Fury as student teacher is reprimanded by university bosses

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MMU student told his course leader he was 'extremely concerned' about Batley

Batley Grammar teacher is under police protection after showing picture in class

MMU student said he worried about the 'cowardly response from the unions and other bodies connected to teaching' amid the row over the Batley teacher

By Henry Martin For Mailonline

Published: 13:22, 13 May 2021 | Updated: 16:44, 13 May 2021

A teacher trainee was hauled before a fitness to practise meeting after saying he 'would not hesitate' to use images of the Prophet Mohammed in a class - sparking a fierce backlash from freedom of speech advocates.

The Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) student had told his course leader he was 'extremely concerned' about the recent case of a teacher at Batley Grammar School who was suspended after he showed an image of the prophet to pupils.

The Batley, West Yorkshire teacher and his family are still under police protection, and the threat to their safety is judged as so severe that even their relatives do not know where they are now living, more than six weeks after fleeing their home.

The MMU student, who is set to complete his Postgraduate Certificate in Education course this summer, had written an email to his course leader on April 1 saying he worried about the 'cowardly response from the unions and other bodies connected to teaching', The Telegraph reports.

'I would like to know whether or not MMU is prepared to stand up for any student who finds themselves in a similar position,' he added, arguing that the protests which arose amid the row were a 'clear attempt to enforce a de facto blasphemy law on teachers and schools'.

'I would not hesitate to use drawings of any religious figure, including Mohammed, and I certainly will not bow to any pressure from protests, and I would like to think that my university will stand with me,' he said.

The course leader did not reply, but one month later the student was contacted by the head of the teacher education department demanding he attend a 'fitness to practise cause for concern meeting'.

The reaction has prompted fury as critics voiced their support for the trainee teacher.

The Free Speech Union said: 'It is absolutely ludicrous that a trainee teacher could be barred from teaching for supporting the Batley Grammar School teacher over the Mohammed cartoons.

'There is no blasphemy law in England, nor should there ever be again.'

Social media users agreed with the union's statement, with one saying: 'Where are all the teachers backing him up? Should be ashamed of themselves.'

Another said: '@GavinWilliamson I'm a teacher. The profession is being intimidated. The people in charge of education acquiesce to the demands of a religion.'

A third said: 'He should not be fighting to keep his job, this is a clear case of the tail wagging the dog. The people at the top need to stand up, grow a pair and tell everyone that they will not be cowed or intimidated in this way.'

The fitness meeting could result in a referral to a Fitness to Practise Panel following the MMU student's comments claiming he would be willing to show the picture of Mohammed in class, he was told.

The head of department told him it could be a breach of Teachers' Standards - which include upholding 'public trust in the profession'.

The concern 'specifically relates to the Prophet Mohammed' due to 'particular sensitivities' around drawings of him, the student was told.

The student teacher called the response 'ludicrous and humiliating'.

An MMU spokesman told MailOnline: 'Manchester Metropolitan University has always supported and championed freedom of speech. We provide an academic environment in which debate and the sharing of views is encouraged.

'However, there is a difference between the expectations on students within an academic environment on a University campus and the expectations once our students move into a professional practice environment, such as a primary school.

'We look at all cases on their individual merits and in knowledge of the full context around a particular issue, and then take a course of action that is relevant and most suitable to deal with that specific issue.

'In this instance, it was thought best to have an initial discussion with the student about the potential impact in a primary school environment of the suggestion that he would be happy to share imagery which would be upsetting to people of a particular faith.

'We believe the discussion with the student was positive and constructive and we await further feedback from him before deciding whether any further steps are required.'

It comes after the row over Batley deepened this month as Imam Adil Shahzad, who travelled to Batley from Bradford to join the protests, insisted he wants the teacher dismissed.

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Comment on Ryan Air & Belarus by Mark Birkett

DEAR ALL,

Frightening as it might have been, I think the Captain and First Officer should have refused point-blank to co-operate with the Belarus Airport police when they started offloading this innocent passenger. By the time they landed, the Ryanair crew knew that this bomb threat was a hoax. They also knew by then that Mr Protasevich was the intended target of this criminal hijacking. Therefore the flight crew had an absolute moral and legal duty of care here. At the absolute least, they should not have taken off again without him safely back onboard. Had the Ryanair crew refused to co-operate, this would have forced Lukashenko to back down. Not even he would have had the temerity to jail an entire international airline crew.

There is precedent for such a brave but necessary flight crew response. Back in 1986, there was an attempted hijack of a Pan Am 747 on the ground in Karachi. And it failed because the flight crew all realised what was happening and bailed out of the aircraft's emergency hatch in order to stop the hijack from going airborne. Ryanair's crew should have done the same. The Captain has an absolute responsibility to look after the safety of all his / her passengers - and from start to finish of the planned journey.

If this Lukashenko bastard can get away with this outrage, NO-ONE is safe. The Saudi regime have done similar when they killed the Washington Post journalist Jamal Kashoggi. The Rwandan government did the same when they abducted Paul Rusesabagina (of 'Hotel Rwanda' fame) and flew him to Kigali. And Putin got away with poisoning several people on British soil.

It's not often I'd venerate Margaret Thatcher. But I tell you this, she would not have put up with this sort of behaviour from a criminal gang without a significant military response. We have to learn to stop these bullies in language they understand. Closing their western bank accounts for half an hour - which is all our useless governments ever seem to threaten these days - is absolutely worthless.

Mark Birkett

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The outcome of the Batley investigation is a surrender of liberal principles

Posted: Thu, 27 May 2021 by Stephen Evans on the National Secular Society website

As an investigation into the Batley Grammar affair concludes, Stephen Evans says we should recognise the censorious precedent it has set.

Earlier this year a number of teachers were suspended after an image of the prophet Muhammad was used in a lesson to initiate a discussion about blasphemy at Batley Grammar School in West Yorkshire.

Pupils were forced out of school as angry protesters gathered at the gates demanding action against one of the teachers for 'offending' "the whole Muslim community". Some protesters accused him of stirring up anti-Muslim hatred.

The school's head teacher apologised "unequivocally" and sought to placate the protestors by saying the use of the image was "totally inappropriate". Meanwhile, one teacher and his family were forced into hiding after receiving threats.

An independent investigation launched by the academy trust behind the school has now concluded. It's found that the image was used for an "educational purpose" to benefit students and was not used with the intention of causing offence. The suspensions have been lifted – and rightly so.

Everyone's primary concern should be for the safety and wellbeing of the teacher at the centre of this and his family. We should hope they can now move on and rebuild their lives. I would be surprised if the teacher returns to the school.

But we should also recognise that the investigators have given the protesters what they craved by imposing a de facto blasphemy code on the school.

The executive summary of the investigation says: "It is not necessary for staff to use the material in question to deliver the learning outcomes on the subject of blasphemy; or any such images of the type used… in any trust RS lessons, or any other lessons."

Nobody claimed it was "necessary". But if you're teaching about blasphemy and freedom of expression, you may reasonably think the most effective way of exploring this subject involves using images that have caused controversy. You may also think that if you don't show them, pupils will look them up on the internet anyway, and the best environment for this learning is a teacher facilitated discussion. Teachers appreciate the diversity of their students and can foster civility to ensure students learn about sensitive topics in authentic, sensitive, engaging and meaningful ways.

On a fundamental point, the outcome of this investigation represents a capitulation to the mob. The reason this school and others won't use such resources again is not because they aren't educationally justified, but because they don't want to cause offence. Not because they aren't conducive to learning, but because of the threat of disruption and violence. This is how a de facto blasphemy law works.

Right from the start, the National Secular Society urged the government to take the lead on this issue. We warned that treating it as little more than a local dispute would leave the investigation more vulnerable to pressure from assertive, intolerant religious voices.

And that has now happened. The outcome of the investigation has been influenced by unreasonable religious demands and intimidation and threats from religious extremists.

In many ways, the trust's response is a clever fudge. It endeavours to conciliate between the various parties by offering them all something, while selling out on liberal, secularist principles. It says it's committed to "ensuring offence is not caused". This is a route to censorship that sets a very dangerous precedent.

And the outcome of this local investigation will inevitably affect teachers' ability to do their jobs across the country. One trainee teacher at Manchester Metropolitan University who expressed concern over the weak response to the Batley Grammar affair and said he would be willing to use images of religious figures in class has already been called to a 'fitness to practise' meeting.

Teachers have been given the message that they should censor themselves. And that message could be relevant on any other number of sensitive subjects where well-organised and vocal groups could take offence.

When the incident first happened the Department for Education said it was "never acceptable to threaten or intimidate teachers", adding that schools are "free to include a full range of issues, ideas and materials in their curriculum". With fundamental principles at stake, the government should now launch its own investigation into the handling of the affair and consider how we got ourselves into the position where religious extremists have a veto on which resources teachers can use in the classroom.

But instead the DfE has simply said "parents, families and the local community" should "recognise the findings of the investigation" and "welcome and support" the trust's plan to "strengthen its oversight of the curriculum".

