Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Re-commissioning

Today's Polly Toynbee column has lots of broad assertions of opinion rather than poorly-researched facts.  However, this sentence is particularly troubling:

A new Commission on Integration and Cohesion, launching this month, will be worthless unless its first recommendation is to end religious and ethnic segregation in schools.

The commission is anything but new.  Charles Clarke announced it in September 2005 (source), at which time there was a lot of detail.  It would have public meetings round the country, chaired by a government minister.  A report was promised in July 2006.  Clarke wrote to "faith leaders" to ask their opinions.  The CRE published a response to the consultation in October 2005 (source).  By May of 2006, however, a commenter on Comment is Free was wondering what had happened to it (source, comment 32002).

And now (well, in June 2006) it is re-launched (source).  It may now have a chair, but new it is certainly not.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ms. Toynbee's recommendation to abolish all religious schools as a way of promoting social harmony is backward and ahistorical. The UK fought more than one civil war over religious freedom, as I point out a forthcoming Cato Institute blog entry (www.Cato-at-Liberty.org).

As a descendant of two well known British historians, Ms. Toynbee should know better.

Anonymous said...

What a great site this is. I like the way you check facts (as it says on the tin) without venturing into the quagmires of judgement and opinion, which would have the lefties flaming you 24/7. As it is they just have to stand by fuming at their lack of opportunity to rip into you.