| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Ealing Council Scrutiny Meeting | |
| Posted by: | Steve Donnelly | |
| Date/Time: | 06/10/10 16:31:00 |
| Toby, I certainly don't believe in personalising these things although, as I said earlier in the thread, I'm not sure that the nature of the programme did you, or your group, any favours in that regard. I guess it's a compliment that you've been granted satanic status, but it's not wholly surprising that you're seen to embody the free school movement, given the number of newspaper and magazine articles by and about you, plus all the TV and radio you've done. You're seen as a determined and energetic operator; one with good contacts, and one that's used to getting what he wants when he sets his mind to it. Who you are, and where we live, have served to boil up a high profile and sometimes unpleasant debate. If people have kicked back at you personally that's to be regretted, but I'm afraid was a predictable result of you coming to be seen as the 'leader' of the whole free school movement (a role I'm sure you did not seek and do not want.) For my part, as I also said earlier, I believe that you're sincere. But if some of your opponents have caricatured you as dead set upon the destruction of state education as we know it, so some us us have felt our opposition represented by you as luddite and regressive. We too are sincere: sincere in believing that your school (and its ilk) will destabilise state education across our community; sincere in believing that, whatever your intentions, your idea will be annexed by the affluent; sincere in believing, after seeing the programme, that for all your irrepressible energy, your group is not ready to run a school. Whatever happens, Free School or no, life will go on, and all of us in Acton will have to get on with it. In my personal daydream, Toby Young will become an influential parent governor at Acton High, and the school, replete with new 16+ building, will become the envy of London. Who knows? Meantime, although I wouldn't open your school, I'd gladly buy you a pint should we bump into each other... |