Diversity humbug

For decades now the liberal establishment has been extolling the supposed joys of diversity brought about by open ended large scale immigration of cultural aliens into this country. Most ordinary people regard such propaganda to be self-evident nonsense. But liberals live in a world of their own and have no qualms about displaying their contempt for those who hold different views. Since liberals control the levers of power and realise that nobody can effectively challenge them, they know they can get away with this kind of delusional propaganda. The only benefit diversity has brought to Britain is a much wider choice of cuisine. All the rest of the package engenders alienation, separation and division.

A good example of the conflicts inherent in the diversity agenda was the publicity over the Al-Madinah free school in Derby. The Ofsted report concluded that the school was dysfunctional and found to be inadequate in all the categories assessed. The school had appointed teachers who were unqualified and inexperienced. All female teachers, regardless of their religion, were required to wear hijabs, and the boys were not allowed to look at the girls, not that they would have seen much since they too were required to wear hijabs. Claims were made that the girls were getting a second class education compared to the boys, and that they were treated as inferiors. Reports suggested that pupils had to attend three prayer sessions every day, an hour of Koranic studies and another hour of Islamic studies as well as Arabic lessons. Other claims made were that pupils were banned from playing string instruments, from singing and from reading fairy tales. So the curriculum was quite a lot different from a typical bog standard comprehensive.

The establishment of free schools outside the control of local authorities is the flagship education policy of the current Conservative government. They are funded directly by the Education Department, are non selective by ability and no charge is made for the pupils attending them. Supporters claim that they create more local competition, drive-up standards and allow parents to have more choice in the type of education their child receives, similar to those who send their children to independent schools. In principle, the idea of free schools is a good one, which would be made even better if selection by ability was permitted.

None of the parents appear to have withdrawn their children from the school as a result of the damming Ofsted report. Some have commented that as the school has only recently been established mistakes can sometimes happen and these can be corrected in time as staff gain more experience. But the reason why parents are largely supportive of the school is because they approve of the policies, including the female dress code, the discrimination in favour of boys, the priority given to learning the Koran and about Islam, and the eschewing of non Islamic practices such as singing and the playing of music.

The idea of free schools is to give parents more choice and at this school they were given it in spades. By and large most of the parents appear to have approved of the education the school was providing their children. Neither liberals nor conservatives can complain. The liberals because the school promotes and provides diversity; the conservatives because it provides a real choice to parents. The state, through its agent Ofsted, should leave the school alone. But it would appear that when it comes to the crunch liberals do not want to see too much diversity, or conservatives too much parental choice. Of course, to all indigenous British people the curriculum at this school is clearly obnoxious, but that only demonstrates the malignant folly which underpins the promotion of the liberal diversity agenda.