ED BALLS TALKING COMPLETE AND UTTER BALLS AS USUAL
Posted by Caledonian Jim in Daily Posts
In the UK the pathetically incompetent Secretary of State for Schools Ed Balls (pictured above), yesterday ordered a review to crack down on racism and right-wing British National Party (BNP) activity in schools as he called on the governing New Labour party to embark on the general election “fight of our lives”. Speaking to the Labour party conference in Brighton, Balls revealed 3 new policies including the plan for a review by former chief inspector of schools Maurice Smith to “keep racism and BNP activity out of all our schools”. It will consider whether to ban BNP members from becoming teachers. Ms Chris Keates (pictured below), general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said: “The NASUWT has campaigned tirelessly for a number of years to have the teachers’ contract changed to prevent BNP members from working as teachers. This announcement is a major step forward towards that goal. Previous secretaries of state have been sympathetic but now we have a clear commitment to take action on this issue. All right-minded people understand that an agenda of hatred, bigotry and intolerance has no place in education.”
Now as has been said on this blog before, Caledonian Comment has no truck with the BNP. But as I understand the current political situation in the UK, the BNP is a legal political party which has elected members at local and even european level. So how can it be right (or “right-minded”) in a democratic society to ban members of the BNP from working ? If teachers are teaching in an incorrect fashion, there are already policies and procedures in place to remove such teachers, regardless of their political views. Such a suggestion from Balls is the thin end of a very nasty wedge. Who next ? Communists ? Liberals ? Jews ? So Mr Balls and Ms Keates need to think again. Because in addition to the probability that such a restrictive move would be illegal and most certainly undemocratic, perhaps they need some consistency in their thinking. If their ambition is to ensure that “an agenda of hatred, bigotry and intolerance has no place in education”, perhaps they should turn their zealous attention to the growing number of Roman Catholic and Muslim faith schools filling kid’s heads with a load of rubbish before worrying about mythical BNP bogeymen. Or are their too many Roman Catholic and Muslim votes at stake to consider protecting children from being indoctrinated with THEIR medieval nonsense ?
It does seem that decrepit, delusional, depressed, despondent UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is finally starting to lose it big time. Already this week he’s been annoyed by questions about his health. And yesterday the PM became furious as he conducted a string of interviews, claiming he was not being allowed to talk about policy or give full answers to questions. At one point, Mr Brown tried to walk off at the end of a fiery exchange with SKY TV’s political editor Adam Boulton (pair pictured above). But the move descended into farce because he was still linked up to a microphone. A missed opportunity to induce apoplexy in Gordon - all Adam Boulton had to do was ask if the cables were his life support apparatus !
The UN’s chief weapons inspector Mr Mohamed El Baradei (pictured above), said yesterday that he had seen “no credible evidence” that the Islamic Republic of Iran is developing nuclear weapons, despite British intelligence allegations that an atomic weapons programme has been going on within Iran for at least 4 years. The claims and counter-claims came on the eve of a potentially decisive meeting in Geneva between diplomats from 6 world powers and an Iranian delegation about Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. But even if Mr El Baradei is right, Iran can’t afford to relax – no country in the Middle East is immune from invasion just because they DON’T have weapons of mass destruction.
Looking more like his old Spitting Image puppet than ever, Prince Philip (pictured above) has suggested that supermarkets have played a role in the disappearance of traditional village shops. ”Villages used to have to be more or less self-sufficient: they had a butcher, a baker, a shoemaker,” said Phil the Greek yesterday in an usual spurt of incisive social comment. He rambled on : “Now that has all gone because of the way retailing is concentrated in big centres and multi-stores.” In an interview with Shooting Times & Country Magazine (what else), the 88-year-old prince, who is known for blunt speaking, also questioned whether Britain can continue to allow the population to boom. Which all raises some interesting questions, like when was the last time he was in a traditional village shop – or a supermarket for that matter. As for his final point – well it would be completely counter to royal protocol to ask about his last time for THAT.
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