Everyone will understandably want to move on from this now. But before we do, we should recognise that an Islamic blasphemy code has been quietly imposed. Teachers' and pupils' freedoms have been sacrificed to appease offence takers.

The outcome of the Batley affair is another damaging chip away at the fundamental right to free expression and inquiry.

Additional note - Friday 28 May

The NSS has today written to the DfE about this. The letter urged the department to investigate the handling of the protests outside Batley Grammar School.

It added that the investigation should consider the wider context of religious fundamentalism being imposed on schools through protests and intimidation, and ask what can be done to protect and support schools in such situations.

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Teacher cleared in Prophet Muhammad image row

A teacher who was suspended after showing children a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad can return to the classroom.

Protests were held outside Batley Grammar School after the teacher showed an image during a religious studies lesson in March.

An independent investigation found the teacher did not intend to cause offence by showing the image.

The school said it would offer more guidance and training for staff.

The image was shown on more than one occasion to students during lessons earlier this year, the investigation found.

In an executive summary of the report, the trust said teaching staff "genuinely believed that using the image had an educational purpose and benefit".

But the trust said it recognised that using the image did cause "deep offence" to a number of students, parents and members of the school community, adding that it "deeply regrets the distress" caused.

'Suspensions lifted'

A spokeswoman for the Batley Multi Academy Trust said the school would put the recommendations from the report "into practice immediately".

She added: "The findings are clear, that the teaching staff involved did not use the resource with the intention of causing offence, and that the topics covered by the lesson could have been effectively addressed in other ways.

"In the light of those conclusions, the suspensions put in place while the investigation was under way will now be lifted."

The National Education Union said it was "pleased the correct decision has been reached" following the lifting of the suspension.

A Department for Education spokesperson said parents, families and the local community should "welcome and support the trust's comprehensive plan to strengthen its oversight of the curriculum".

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Blasphemy must be issue in the Batley by-election

The candidates must stand up for the local teacher who has been hounded into hiding by Islamists.

by Paul Stott on the Spiked website 13th May 2021

How soon we forget. A schoolteacher and his young family are living away from their home in Batley, Yorkshire. It is entirely possible they are under armed guard. They have been in hiding for over six weeks after receiving threats from religious zealots. All because the teacher reportedly showed a cartoon of Muhammad in the course of his teaching.

The teacher is also under investigation by his employer, and he knows that the process is potentially stacked against him. The school’s headmaster has publicly criticised his actions, and the campaigners who demanded his sacking have requested to be part of the team conducting the inquiry. His trade union, the National Education Union, is known to have funded a local Islamic charity, Purpose of Life, which has circulated the teacher’s name and has even accused him of ‘terrorism’. Should the investigation fail to result in his dismissal, it will undoubtedly be denounced as a whitewash and an example of institutional ‘Islamophobia’. The mob will likely return to the schoolgates. The teachers and pupils of Batley Grammar School deserve better.

In last week’s local elections, the Labour MP for Batley and Spen, Tracy Brabin, was elected as the first mayor of West Yorkshire. While some MPs insist they can juggle serving as an MP and a mayor (such as Dan Jarvis, Labour MP for Barnsley Central and mayor of the Sheffield City Region), Brabin is expected to step down as an MP, triggering a by-election.

Batley and Spen is another traditionally Labour-voting Red Wall seat which is looking vulnerable to a Tory challenge. Labour’s majority in Batley and Spen fell from 8,691 in 2017 to 3,525 in 2019. The even-worse news for arch-Remainer Sir Keir Starmer is that Batley and Spen voted 59.3 per cent to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum.

Tracy Brabin won Batley and Spen in a by-election in October 2016, following the murder of the Labour incumbent, Jo Cox, by far-right terrorist Thomas Mair. He shouted ‘Britain first!’ while shooting and stabbing her. A passer-by, Bernard Kenny, was also stabbed. He received the George Medal for attempting to save Cox’s life. When a by-election was called to elect a new MP, the main parties did not contest it out of respect for Cox, allowing Labour a clear run.

The ugly threat of violence has since returned to Batley and Spen, and will surely hang over the 2021 by-election. This time the aggressors are not from the far right, but from an Islamist scene that has an even greater propensity for violence than Britain’s neo-Nazis. In 2016, the main parties stood as one against the violence of the far right. In this by-election, they again need to step up. Each candidate needs to declare loudly and clearly that what is happening at Batley Grammar is unacceptable.

In a liberal democracy, schoolteachers must be free to teach children about contentious issues. That includes showing caricatures and images that some find offensive. A core function of education is preparing children for the real world, not protecting them from it. Education policy cannot be surrendered to any mob that can get enough people together at the school gates. If education can be influenced like this, what is the point of holding by-elections, or of political parties developing policies, if we simply go along with whoever shouts the loudest?

The Batley Grammar School teacher needs to be able to return to his home and to his day job. Every candidate who stands in Batley needs to be asked how they will ensure this happens, and how this country can ensure such an outrage is never repeated again. Liberal democracy endured after an attack by a fascist in 2016. It should not roll over and accept defeat by Islamists in 2021.

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SPECTATOR: In praise of the Batley binmen

by Brendan O’Neill

If you need someone to support your right to freedom of speech, forget the teaching unions. Don’t look to the commentariat. And don’t even bother with the Labour party, many of whose younger, angrier members will often be found in the ranks of cancel-culture mobs calling for someone or other to be erased from polite society for having blasphemed against a trendy new orthodoxy.

No, it’s the binmen you want to turn to. It’s the nation’s fine refuse collectors who will back you up when your liberty to speak is being pummelled.

Consider the case of the Batley Grammar schoolteacher who was suspended for showing his pupils an image of Muhammad during a religious studies lesson. Alarmingly, that teacher is still in hiding, fearing for his life. He has received death threats simply for doing what all good teachers should do: challenge their students to consider difficult moral questions.

The supposedly liberal establishment behaved shamefully in response to the demonisation and harassment of the teacher. Batley Grammar itself, in the face of angry protests outside the school gates, suspended him. The school essentially ‘threw him under a bus’, the teacher’s family said.

The teaching unions stayed almost entirely schtum about the case for ages. ‘It would not be appropriate to make any further comment’ while the school is investigating the incident, said the National Education Union. Not appropriate for a teaching union to comment on the fact that a teacher had received threats to his life and is now, according to his father, ‘devastated and crushed’, an ‘emotional wreck’?

In which case, why do teaching unions even exist?

The political class wasn’t much better. Tracy Brabin, then the Labour MP for Batley, now the Mayor of West Yorkshire, praised the school for dealing swiftly with this incident that had caused so much ‘offence' and 'upset’. She essentially sided with the protesters who wanted a teacher punished for blasphemy — these days referred to as ‘offence' and 'upset’ — rather than with the teacher and his right to free expression.

But not everyone has turned their backs on this persecuted teacher. Enter the binmen of Bury. Shaming the intellectual elites, these workers have taken a principled stand on behalf of the teacher and his right to free speech in the classroom.

The Bury branch of Unite, which represents refuse collectors, has put forward a motion championing the Batley teacher. The emergency motion, submitted for consideration at the National Conference of Trade Union Councils in June, urges all unions to back the teacher.

The motion points out that England’s blasphemy laws were formally abolished more than a decade ago and insists there should be no ‘dogmatic restraints’ on our right to discuss religious matters, including Islamic matters.

The proponent of the motion is Brian Bamford, secretary of Tameside Trade Union Council and a retired electrician. He says:

‘This is a motion which has come in from binmen, from ordinary working people… Freedom of expression is very important. I don’t feel guilty in any way for taking a stand on this issue.’

Bamford says an NEU official contacted him and asked him to consider withdrawing the motion. Apparently the official told him the motion ‘risks inflaming what is an extremely sensitive and very complex situation’. An NEU spokesperson said: 'It is a sensitive issue and the NEU did ask for the motion to be withdrawn. With every viewpoint that is expressed our members face yet more public exposure.'

Got that? Binmen and other working-class union members want to express support for a teacher who has been hounded into hiding for a supposed speechcrime, and a teaching union official is reportedly saying to them, ‘Please don’t do this’. This is bonkers.

These binmen have shown us what true solidarity looks like. Their support for the Batley teacher is in keeping with the best traditions of working-class activism. They saw someone being harried and silenced merely for displaying a religious image and they’re not having it. More power to their elbow, and their motion.

They have also shown up what passes for the liberal establishment these days. Too many people in positions of power treat freedom of speech as a negotiable commodity rather than as a core principle of democratic life. Too many turn away — or nod along — as people are shunted out of polite society merely for criticising Islam, or asking questions about transgenderism, or making an un-PC joke. Get 12 weeks for £12

Plus a free bottle of Digby Fine English fizz

Many so-called liberals now consider the right not to be offended to be more important than the right to free expression. So when they saw that fuss outside Batley Grammar, they instinctively sided with the right of the protesters to glide through life without ever having their religious beliefs called into question, rather than with the right of a teacher in a pluralistic democracy to use his freedom of expression to challenge and enlighten his pupils.

