My personal favourite in this is the suggestion that travel to Catholic schools is the most expensive of all "because of the distances involved", as if, even among church schools, the Catholic ones were remote islands in a sea of the C of E.
County Durham contains four Catholic state secondary schools, and there are several more that I expect serve parts of the county of which they were historically, and in at least one case quite recently, part. Whereas, unless I am very much mistaken, County Durham contains no other type of faith school in the state secondary sector, although there are a very few Anglican fee-charging ones, mostly in Durham itself.
This will come as no surprise to anyone who knows the North of England in general and County Durham in particular. Even people from places like Yorkshire remark on how the Catholics and the Methodists combined outnumber the Anglicans here by anywhere between two to one and three to one, depending on how you do the counting. And the Methodists have almost never maintained their own state schools, although many county schools do have very close links to them when it comes to things like Christmas carol services.
But those who know the North of England in general and County Durham in particular obviously do not include the "National" Secular Society. It is encouraging its supporters to participate in the consultation on this matter in Surrey. It is clearly on far, far surer ground there.
Well done, Claire, for getting this demented proposal put out so that it could be shot down. Your permanent staff will not forget this. What a pity that no one did the same thing with the equally apparatchik-favoured slashing of bus services generally.
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Coming from their London office address it will have gone straight in the round filing cabinet but I hope someone read as far as the especially ignorant bit you mention, just for future reference if we ever hear from them again.
ReplyDeleteThey are finished anyway. Their champagne liberal constituency has both high and low reasons not to support their campaign against immigration by Catholics from Poland and Pentecostalists from Africa, but their own aims are doomed without a ban on such re-Christianization.
Like a lot of people I used to think Claire was a bit thick. No denying though that she has played a blinder this time. Nobody will ever try and revive this idea ever again. More power to her elbow.