substantial majority would probably choose tyranny, and not irrationally so.
When faced with increasing racial, ethnic and religious chaos of the sort which is clearly growing worse with each passing year across Europe, the temptation for electorates will only grow ever stronger to one day vote in a Michaela-type figure who promises to end at last the ruinous war of all against all by curtailing the liberties of everyone for the sake of the ‘greater good’. Such figures may well be malign, and simply seeking yet more power for its own sake, or they may well, like the real-life Ms. Birbalsingh, only be trying to provide society with the least worst option still left open to it.
Our ancestors, those who once fought and died for actual freedom, would be bemused we have allowed ourselves even to be placed in such a position. And yet, today, alea iacta est, the die is cast: no easy or agreeable options are any more left open to us, just hard and unappealing ones. For tomorrow’s schoolchildren, the choice will be between attending Michaela School or Pimlico Academy. For tomorrow’s adults, likewise, the choice may well be between living in North Korea or civil war-era Lebanon. I can’t help but feel, overall, I’d much rather be living in England again, thanks very much.
Steven Tucker is a journalist and the author of over 10 books, the latest being Hitler’s & Stalin’s Misuse of Science: When Science Fiction Was Turned Into Science Fact by the Nazis and the Soviets (Pen & Sword/Frontline), which is out now.
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Well researched, but im Sick of all this crap!
Shocking. But completely unsurprising. Our public services are lost, and the last people they serve are the public who serve them.
…and those who pay the taxes to enable it…
Complete ideological infiltration. And will be implemented irrespective of concerns, because “be kind” (and screw the rest).
Voucher systems for health and education are a superb idea……
‘Examining the experience of vouchers and contracting to expand health services through engagement with private sector providers in the Asia Pacific found positive effects with regards to access and utilisation of health services’
Effectively engaging the private sector through vouchers and contracting. Science Direct 2015
‘To those who are sceptical of education vouchers, it should suffice to say that the policy has already been successfully tested in many countries across the world, including New Zealand, Australia, areas of Italy, several US states….’
‘Those who have benefited most include students from less wealthy families…’
The education voucher: a proposal for excellence IEA 2020
But they take power away from Whitehall/local councils/the public sector so none of the main parties will adopt them as a policy.
You’ll have to vote for independent candidates….
The bureaucrats are much better placed, intellectually and morally, to know what I want to do than I am.
Time for another shout out to somebody I admire for being outspoken about the whole gender ideology circus and safeguarding of children, who has ‘lady balls’ ( defo not a penis ). Here’s Helen Joyce being followed by the rent-a-mob, shouting ”f*ck Helen Joyce” ( because tolerance must only be received, never given, evidently ), whom you can identify, if not by their excessively hostile manner, but by their facial accessories symbolic of their collective madness. The ill-mannered intellectually-challenged loons were actually protesting to free that misogynist, eunuch bloke in a dress who was sent down again, but not for saying ‘TERFs’ should be punched in the face, but they saw Helen and latched on to her.
”If women cannot stand in a public place and say ‘men cannot be women’ then we do not have women’s rights at all.”
https://twitter.com/MForstater/status/1701515723665736070
Off topic but friggin’ hell…talking of tolerance and hostility, the parents have obviously taught the kids here plenty of the latter and none of the former. What I find ironic is that I don’t even believe in anyone’s god or deity and I’m more tolerant of everybody’s religious beliefs ( excluding the radical Islamists, which goes without saying ) than those who are devout and do subscribe. I just walk past ‘manic street preachers’, or even the non-manic ones, and they don’t even register, but with others there’s obviously just all out aggression and intolerance, but I draw the line at teaching your kids that such ugly behaviour is acceptable. These adults should be ashamed to teach and encourage such hatred to their kids.
https://twitter.com/CensoredMen/status/1701410107714572556
Any person who is pregnant is a woman. It’s as simple as that. Anything else is insane.
We should be allowed to be respectful and kind towards trans people without having to believe nonsense which is insane.
It doesnt take much for anyone to see that this is lunacy. But here is the problem.
If you are on the board or management committee of an NHS trust and this report is brought to your attention, what are your options?
1. You can ignore it or dismiss it as the insane garbage it is and potentially face the wrath of a lobby drunk with power and hatred ready to gun you down. This could mean public humiliation, loss of job, destruction of your career, anything really.
2. You can adopt the recommendations and cover your arse in the knowledge that doing nothing can get you into serious trouble whereas the worst thing that can happen to you for implementing the recommendations is well, nothing at all. You can just claim you are trying to be inclusive.
The key question is how do we put an end to the witchunting, not just by woke activists but by the general population when an official males an honest mistake.
The case of the head.of the Spanish FA is a perfect example. How do we put an end to these orchestrated, directed mob lynchings.
If we can crack that nut we can put an end to the madness.