Thankfully, there are still people, like those Bury binmen – and of course like the Free Speech Union – who understand that no one has the right not to be offended. Who understand that freedom of expression is more important than any individual’s feelings or any religion’s diktats? Binmen for Free Speech — it’s exactly the campaign we need right now.

Written by Brendan O’Neill

Brendan O’Neill is the editor of Spiked, the online magazine.

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TRIBUNE on Union Blacklisting Complicity

STATEMENT FROM BLACKLIST SUPPORT GROUP

When the campaign over blacklisting started, we concentrated our efforts on exposing the conspiracy by big business and the police. It was directors of multinational corporations who ran the notoriously anti-union Economic League and Consulting Association blacklists, in an operation that lasted five decades and involved a two-way sharing of intelligence about union activists between company executives and Britain’s most secretive political police units.

Over the past twelve years, the exposure of corporate and state wrongdoing has led to new legislation, a select committee investigation, record compensation and a public apology in the High Court, and a dedicated union strand in the ongoing public inquiry into undercover policing. The Blacklist Support Group acknowledge the important role played by the trade unions in our campaign for justice.

But there remains unfinished business. It was known from the very beginning that some blacklist documentation included entries where full-time union officials were recorded as the source of the information. blacklistMultiple files include the entry ‘EETPU says NO’, a fact so appalling that the select committee investigation even discussed it. Witness statements prepared by blacklisting managers for the High Court trial claim that some union officials provided them with information.

In his statement, Trevor Watcham—a former chairman of the Consulting Association—claims to have shared a table at an Economic League event with ‘Leon Brittan of the Conservative Party (who had been the main speaker) and Eric Hammond of the electricians’ union together with some members of his union executive’. Norman Tebbit’s recent revelations about secret meetings with the EETPU General Secretary only add to the growing pile of evidence that union collusion in blacklisting took place at the highest levels. This is totally unacceptable, and the union movement needs to face up to this unsavoury aspect of its past.

But this treachery did not occur in a vacuum. To understand why this happened it is necessary to appreciate the industrial relations context of the construction industry. For decades, the leadership of the construction unions adopted strategies that concentrated on winning favour with employers rather than mobilising supposedly ‘self-employed’ workers to take action.

In their hunt for members, the union bureaucracy made sweetheart deals with employers that abandoned the most basic principles of trade unionism. The right wing EETPU was expelled from the TUC following their support of Rupert Murdoch during the Wapping dispute that saw over 6,000 unionised print workers lose their jobs overnight. Branches that opposed the leadership were closed down and leading left-wing members repeatedly disciplined or expelled. As an aside, the Labour MP John Spellar was the Political Officer for EETPU throughout this period.

But it was not just EETPU: other construction unions also adopted overtly business friendly strategies. Bulk membership agreements — where a union official strikes a deal with a manager to pay a set amount of union subs each month without ever talking to the workers—might sound like gangster-style protection money to buy industrial peace, but they were common in the sector.

The phenomenon of appointed convenors, where a union regional secretary and a major employer would jointly agree on who the full-time union representative on a project should be, in the vast majority of cases without any election by the workforce, has existed for decades and continues to this day. Companies guilty of blacklisting union activists were often the most vocal in their support for appointed convenors, who became incorporated into corporate industrial relations and safety structures. The lack of democracy and potential for favouritism in the opaque appointment process is obvious and has no place in any union that claims to be member-led.

To be clear, it is not every union official in construction. Many are honest, value-driven trade unionists who have stood up for workers’ rights. But it is beyond doubt that over a fifty-year period, some general secretaries, some senior union officials, and some appointed convenors formed overly cosy relationships with employers.

Enjoying hospitality in pubs, restaurants, and hotels, or attending sporting events with industrial relations managers from blacklisting firms was viewed as acceptable practice. Press reports from the 1990s actually name UCATT and TGWU officials accused of taking bribes and other inducements from employers, including procurement of prostitutes.

A revolving door exists through which, upon leaving the union, officials regularly take up positions as industrial relations consultants working for the very construction firms they previously negotiated against. It is in this context that gossip about ‘troublesome’ left-wing union activists gets discussed – and appears on blacklist files.

While many cases may be ‘loose talk’ encouraged by alcohol, in some cases the collusion in blacklisting appears more premeditated. It was documentary evidence that forced blacklisted union members to write an open letter in 2016 calling for a fully independent investigation into potential collusion by union officials in blacklisting their own members. The letter states that ‘every union activist in construction knows who the named officials are, as does every major employer’, and describes potential collusion as an ‘open sore’ within Unite.

Branches flooded the Unite Executive Council with motions and in 2019 an independent QC led investigation to look into possible collusion was set up by Len McCluskey. Blacklist Support Group applauded the Unite independent investigation, encouraging anyone with documents or oral testimony that may be relevant to contact lawyers collating evidence.

Solicitors have travelled the country taking witness statements from blacklisted workers who have made serious allegations, including claims that some officials gave evidence at Employment Tribunals in support of the employers, rather than in support of sacked union members. And this is only the beginning, even more documentary evidence has been presented to the investigation by activists.

This includes Subject Access Request disclosures that show that a number of senior union officials were blind copying internal emails about union activists to third parties – including to industrial relations consultants working for blacklisting firms. Searches of Companies House database have discovered that some construction union officials were directors of consultancies providing services to the industry while they were employed by the union. This needs to be fully investigated at the very least.

Yet despite making good progress early on, the Unite investigation appears to have ground to a halt during Covid-19. Jane McNeill QC, the independent lawyer who will write the final report, has only just been formally appointed, and a full search of the Unite ICT system and the archives of predecessor unions has yet to take place. Everyone accepts that the unions and lawyers have been exceptionally busy during the pandemic. But if courts and public inquiries are operating, the investigation into possible collusion should also be able to continue.

The election for the next general secretary of Unite is now underway. The Blacklist Support Group calls upon every candidate to publicly pledge that the investigation into union collusion will continue under their watch, and that if any officials currently employed by the union are criticised in the final QC written report, that they will face appropriate disciplinary action.

The investigation into union collusion in blacklisting is a key battle in the long-term struggle over the very soul of trade unionism in construction. It begs the question: what kind of trade unionism do workers deserve?

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Binmen kick up a stink in aid of Batley teacher

by Camilla Turner, Daily Telegraph, Education Editor

When a teacher was suspended from his school after showing a picture of the Prophet Mohammed in class, he reportedly felt as though he had been “thrown under a bus”.

The National Education Union (NEU), was accused of failing to stand up for its own member after it did not immediately condemn the threats of violence and intimidation he faced in the wake of the row.

But now, the Batley Grammar School religious studies teacher has found unlikely support from a Bury branch of Unite, which largely represents binmen.

Brian Bamford, secretary of Tameside Trade Union Council, has submitted an emergency motion for the National Conference of Trade Union Councils in June to champion the cause of the suspended teacher.

The motion urges the NEU and all other unions to support the teacher and to publicly condemn those demanding his dismissal.

It notes that blasphemy laws were abolished more than a decade ago, and adds that “dogmatic restraints” should not be imposed on the religious education curriculum.

Mr Bamford is also secretary of Bury Unite commercial branch in the North West, which represents binmen across the borough, and the motion’s wording had to be approved by the branch committee before being passed up to the Tameside TUC which it is affiliated to.

"This is a motion which has come in from bin men, from ordinary working people," said Mr Bamford, a retired electrician who has been active in the trade union movement since the 1970s.

“As far as I can see, staying silent goes contrary to what we believe in at our branch, and especially in the trade congress.

“We are affiliated to the Orwell Society and freedom of expression is very important. I don’t feel guilty in any way for taking a stand on this issue.”

Mr Bamford claimed that an NEU official attempted to pressurise him into withdrawing the motion on the basis that it was “unhelpful” to draw further attention to the issue.

He said he was phoned by the official who asked him to "reconsider" the motion since it "risks inflaming what is an extremely sensitive and very complex situation" for members.

Mr Bamford was told that the NEU has an obligation to the “wider community in Batley" and that any further attention on the matter would "set back quite sensitive negotiations".

But he said he has no intention of abandoning the motion, adding that the school curriculum should not be “dictated by an indignant mob” who congregated outside Batley Grammar School just before the Easter break.

“We are troubled that a teacher can be suspended following protests about his teaching methods and use of materials,” Mr Bamford said.

“We are outraged that the teachers involved are being challenged for trying to broaden their students' horizons and encourage their critical thought.

“We don't believe that the determination of the use of teaching resources in a school should be influenced by people taking offence, and using intimidation and threats.”

Batley Grammar School sent pupils home early for the Easter holidays and issued an apology after a group of Muslims gathered at the gates to protest. The headmaster announced that the religious studies teacher had been suspended while the school looked into what happened.

