EDITOR'S COMMENT: Clash of ideologies is underlying the schools row

Published: 1 September, 2011

A RANCOROUS stand-off is developing between parents anxious to set up a “free school” in Belsize Park and Labour councillors equally determined to thwart them.

The unrivalled importance of state education sits at the core of Labour’s beliefs.

Start eroding the pivotal role of state schools and Labour gets worried.

While Labour does not openly argue ideologically against the creation of what would be the borough’s second free school, somewhere in their opposition lies a fear, we suspect, that it would be the thin end of the wedge.

Over the decades, Labour has learned to live with private education – as long as it was kept in its place.

Expand it and the fear starts that everything is going to unravel.

Labour thinkers see Michael Gove’s infatuation with free schools, at the very worst, as part of a circling manoeuvre of attrition to wear away the state system of education.

At the very least, say Gove’s critics, it will deplete funds set aside for existing schools.

This week’s leaked government emails revealing that £500million has been fast-tracked by government forces to the New Schools Network – the Gove-inspired charity to provide guidance to people who want to set up free schools – must be setting Labour’s nerves on edge.

In Camden, Labour marshals it arguments on the utilitarian grounds that it is being forced to sell the hostels in Belsize Park – where the free school would be sited – to use the funds to renovate run-down schools and council properties.

Suspicious, the free school campaigners ask why Labour cannot wait for a few weeks until the Education Department decides whether or not to back the Belsize Park project.

This question is at the heart of the tussle between the two sides.

Sus and search

WHAT lay behind the London riots?

Narrowed down, social critics have laid the blame on growing inequality in society and the resultant poverty.

A few have pointed the finger at the Met’s “sus and search” policy.

Since the 1990s the Met has insisted this is a necessary crime-fighting strategy.

But statistics show that most youngsters stopped by the police are black or Asian.

To blacks, it constitutes sheer harassment. To Muslims, who fall victim to it, it consolidates their ghettoisation in society.

Last night (Wednesday) youngsters at the Community Summit made it clear that “sus and search” is a tinderbox.

Police in Camden have limited powers to amend Met policy even if they wanted to. It is the Met that has to change.