“when an official males an honest mistake” – slight Freudian slip there, given the subject.
Do they care that using medical terms can prevent people from accessing services. For example how many people who’s first language isn’t English don’t realise that they’re a person with a cervix and need to be routinely screened for cervical cancer. English is my first language but I haven’t got a clue if I will ever need a coloscopy or attend a coloscopy clinic, although I think it might refer to the colon so most people may need these services at some, but using the term might be offensive to people who’ve had a colostomy (should they be referred to as bag users?).
Exactly – in the examples above, what’s a “non carrying” parent? One who is unable to pick up the baby and tote it about the place? That’s what it means to me.
So 30% received “no care at all”, or claimed tor receive no care at all, during their pregnancy.
What proportion of women overall (sorry, birthing objects) receive no care? Without knowing this, the 30% statistic is meaningless.
And what are they claiming, that these trans people turned up at the midwife for the usual antenatal appointments, banging on the door for help, but were turned away because they are trans?? Or are they claiming that the atmosphere was too unwelcoming so they chose not to attend?
This is loosely related because it’s about the NHS.
I was at a family gathering the other day (Saturday 9th September) and a cousin of mine who is a trainee psychologist for the NHS told us that they’d received a memo or warning the other day.
something along the lines of – there are more people trying to suicide by eating cherry pits (which apparently give off cyanide fumes) so they should (if they suspect their patient of such) wear a surgical mask when giving therapy in person.
I’m obviously naturally sceptical but she was adamant that this could happen and that a mask would help.
Anyone here have any idea if it is possible? Would a mask help?
My wife is an ex-NHS Clinical Psychologist and was interested to hear your tale. In brief her response is as follows:
[1] I have no idea whether masks would protect against cyanide fumes but a brief search of the internet reveals that ingestion of cherry pits may lead to poisoning. There is no mention of these pits exuding cyanide fumes. If masks don’t protect against minute Covid-19 particles, it’s unlikely they will protect against cherry pit fumes.
[2] The idea that a psychologist would put on a mask to protect themselves from a suicidal patient is very troubling. It sounds both untherapeutic and unethical. One would hope that a psychologist would have taken the trouble to properly assess a patient for risk of suicide and have discussed intention and method/s before it got to the stage that they were actively attempting suicide in the psychologist’s consulting room. What would they do if the patient brought a rope into the room or a handful of pills and a bottle of whisky? What message does putting on a mask give to the patient? Presumably; “You are a threat to me and I am scared of you”. How is that going to help a patient who has come to believe their life isn’t worth living?
[2] ‘Safetyism’ is becoming a real problem in the NHS. The case of Lucy Letby shows how staff were more concerned about protecting their staff than their patients.
[3] As an author of a chapter in the book Cynical Therapies and co-author of a report on the infiltration of critical theory into UK psychology training courses (The Politicisation Of Clinical Psychology Training Courses In The UK) I would be interested to know which training institution your cousin is attending if you are prepared to share this information.
A Rainbow, used to be a fun thing to teach kids to draw ( which is also mentioned in Genesis) Now it’s a CULT CARTOON!
I have raised related matters with my local NHS Trust:
Firstly, in relation to a campaign called ‘#Call Me…’ ostensibly concerned with how patients wish to be referred to when in hospital. The campaign was based on one carried out by Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust following the mis-gendering of one patient by a consultant anaesthetist, and which was undertaken by a simple adminstrative ‘cost-neutral’ protocol being adopted. My local trust went ahead and spent £20,000+ for the making of two videos by an external supplier. Despite extensive correspondence with, staff, the executive and local governors, I am yet to discover what proportion of this money was funded by NHS England. Quite why the trust is being so coy about this remains a mystery.
Secondly, earlier this year I took part in the annual Equality and Diversity System (EDS) Audit as an assessor. EDS measures trusts’ performance “to review how well the NHS supports patients and their families form the nine protected characteristics” as set-out in the Equalities Act 2010. This experience was salutary: deadlines were missed throughout without any apparent concern from the Head of Patient Experience and her team; the administration and presentation of the scoring forms and evidence was full of basic errors and totally inadequate for the task. Evidence comprised predominantly of huge tracts of policy/best practice in the form of aspirational aims rather than evidence that they were demonstrably effective. The on-line briefing sessions revealed that no more than four people were involved in the assessment (amongst which I was the only non-staff/governor); indeed, one governor was ‘doubtful if it would result in any improvement in patient care’ i.e. that it was a completely pointless exercise. An FOI request to the trust suggested that at least 96 hours of staff time was spent on EDS 2022 which at a conservative estimate would be sufficient to fund a common surgery procedure such a knee or hip replacement. Not only was there any evidence of EDS2022 providing benefit to patients, but also I question the ethics of attempting to obtain feedback data from patients when they are sick or suffering from dementia or mental illness.