The 29-year-old teacher and his family went into hiding after reportedly receiving death threats in the wake of the protests. The academy trust that runs Batley Grammar School announced at the end of March that it would carry out an “independent” investigation into the context in which the cartoon was shown.

A by-election has been triggered in Batley after Tracy Brabin stepped down as MP when she was elected as West Yorkshire's first metro mayor.

Ms Brabin, 60, replaced Jo Cox as Batley and Spen MP in a by-election in 2016 after Ms Cox was murdered by a far-right extremist. The seat will be seen as a key test for Labour after the party lost the Hartlepool by-election to the Conservatives earlier this month.

An NEU spokesperson said: "It is a sensitive issue and the NEU did ask for the motion to be withdrawn. With every viewpoint that is expressed our members face yet more public exposure."

They added that "speculation is unhelpful, not least for our members who the NEU are fully supporting throughout this investigation and will be doing so beyond the investigation".

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Welcome To Mushroom Town. by Les May

A FEW weeks ago I noticed that for one of our local councillors a link to the register of members’ interests was replaced by the words 'Not shown on website'. Why not I wondered; what’s the big secret?

Naïvely on 21 April 2021 I sent off an e-mail to the Chief Executive of Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council (RMBC) to find out more. It read; I note that Section 7 Securities: contains the words 'Not shown on website'. Could you please clarify whether this conforms to what is commonly known as 'Best Practice' which is usually taken to mean a standard way of complying with legal or ethical requirements? I assume that in the interests of open government RMBC would normally wish to be seen as implementing 'Best Practice'. If there is a reason for 'Best Practice' not being followed in this case could you please inform me of the reason?

No response was forthcoming and on 5 May I sent a reminder and repeated my queries. Still no response, so on 20 May I sent a second reminder which once more repeated my queries, but this time I included the words ‘Am I to conclude from this delay that some officers of Rochdale Council have become corrupted and no longer act in a non-political manner?’

And with the speed of Zeus there came a reply! ‘The entries not shown on the website are due to the items being considered as sensitive by the previous Monitoring Officer of the Council. Any requests for such information should be submitted via the freedom of information process.’

Now my understanding is that any request for information should be treated as a request for information governed by the FOI Act even if that term is not expressly used by the requestor, so perhaps the second sentence in the reply is not quite true. Perhaps it is even intended to act as a further obstruction to enquiring minds?

I had dealings with the previous Monitoring Officer of the Council in late 2018 and early 2019 after I submitted a query about why a newly elected councillor had failed to comply with the requirement that pecuniary and other interests be registered within a set time period. Shall we just say that I found him monumentally evasive when pressed?

But what, you may ask, could possibly be so ‘sensitive’ about a councillor’s entries in the register of interests that a council officer thought it necessary to put an obstruction in the path of anyone wanting to know what they are? Was it the councillor that thought up this wheeze to avoid scrutiny or did the Monitoring Officer dream it up all by himself? Or, perish the thought, perhaps they conspired to keep this councillor’s business activities away from the gaze of prying eyes of the electorate? We shall never know! After all, this is Rochdale!

One might have hoped that a councillor from one of the other two parties would have noticed this and queried it, seemingly not. Perhaps they are hoping that they too can avoid scrutiny when the need arises courtesy of a similarly compliant Monitoring Officer?

Sadly that’s how things are in my home town. If Rochdale isn’t a town where council related matters seem to be a bit dodgy at times, it’s certainly giving a good imitation of one. The motto seems to be ‘Let them vote every few years to give a semblance of democratic accountability and between times don’t let them know too much about what their councillors are getting up to’. You know what they say about mushrooms, keep them in the dark and at regular intervals cover them with … So Mushroom Town it is from now on!

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Who Is Targeting Muslims? by Les May

YESTERDAY I was sent an image of a leaflet which seemed to be aimed at Muslims. It was headed ‘Vaccine Warning’ and ‘Vaccines = Poison’ and included ‘They are attempting to dismantle your family, your culture and your faith’. The person who sent it to me raised the possibility that it originated with a Far Right organisation attempting to sow discord and dissuade Muslims from gaining the protection afforded by the available vaccines. This seems a reasonable possibility as it contains at least some untruths about matters which might weigh heavily with followers of Islam.

For example: the vaccine contains animal products (not true), the vaccine has been cultured using aborted fetal cells HEK293 cells (not true), the vaccine will change your DNA (not true), Imams and Sheikhs have either been bought, paid or bribed to push the vaccine (no evidence is provided and I am extremely doubtful that this is true).

As my wife and I have been fully vaccinated and now have some protection against becoming very ill if we are exposed to the virus which causes Covid 19 and would like others to have the same protection, irrespective of their faith or lack of it, I quote below part of a more detailed statement which can be found at:

https://www.anic.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/AFC-Coronavirus-COVID-19-Vaccine-Fatwa.pdf

The Australian Fatwa Council consulted with Muslim doctors and medical experts who specialise in the field of vaccines and viruses seeking clarity on the composition of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine and its effects. The following was the outcome; The Muslim doctors and medical experts scientifically confirmed that the vaccines (specifically: Pfizer and AstraZeneca) do not contain any prohibited substances or ingredients and that they have met the clinical standards of the TGA (at this stage Pfizer vaccine only. Astra Zeneca TGA application for approval is in progress and is also expected to be approved by the TGA quite soon), deeming them safe.

Based on what was conveyed by the trusted Muslim doctors and medical experts, the vaccine for the Coronavirus (COVID-19) is permissible according to the Islamic law as there is no known religious harm attributed to being vaccinated nor does it contain any forbidden substances. The vaccine will be considered necessary if there is any possible risk of harm to other humans due to non-vaccination.

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Government 'not interested enough' in Batley Grammar School Prophet Muhammad row, says NSS

The National Secular Society has accused the Dept. of Education of 'washing its hands' of the investigation

by Connor Teale YORKSHIRE LIVE

11:28, 4 MAY 2021

Government ministers have been urged to do more to ensure an investigation into the use of a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad by a teacher at Batley Grammar School is not "unduly influenced" by local imams.

The chief executive of the National Secular Society (NSS) has claimed the Department for Education (DfE) has "washed its hands" of the teacher who has been suspended following the row.

And officials at the DfE have also been accused of not doing enough to ensure the probe will examine whether the school was right to immediately suspend the teacher in question, reports The Telegraph.

To get the latest email updates from Examiner Live, click here .

Stephen Evans, chief executive of the NSS told The Telegraph: "This is a bit of a test case for how these things are handled, that’s why it is important.

"Here we have a teacher in fear of his life, in hiding and suspended from his job – yet there is nothing to indicate the materials were not handled correctly.

"We are concerned that the Department for Education doesn’t seem interested enough given that the outcome of this will have national implications. They have washed their hands of it."

Angry protestors descended on the school on Carlinghow Hill in March to demand the teacher responsible for showing the cartoon during a religious studies lesson be sacked.

The school's headteacher, Gary Kibble, issued an 'unequivocal apology' in the aftermath of the protests and announced the teacher in question had been suspended.

Reports suggested the teacher at the centre of the row went into hiding due to "fearing for his life".

The events prompted Batley Multi Academy Trust to appoint a panel, led by an independent barrister, to carry out an investigation into how the material came to be used in class. The probe is now underway.

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The Dept. of Education must show leadership when religious hardliners turn on schools

Posted: Thu, 06 May 2021 by Stephen Evans ON NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY WEBSITE

The start of an investigation into the Batley Grammar affair raises questions over the government's willingness to ensure assertive religious voices don't dictate what happens in classrooms, says Stephen Evans.

A few weeks ago, Batley Grammar School suspended a teacher who had showed a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad in a lesson, as protesters gathered outside its gates. The teacher was forced into hiding, and the case generated widespread publicity.

The school's priority seemed to be ensuring that loud voices in the local Muslim community weren't offended. This was also true of many public figures who took an interest in the case. Politicians and pressure groups lined up to denounce the use of a cartoon in a lesson. Often, they appeared more concerned about the use of a cartoon than the safety of a teacher and the prospect of mob rule dictating what could be taught in a school.

Now the academy trust behind the school has announced that an investigation has opened into the affair. This provides an opportunity to hear what happened in full, and to learn lessons. The trust has said the investigation will be led by an independent barrister with "significant education experience" and "no prior connection with the trust or any of its trustees or employees", which is encouraging.

However, the remit of the investigation may give cause for concern.

In a statement announcing the start of the inquiry, the trust said it would "examine how certain materials, which caused offence, came to be used" in the lesson. It didn't mention - at least explicitly - the school's treatment of the affected teacher. Are the offence-takers still framing the terms of the discussion?

The National Secular Society has sought clarification from both the trust and the Department for Education that the actions of the school are within the remit of the investigation. None has been forthcoming. The DfE simply said the specific terms of reference are a matter for the trust and investigator. This isn't good enough.

