| Topic: | Bullies, liars and hypocrites are | |
| Posted by: | Andy Magee | |
| Date/Time: | 25/01/11 10:06:00 |
| It is interesting that Toby chose to title his article in yesterday’s Daily Mail ‘Bullies, liars and hypocrites are trying to kill our school’ In the article Toby appears to be understandably very unhappy that rumours have been circulated that he sleeps with prostitutes. He claims that this is damaging to his reputation. However, in the same article he is willing to single out and accuse an NUT Rep of threatening an Acton head teacher. I assume he added the word ‘allegedly’ to his article because there is no evidence to support his claim. It appears that whilst Toby does not like to be the victim of scurrilous rumours he is happy to write and publish them. Does this not make him a hypocrite? On the WLFS website and in various interviews Toby has claimed that the WLFS will not divert resources from existing LBHF schools. This is untrue. £50 million worth of capital start up costs for Free Schools has come from the Harnessing Technology grant. This is money that has been taken from every LBHF school. I assume Toby is aware of this. If he knows something to be false yet repeats it again and again. Does this not make him a liar? Toby has used this article to attack a number of teachers and union leaders. One of the definitions of bullying is an ‘imbalance of power with the more powerful individual abusing those who are less powerful.’ Toby chose to deride several local and national members of the NUT in his article in The Daily Mail (circulation 2,000,000). I assume the paper will not offer them a right to reply. I think it is Toby who enjoys the imbalance of power in this situation. Does this not make him a bully? It is worth remembering that trade unions were set up to protect the weak from the strong. The Tolpuddle Martyrs in the 1830s, the anti-Corn Law League in the 1840s and the London Match-Girls in the 1880s are all examples of this. In my opinion what Dennis and Christine are doing is carrying on with this fine tradition of defending the weak. The Daily Mail, by contrast, has a history of supporting Hitler, Mussolini and the British Union of Facists. In recent times the insensitive and homophobic article the paper published on the death of Stephen Gately in 2009 attracted more complaints to the Press Complaints Commission than any other article ever. I know which tradition I would prefer to be a part of. |