Fundamental principles are at stake. Cultural sensitivity can't be allowed to morph into censorship. Teachers must have the freedom to broaden pupils' horizons and encourage them to think critically. We can't allow decisions about the appropriateness of teaching resources to be influenced by offence taking, intimidation and threats.

The outcome of this investigation will have national implications. This episode has already sent a damaging message on teachers' ability to encourage critical thinking on culturally sensitive issues.

That could easily be forgotten if this is seen as a purely local issue, to be negotiated between assertive imams - who claim to speak for Muslims as a whole – and the individual school or trust.

So the government needs to show some leadership. But the Department for Education doesn't seem interested.

The trust has a legitimate interest in finding out what happened and taking recommendations. But it's also in the public interest to ensure the actions of the school are investigated. Feeling the heat from angry protests outside the school gates, the school issued an 'unequivocal apology' to the offended, deemed the resources to be 'completely inappropriate' and threw its teacher under the bus. If we take this imam's words at face value, the school even gave the protestors a role in drafting its statement. We need to know why this happened.

It's worth considering that a thorough investigation of the Batley affair may raise awkward questions for the government. The Batley affair is reminiscent of events at St Stephen's Primary School in east London in 2018. Then the school decided that girls under eight shouldn't wear hijabs in school, and young children shouldn't fast during Ramadan, on the basis that it was detrimental to their health and learning. Muslim pressure groups such as MEND and the Muslim Council of Britain became involved and the school was bombarded with emails in response, with some abusing and threatening violence against staff. The school was effectively forced to back down.

The Department for Education failed to support the school and said nothing on the row.

Arif Qawi, who was forced to quit as chair of governors following the affair, said he was "flabbergasted" at the DfE's silence. He wrote to the then education secretary Damian Hinds, pleading for help, saying that he and the school's head teacher Neena Lall had been "victims of absolutely vile personal abuse on social media platforms".

"This lack of support and weak attitude will be very detrimental to the nation's children," he said.

The DfE was also slow to respond when Muslim-led protesters objected to teaching about relationships and caused substantial disruption for primary schools in Birmingham in 2019. And when it issued guidance on relationships and sex education that year, it required schools to "take children's religious background into account" in their teaching.

We need to be sure that extremist elements within our communities are not impeding teachers' freedom and ability to prepare all pupils equally for life in modern Britain.

When protesters turn up outside the school gates and initiate harassment campaigns, schools shouldn't be left to fend for themselves. That leaves them at the mercy of the mobs and vulnerable to pressure from assertive, intolerant religious voices.

At least in Batley, the DfE issued a statement saying it was "never acceptable to threaten or intimidate teachers" and "schools are free to include a full range of issues, ideas and materials in their curriculum, including where they are challenging or controversial".

But condemnation only goes so far. The government has broader shoulders than any individual school or academy trust. So if ministers really want to uphold those principles, they should start by ensuring – if nobody else will – that an investigation considers the Batley episode in full.

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Hamas And A Hook Nose Dummy by Les May

AS soon as the first rocket was fired into Israel by Hamas it handed Netanyahu his ‘get out of jail card’. ‘Honest Joe’ could say ‘Israel has a right to defend itself’, talk grandly about a ‘negotiated settlement’ and then when the carnage stops declare the US is back in the Middle East showing how different he is from Trump. Though not different enough to think twice about continuing the ten year long agreement signed in 2016 which sends Israel $3.3 billion in military aid and $500 million for missile defence systems each year.

Meanwhile his Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, can mouth his platitudes, preceded by the obligatory ‘Israel has a right to defend itself’, while Israel calmly announces to the world it is going to bomb two schools and justifies its bombing campaign against civilian targets by claiming the buildings stand above a tunnel system used by Hamas. A claim that no-one can verify and if untrue would mean the bombing is a war crime.

And then some genius in the UK decided what a good idea it would be to hand out yet another ‘get out of jail card’. This time it was to our home grown apologists who respond to every denunciation of Israel’s attacks on Palestinians and the theft of their land, by claiming it is just another example of anti-semitism. Quite why anyone would think that a huge dummy seemingly depicting Israel as a hook nosed Jew, with sinister features and horns, had any place at a demonstration supporting the Palestinians, is beyond me. It comes as no surprise to read an attempt being made to link Jeremy Corbyn with this, though the only placards visible carry the imprint of Socialist Worker. With people like this as ‘friends’ the Palestinians will never have a shortage of enemies.

You can find the image of the ‘demo’ at:

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/05/16/the-lefts-shameful-silence-on-anti-semitism/

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NSS comment on iinvestigation into Batley Grammar School

THE National Secular Society chief executive Stephen Evans welcomed the support being provided to protect the safety and wellbeing of the teacher, and the appointment of an independent barrister, but has raised questions over the remit of the investigation.

He added: "For any investigation to inspire confidence, it must consider the school's handling of this affair and its treatment of the teacher – impartially and in full.

"It must also bear in mind the importance of upholding fundamental principles. Cultural sensitivity can't be allowed to morph into censorship. Teachers must have the freedom to broaden pupils' horizons and encourage them to think critically. Decisions about the appropriateness of teaching resources shouldn't be influenced by intimidation and threats.

"This affair has caused a great deal of disruption, turmoil and distress, and should be a reminder of the harm that can be done when society fails to stand up to religious bullying."

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NEU: An Apology For A Union by Les May

FIRST a declaration of interests:

I spent 44 of my 49 years of working life in education; twenty five of them in secondary schools, hence my interest in the action, or more correctly, the inaction, of the National Education Union (NEU) in defending the teachers at Batley Grammar School.

The National Education Union (NEU) is determined to avoid any scrutiny by the media of what is actually happening at the school by claiming that the matter is close to being resolved. Not only is scrutiny by the media unwelcome but the NEU is keeping its own members in the dark, members who pay their union subscriptions in the hope that if their livelihood and well being come under attack for any reason connected with their employment, the union will defend them.

The events which have led to one teacher going into hiding in fear of his life took place on 22 March. A group of parents demanding that he be sacked and they be allowed to determine the contents of the Religious Studies curriculum began to demonstrate in the days following as was widely reported at the time.

The May/June 2021 edition of ‘educate’ the magazine published bimonthly by the NEU contains a four page report of the online annual conference held between 7 and 9 April including a short 150 word piece which uses the words ‘free speech’ no less than four times, but no mention of the goings on at Batley Grammar School, though there was plenty of time for a piece to be included and members informed of the union’s stance.

Donald Trump was widely attacked in the media by those who uphold basic democratic values for his unwillingness to condemn those who peddle extremist philosophies. When it comes to making an unequivocal statement utterly condemning the behaviour of those who have brought about this threat to the life of one of the teachers concerned and who continue to try to dictate to our society what should be taught in our schools, the NEU has shown itself to be an abject failure and an apology for a union. Insisting that those of us who are not followers of Islam should be forced to follow any of its precepts is an extremist philosophy. It is not ‘Islamophobic’ to say so and it is time NEU said so.

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Labour’s Scottish Problem. by Les May

IN the early 1970s I worked on an island in the Outer Hebrides. The people who lived there were not the ‘Industrial Proletariat’ so beloved by those of a romantic turn of mind, but small scale ‘entrepreneurs’ who made their living working on their family ‘croft’ and organised into ‘townships’ which annually allocated to each crofter strips of Machair land on which was grown a mixture of rye and black-oats which was cut in late summer to provide winter forage for a few cattle. With sheep summered on the poorer land on the east of the island and wintered on the land close to the house which had been used for hay in summer it provided a living, but not a very luxurious one. My two closest neighbours lived in two room, single story houses with a roof of thatch made from Marram Grass. One had carpets laid on the bare earth floor. Both got water from a tap outside their house

I’ve been back a few times since and, as well as paying my respects at the graves of some of the people I knew, I’ve seen the much greater prosperity enjoyed by the Islanders. The single track road with passing places has gone, there’s a causeway linking six of the islands, there are jobs for women and the two room thatched houses are museum pieces. No wonder Scots voted to stay in the EU. (Incidentally you will see the same improved infra-structure on the islands of Madeira and Tenerife.)

At the time the Scottish Nationalists were described as ‘Tartan Tories’ and the constituency returned a Labour MP. Now it returns both a Scottish Nationalist MSP to Holyrood and an MP to London . The SNP has morphed into, what is in many respects, a social democratic party. Is it possible that Labour and the SNP are fighting over much the same political territory in Scotland, and the SNP is winning? Perhaps Labour should start asking why the SNP has been so successful at invading its territory in Scotland.

Is it possible that the SNP is drawing significant support not for enthusiasm for a ‘go it alone Scotland’, but for the party’s domestic policies? Tory governments in particular have tried to force on Scotland domestic policies which have been less than popular over the border, e.g. water privatisation and the introduction of the Poll Tax a year before it was forced on England. Repeated attempts were made by the Tories to find a way of privatising Caledonian MacBrayne, the ferry service which serves as a lifeline to 22 Scottish Islands. It is now a subsidiary of holding company owned by the Scottish Government.

Social care is funded differently in Scotland than in England. If you think that’s because we English are paying for it, think again. All governments have a limited amount of money to spend; Holyrood just makes choices which are different to those made in London. That does not mean everything is rosy over the border, education and health are areas which have drawn criticism.

At some time in the not too distant future Labour is going to have to confront the fact that the Scottish Parliament may vote to hold a second referendum on independence. It has a choice, it can fly the ‘Union’ flag along with the Tories and oppose a second vote or it can support it and risk there being a ‘Yes’ vote, Scotland becoming independent and no more Scottish MPs in the House of Commons which would effectively seal a succession of Tory government for the rest of time.

Johnson is a chancer. At present he is doing all he can to bypass the Scottish Parliament by means of a veto on its scope for action and by taking on powers which rightly belong with the Scots. The signs are that he is hoping that he can block a second referendum by legal means. He may think this will ‘save the Union’, but if he does he will kill it because it will no longer be a union by consent.

It has been estimated that about a third of Scots actively support independence, a third actively oppose it and the remainder are more ambivalent. Even if these estimates are not very close to the true figures it does suggest that there is some scope for persuading more of the electorate to vote to remain part of the UK. That persuading can only be done by Labour, if only for the selfish reason I alluded to above.

It was a Labour government that in 1998 introduced the Scotland Act which led to the setting up of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Why then is Labour apparently doing so little to oppose Johnson’s power grab? By doing little or nothing it risks being tarred with the same brush as the Tories in the minds of the Scottish electorate. Labour could work with SNP MPs in the House of Commons to form a government. Without the Union and the Scottish MPs it brings there seems to me little chance that we will ever have anything but a succession of Tory governments.

Nicola Sturgeon is a demonstrably competent woman which suggests she is no fool. She must be aware that an ‘independent’ Scotland will face all sorts of difficulties; a long land border with England and the question of what currency it would adopt are just two obvious ones. There’s also the fact that much though she may say she wants to be part of the EU, it’s not a ‘done deal’ and its an aspiration for the future. Perhaps a greater degree of independence within the Union could begin to look a more attractive option. There’s an opening for Labour there.

https://theferret.scot/scottish-water-public-ownership/

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Mini-umbrella companies set up to avoid tax

by Ruby Flanagan

Reporter, Accountancy Daily

10 May 2021

Around 48,000 mini-umbrella companies (MUC) have been created in the past five years in a bid to reduce the tax and national insurance contributions (NIC) paid by recruitment agencies

A BBC investigation by radio programme File on 4 found that that more than 40,000 people in the Philippines had been recruited to front British companies that would then employ staff as subcontractors for employers including G4S and NHS Covid-19 test centres.

The investigation discovered that people were being recruited through Facebook and word of mouth, with the only qualifications to get the job being access to an internet connection, a mobile phone number, an email address and an ID document.

The BBC investigation found that the mini-umbrella companies tended to incorporate in the UK with a British director, who would then resign after a short period of time with a Filipino director appointed in their place. One example in the investigation was a contractor working for G4S at a Covid-19 testing site who gained the job through an agency called HR Go Recruitment. His payslip stated that he was not being paid by G4S but another company that was only a few weeks old with a director based in the Philippines.

The mini-umbrella companies can claim the government’s employment allowance, which offers an annual discount of £4,000 per company on national insurance contributions (NICs) as an incentive to take on more workers. Without this, the employer would pay 13.8% in NICs on employee earnings if they earned more than £170 per week.

Mini-umbrella companies split up a temporary workforce into hundreds of small limited companies, with the sole purpose of enabling the fraud. There are usually promoter businesses who facilitate the fraud and will link other companies to the operation to create intricate layers.

An HMRC spokesperson said: ‘Our Fraud Investigation Service is using its civil and criminal powers to challenge those who are involved and facilitating the MUC fraud, including recently deregistering more than 22,000 MUCs who we believe are exploiting the VAT Flat Rate Scheme and removing their access to the Employment Allowance.

‘We have also made a number of arrests in relation to MUC fraud and also taken steps to recover input tax in cases where it has established that a business in the supply chain knew, or should have known, that there was fraud.’

Some of the hallmarks of MUC fraud include unusual company names, unrelated business activity descriptions on Companies House, foreign nationals listed as directors, unusually high turnover of workers, and short periods of being established. HMRC is also working closely with government departments and trade bodies to increase awareness of the risks involved with engaging with a mini-umbrella company fraud model.

Andy Sanford, a partner at Blick Rothenberg, said: ‘Increased complexity in the UK's tax system allows people to take advantage of these incentives and this needs to be addressed urgently or others will do this too.

‘Companies House and HMRC need to work more closely and put in place electronic flags and AI systems to make sure this does not happen again.

‘Additionally, as the companies are so small, there is very limited information at Companies House on these companies as they take advantage of the micro-entity accounts regime which means that they produce negligible financial information. Companies House are consulting on abolishing this regime, and this may well be one reasons why they are doing so.’

Others warned employees to check out agencies before signing up for work as they are liable for tax regardless of their work status.

Dave Chaplin, CEO of contracting authority ContractorCalculator, said: ‘These types of dodgy umbrella schemes have been running for years, yet HMRC has been unable to shut them down.

‘Recently we have seen malpractice by umbrellas and agencies who ask contractors to indemnify the entire supply chain against tax loss before using their umbrella in conjunction with a non-disclosure agreement. They might as well say ‘if we don’t pay the taxman properly, you will owe them the money, and by the way, you can’t tell anyone what happened’. And these firms are supposedly their employers.

‘The simplest option if operating inside IR35 is to go on the company or agency payroll. I would urge anyone who uses an umbrella scheme to make sure you understand how they are supposed to work, and don’t work for one unless you do.’

In December 2020, HMRC warned against the potential dangers of MUC fraud, urging businesses to do their due diligence on their supply chains to ensure agencies were conducting their tax affairs properly.

Both G4S and HR GO Recruitment told the BBC investigation that their payments were in line with HMRC requirements.

Book by Dave Douglass on end of Coal Mining?

'Coal, Climate Change & The Total Destruction of the British Coal Mining Industry'

David John Douglass

Proud to announce the book will be out next week, easiest to order it from me, e-mail: douglassdavid705@gmail.com, £15 post paid, send me your address, or Friend me on Facebook we can communicate on messenger or whatever. Its important before we all get swept away in a flood of terror and misinformation that the argument for clean coal, and a calm assessment of climate change is heard. Boris’s ‘green deal’ will bankrupt the country and dive down the living standards of the working class on an unprecedented scale. Time to read an alternative view.

Took delivery today of my book Coal, Climate Change and the Total Destruction of the British Mining Industry, so I thought Id inform my friends in case they want to order a signed (or unsigned) copy. £15 post paid, either a cheque made out to Mining Communities Advice Service, co 193 Osborne Ave South Shields NE333BY Tyne and Wear, or bank transfer, will send you those details if you order, ta

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Making sense of the elections by Brian Bamford

IN THIS weekend's editorial in the Financial Times the editor writes:

'An old rule of politics is that British governments tend to lose midterm by-elections. That makes the resounding defeat of Labour in the centre-left stronghold of Hartlepool by the Conservative party in power for 11 years all the more extraordidary... Extrapolating too much from a town that is the 10th most economically deprived and one of the most pro-Brexit in England is unwise. Yet coupled with the early signs that Labour lost ground to the Tories in council votes too, Thursday's elections in England have provided a boost to the government - and left the oppostion searching questions.'

One thing that is odd in this context is that while in the North Boris Johnson is so popular in places like Hartlepool in the North East and yet he is almost persona non-grata north of the border in Scotland. I know an anarcho-syndicalist retired miner from the North East who voted Tory at the last General Election because of his support for Brexit. Yet in Scotland there are reports that some Tories voted tactically for Labour to try to keep the SNP out.

The 'i' newspaper had an article by its political editor, Nigel Morris, titled 'Labour in turmoil: "shattering" results plunge party into crisis' arguing 'The poor showing reopened wounds within Labour ranks as the party as the left blamed Sir Keir's lack of policy direction for its slump in support, while leadership loyalists said the party was still suffering an overhang from Jeremy Corbyn's time in charge.'

The Labour Party last 'Super Thursday' seemed to lack a serious strategy depending on sneers about sleeze and the claims about a 'chumochracy'; this led John McDonnell to write a post-election column in the 'i' entitled 'No wonder we lost: there was a vacuum instead of a vision'.

The FT editorial I referred to earlier suggests:

'Confounding Labour's urgings that it is time for a change after a decade of Toryism, many voters perceive this as a new government. Johnson has not just disassociated himself from the Cameron and May admisitrations but the Thatcherite past ....[and] has shifted Tory politics away from its former devotion to the free market.'

The conclusion is that there has been demographic shifts in politics and not just in England, Scotland, and elsewhere in the UK. Currently the expections of the centre-left in Germany now depend on the Greens more than the Social Democrats. Some like Boris Johnson are managing to combine right-wing popularism with the offer of more public spending. In this way the Johnson government appears to offer a breach with the past. We'll just have to wait and see how this plays out in the long term.

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Dedicated Follower Of Fashion by Les May

I STARTED reading the then Manchester Guardian in 1960 when I started work and for the first time had the money to buy it. For forty or so years, during which it changed dropped the Manchester bit, I was a loyal reader, but somewhere around 2000 I finally tired of its increasingly uncritical feminism and stopped buying it.

The final straw was an article about a couple of women who claimed to have ‘taken on’ the builders. It turned out that one was an academic and the other a student and they had worked on a site for all of a fortnight in the middle of summer. In other words not exactly a lifetime working outside in the middle of winter. More like a fortnight in the sun and then back to a nice warm office or lecture theatre for the cold wet weather.

Though Suzanne Moore, with her ever so predictable man bashing columns, has never been one of my favourite journalists, but I certainly warmed to her comments; ‘the cult of righteousness that the Guardian embodies’ and ‘lately it has been hard to define what the Left consists of beyond smug affirmation’ in a piece entitled Why I had to leave The Guardian.

Moore had written an article which, as well as being in her usual man bashing style, complete with references to ‘the patriarchy’ and ‘who the real enemies are’ (a.k.a. Men), included the comment that some women ‘were uncomfortable with people being able to self-declare as a man or a woman – whatever their biological sex – for all sorts of reasons.’. It also referred to the ‘disinviting’ of Selina Todd, a professor of modern history at the University of Oxford, who was due to give a polite two-minute speech of thanks at an event at Exeter College, on the grounds that she had addressed a meeting of the group Woman’s Place UK, which was formed in 2017 after proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act.

This was too much for the sensitive souls at The Guardian and 338 of them took exception to it in a letter to the editor.

So long as the fashion amongst those who like to call themselves ‘of the Left’ was that women, however privileged, were to be seen as the most oppressed creatures in the world, Moore was never short of a market for her wares. But then being ‘trans’ knocked women off the top spot and suddenly Moore found some of her views were unfashionable. Hence the letter.

A friend recently suggested that Labour’s poor showing in the recent election might be because working people had no time for the world of identity politics which has become the go-to issue for many would be activists on the Left. Is it just coincidence that when they were Labour leadership candidates Lisa Nandy and Rebecca Long-Bailey signed up to a pledge put together by the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights? Perhaps working people just have different priorities.

You can find Moore’s original article here:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/commentisfree/2020/mar/02/women-must-have-the-right-to-organise-we-will-not-be-silenced

And her version of the spat at The Guardian here:

https://unherd.com/2020/11/why-i-had-to-leave-the-guardian

For a quite different take on The Guardian look here;

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/05/05/the-ugly-truth-about-the-guardian/

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Salvaging something in the Wreckage. by Les May

THERE’s an understatement!

Last Thursday was not a good day for Labour. I’ve heard three explanations so far; Mandleson ‘It was a hangover of Jeremy Corbyn’, Starmer ‘We lost the trust of working people’, my wife ‘Labour should have focussed on Tory stinginess towards the NHS workers’.

I have a different view. My guess is that what scuppered Labour under Starmer is what scuppered Labour under Corbyn. It’s called Brexit. The people who wanted it in 2019 still want it in 2021. They associate the Tories with Brexit, Labour with being at best lukewarm about it and at worst against it. Whether its downside will have become apparent by 2024 or 2029 is unknown. Perhaps the older Brexiteers will have fallen off their perch or the young ones begun to wonder what all the fuss was about. For the moment Labour is stuck with Starmer and we are all stuck with Boris.

So what can be salvaged. Starmer is probably feeling safe for the moment because the rest of the front bench is so unprepossessing. It’s just possible that Starmer will come to realise that eventually he has to reconnect with those supporters who gave the Labour party a distinct ‘buzz’ under Corbyn and are now leaving or just drifting away from it, though I doubt it. Many of these will be the people who went out ‘on the knocker’ at election time to drum up support from Labour. They won’t be doing that in 2024.

And what about chancer in chief Boris? As we are stuck with the Tories for at least three more years what can we make of this? Curiously enough the results may have an upside. Remember all those particularly nasty sounding Tories who had such a lot to say during the Brexit debate? Remember how Boris had to find a new Chancellor who was more amenable to spending money to fund furlough during the pandemic? Waiting in the wings are a lot of ‘small state’, low public spending zealots. For the moment at least they are unlikely to be able to eject Boris.

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Len McCluskey says he hopes Sir Keir Starmer “learns the correct lessons”

General Secretary of Unite the Union Len McCluskey, has said he hopes Sir Keir Starmer “learns the correct lessons” from Labour’s defeat in the Hartlepool by-election.

“He was elected a year ago on a radical programme, some said a Corbyn-esque programme; he said he wanted to make the moral case for socialism; he wanted a united party - unfortunately he’s failed in all of those areas.

"Hartlepool is the manifestation of it - people don’t know what his vision is. People don’t know what Labour stand for anymore.”

Speaking on Political Thinking on BBC Radio Four, Mr McCluskey told Nick Robinson he no longer spoke to the Labour leader.

“Unfortunately when either side actually don’t deliver the deal and say there wasn’t a deal, trust breaks down, and that’s what happened with me and Keir.

But he added: “Obviously if he rang me I would speak to him. I don’t want to be nasty to anybody."

"But the truth of the matter at the moment is unless he presses that reset button, unless he goes back to making the moral case for socialism, unless he starts talking about the radical alternative for ordinary working people then I’m afraid we’ll find ourselves in this continuous downward decline.”

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Rats And Lawyers. by Les May

QUESTION: What’s the difference between a rat dead in the road and a lawyer dead in the road? Answer: There are skid marks in front of the rat. Not a very nice joke, but a reminder that not every member of the legal profession always has the best interests of humanity at heart.

It appears that the largest supplier of textbooks to UK schools, the publisher Pearson, is halting further distribution of two books about the Israel/Palestine conflict published in 2020. The books concerned are not the original versions which were published in 2016 and 2017 and previously available to schools and others. The original text had been amended after a complaint from a group called UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI). The amendments were extensive amounting to more than 650 changes or more than three per page.

A description of the process by which these two books were altered is given in a statement issued by the British Board of Jewish Deputies last September. It reads a follows:

After initial constructive conversations with Pearson, the Board of Deputies worked together with UKLFI [UK Lawyers for Israel] to produce thorough comments on both textbooks, which Pearson have received and acted upon. After detailed and lengthy process over a number of months, the books have now been published for students to use in the 2020-1 academic year. Board of Deputies of British Jews President Marie van der Zyl said: "We applaud Pearson for their openness to constructive feedback and willingness to revise these textbooks. We are pleased with the final material which gives a balanced and accurate portrayal of the Middle East conflict. I would like to pay specific tribute and thanks to UKLFI for their hard work on this project and their collaborative effort with us to get these textbooks to where they needed to be.”

The decision of the publishers to pause further distribution of the altered version came in response to an eight-page report by Middle East specialists Professors John Chalcraft and James Dickins, which found hundreds of changes to the textbooks overwhelmingly favouring an Israeli narrative and removing or replacing passages that support Palestinian narratives.

Below is an extract which forms the last two paragraphs of that report.

The revisions have changed the presentation of the facts in ways which bolster pro-Israeli narratives, and make pro-Palestinian narratives less credible. Explanations of the events recorded have also been treated in a selective manner, with potentially pro- Palestinian interpretations removed, and pro-Israeli interpretations augmented. The revisions exhibit troubling double-standards at a very basic level: potentially unjust Israeli actions are dealt with in the language of perception and controversy, while potentially unjust Palestinian actions are dealt with in the language of fact and objective certainty. The revisions also offer distorted definitions of key terms, such as Jewish ‘settlers’, and mislead students about matters on which there is a wide consensus, such as international law. The revisions direct students towards activities and interpretations that favour and explore a pro-Israeli narrative.

In sum, we have found the process to have been biased and the outcome misleading. The outcome is two textbooks that distort the historical record, failing to offer students a balanced view of the conflict. These books, we conclude, are not fit for purpose. School children should not be supplied with propaganda under the guise of education.

What we have here is an organisation of lawyers advocating for a foreign country. We also have the Board of Deputies, which does not represent all the Jewish people in the UK, trying to determine what is taught in our schools. This is just as reprehensible as the actions of those Muslims who are trying to do the same at Batley Grammar School. It also gives further credibility to those who believe that the motivation of those attacking Jeremy Corbyn were motivated not by concerns about anti-semitism, but by a desire to remove someone who was an advocate for the Palestinians.

You can find the full text of the report from which two short extracts are given above at:

http://www.bricup.org.uk/documents/GCSE_textbooks.pdf

There is a more detailed discussion at:

https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/textbooks-altered-line-by-line-at-uk-lawyers-for-israels-behest/

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'With Banners Held High' ends in Green Mush!

by Dave Douglass

WITH Banners Held High over the few years of its existence has been an increasingly contradictory event. At first it had a strong focus on the Miners and the NUM and the struggles of the mining communities. Miners’ banners predominated. Miners and their families turned out to celebrate our identity and heritage and use it as an excuse for a canny drink and meet old comrades. Alongside this came the ‘left’ which had over the last couple of decades become more and more infused with a middle class largely southern based liberal agenda, the Identity Politics obsession, and an adoption of the politics of climate alarmism. Climate hysteria for those who are rapidly consumed by it until it becomes an unchallengeable article of faith, simply assume their acceptance of the whole panic and ‘emergency’ agenda is commonly accepted, it isn’t of course. The political demands of Climate Extinction and the Green Party, Green Peace etc confront the very idea of an industrial proletariat, traditional British industry is fighting for life against a war of extermination. That Yorkshire and Humberside TUC have gone over wholesale to their politics and changed the Banners platform into a carnival of green mush and anti-industry propaganda. So, we found in previous years while miners banners and miners proclaimed the fight against pit closures in defence of coal, coal does not dole, and the whole pro mining struggles of the period 83-93 and down to the last three mines. At the same time stalls at the event everywhere called for an end to coal, and much of industry.

This current proposed event marks really an end to the miners connection and its wholesale adaptation to the politics of ‘Climate Emergency’. Where in this ‘virtual event’, which one presumes will be a zoom rally, is the case for coal? Where are the speakers to DEBATE and CHALLENGE the assumption of ‘Climate Emergency’ the degree of ‘Man Made Climate Change’ against an ongoing natural process? Where are speakers from NUM or UNITE to talk in defence of Steel, and coal which is vital to make it? Where are the speakers from the Cement industry who rely on coal for cement and concrete the building industry, including Turbine installation? Where are speakers on the absolute necessity of coal and steel for Boris’s ‘Green Deal’ or Labour’s version of it? Nobody from the NUM invited to speak on the struggle to develop our new mine in Whitehaven, bringing with it 2500 new jobs, and the prospect of mining our own coal again and supplying a steel industry making for example our own wind turbines and our own electric cars or solar frames. None of us from coal, steel, construction, cement, car manufacture etc have been invited to speak on the necessity of fossil fuel in any green manufacturing programme. Where is the workshop on Clean Coal Technology, Carbon Capture and Storage etc? It does not feature.

One thing which made my blood run cold is the session on Labour’s plan to bring in compulsory climate panic lessons into every classroom, with lectures on ‘climate change’ which I for one doubt in the extreme will be an objective assessment of climate change over the last 4.6 billion years before we got here. The dramatic changes in atmospheric composition and weather and temperature and extinctions before we arrived and the context for current changes, mild by comparison and only partially due to our presence. Objectivity, debate, discussion and different points of view and science are not being encouraged here.

I am frankly disgusted at this platform and programme which ignores everything we fought for as miners and steelworkers and our unions. It shows how deeply the climate panic propaganda has entered into the ideology and leadership of even the Trade Union Movement and more shockingly the Northern industry-based Trade Union Movement, one wonders who is running this show and just what are their credentials?

All of that being the case, I don’t think there is any room for miners’ banners on this event, as we have been treated with gross contempt.

I would urge the organisers whoever they are, to think long and hard before next years event, to allow a proper debate and discussion around the question of what is ‘green’ and how does coal and steel meet any challenge of climate concerns. What is the role of clean coal technologies and carbon capture and most importantly the hypocrisy of exporting OUR carbon emissions abroad, our coal and steel requirements abroad, in order that we can use the imported produce here but claim to be emissions free ourselves? Any Labour Movement body let alone Yorkshire and Humberside TUC worthy of its manufacturing traditions would be debating these real issues and facts rather than joining the anti-industry middle class green liberal chorus.

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A Matter Of Judgement. by Les May

I DON'T ‘do’ Twitter, Facebook or any other form of ‘social media’, but last evening I had an e-mail from someone who suggested that as I live in Rochdale I should take a look at a recent post by someone called Jay Beecher. It turned out to be a picture of Councillor Faisal Rana and Andy Burnham apparently campaigning together, which inevitably throws into question Burnham’s judgement as it includes a link to the original Rana vote fraud story in the Daily Mail.

Many of the ‘tweets’ which follow are frankly nasty in tone and I know that the person who sent me the link would not want to be associated with their racial element. But this should not be allowed to distract from the fact that in 2018 Faisal Rana did fraudulently vote twice in the council elections of that year.

If the re-emergence of the story causes any embarrassment to Rochdale Labour party and the Council Leader then they have only themselves to blame. Anyone with any sense of decency would have recognised that Faisal Rana should have been asked to resign and the seat re-contested. Not to do so simply brings the Labour party into disrepute.

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Jay Beecher on Burnham & Faisal (Two Votes) Rana

Jay Beecher

@Jay_Beecher

The man campaigning with Andy Burnham is Cllr Faisal Rana from Rochdale, who, in 2018 accepted a police caution for electoral fraud after voting twice during a local election. One to keep an eye on. Ridiculously, he's still a Labour councillor. https://dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6

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The Guardian Of Truth? by Les May

YESTERDAY, 2 May, the Filipino journalist Maria Ressa was presented with the World Press Freedom Prize by UNESCO in recognition of her fight for free speech in the Philippines where she has been the target of online attacks and judicial processes in which the law and law enforcement have been turned against journalists, human rights activists, and ordinary citizens under President Rodrigo Duterte.

In her acceptance speech she said "Equally dangerous and insidious (is the) virus of lies unleashed in our information ecosystem, infecting real people, who become impervious to facts… It changes the way they look at the world. They become angrier, more isolated. They distrust everything. In this environment, the dictator wins, crumbling our democracies from within."

This is an apocalyptic scenario of our political future: a world where as she puts it ‘power and money rule’. But it’s not just in the political sphere that people are susceptible to becoming impervious to facts as they navigate the information ecosystem. For some people the problem is ‘big tech’, platforms like Facebook, Twitter and the rest of social media, and the answer is for governments to regulate it. This view ignores the experience in the Philippines that it is the government that is using the law to determine what is acceptable as ‘facts’.

Nor is it just with social media that the problems reside. Mainstream outlets have exploited the knowledge that most people do not check what is fact and what is opinion. Pointing out that just because someone says something is true does not make it so, is unwelcome news both to some people in the media and to many readers and viewers. Facts become just what someone wants to believe and woe betide anyone who disagrees. I don’t take at face value what Meghan Markle had to say in her televised interview. I don’t matter, but Piers Morgan paid the price for his dissent.

The Guardian, once a byword for rectitude and fairness, has no qualms about printing a story about the actor Noel Clarke knowing that the likely outcome will be that he will never be able to clear his name and will probably never be able to work as an actor again. I have no idea about whether whether the allegations made are true or false, and importantly, nor does the person who wrote it or the editor who chose to include it in the paper. The editor could, and in my view should, have declined to publish any allegations which had not been reported to the police by the complainants.

By last Saturday The Independent, another supposedly quality paper, was running a story by Victoria Richards which began ‘I have never met Noel Clarke, but I have met men who have behaved in the way Clarke is accused of behaving’. Again, if what she says in this piece is true, why did she not report it to the police? Why should I believe her just because she says it?

A few days ago the Victims Commissioner said ‘Far too few rape cases are resulting in a charge and hundreds of complainants annually are being denied justice.’ But where is the justice for anyone, accuser or accused, in the Noel Clarke story? Where in the response of ITV and Sky is the presumption of innocence until proven guilty? The question ceases to be whether the accused will get a fair trial, it becomes whether s/he will get a trial at all.

Maria Ressa spoke of a ‘virus of lies’; so how do we vaccinate ourselves against it? The first thing is to recognise that it is not just a problem of ‘Big Tech’. Supposedly more respectable, media outlets try to shape our perception of events by what they decide is a story and how they slant it.

The second thing is to recognise that it is a problem we have to solve for ourselves and our families, rather than relying on a government imposed solution, which itself may become dangerous to free thought and expression. As Maria Ressa put it "fight and win your individual battle for integrity". Don’t buy your teenage daughter an expensive smartphone and then complain when something bad happens to her.

Scepticism about the truth of what you see, what you read and what you are told if you venture into what Ressa calls the ‘information ecosystem’ has to be the order of the day. There is a lot of space between distrusting everything and watching the dictators win because you no longer know what is true and what is false, and filtering out (some of) the lies and manipulation by questioning everything.

We can ask: Who is saying this? How reliable have they been in the past? Is there any way of independently verifying their account? Who gains from this version of events? Are they trying to pass off assertions as facts? These things require some effort on our part. If we are not prepared to make it there is one thing we can all do; don’t pass on stories unless you are certain they are true. Better still; don’t gossip!

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