A story I have been watching, that could become very big, concerns the government (i.e. taxpayer) financial support to two Islamic schools that are alleged to either have — or to have had in the recent past — links to known extremist groups and individuals.
The claim is that the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation (ISF), which runs the two schools (in Slough and Tottenham) was a "front organisation" for the oft-mentioned "hard-line" Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir. David Cameron stated that two of Shakhsiyah's four trustees and the head teacher and proprietor of the Slough school are members of Hizb ut-Tahrir.
David Cameron brought this up in yesterday's Prime Minister's Questions, and Shadow Schools Secretary Michael Gove had already pursued this with Ed Balls, the actual Schools Secretary. It all seems to have started from an investigative journalism exercise by that well-reputed fellow Andrew Gilligan (remember him?) who has written the
Telegraph article linked below.
The PM had no answer to give, except that it "would be investigated in the greatest detail", which was not exactly very helpful…
The media coverages includes these articles:
There's a lot to go through if one wishes to get a comprehensive feel for what really lies bahind all of this; but I have my own thoughts that might help (or not, of course).
All of a sudden, in the past few days, the Labour-run local council that seemingly channelled the government funding to one of the schools is claiming that the school "no longer" has links to the individuals concerned (with the extremist group). This doesn't alter the fact that they were linked at the time of the now-controversial funding, and that in itself is far more significant than any wriggle room for the council or for Ed Balls today.
Now, although the minister has ultimate responsibility for what comes from his Department, it is likely that he would not have been aware of the situation. This is standard practice when something dodgy is going on, as seems to have been the case here. It is often done by Common Purpose placemen in pursuance of their agenda (which fits the circumstances here) and if it's a Labour government in office, they'll want to make sure that "their" minister has plausible deniability.
If it's a Conservative-run council and/or government, then for obvious reasons they aren't going to tell them either…
Therefore it is possible (though not certain) that the odious Ed Balls might not be guilty of anything himself, and perhaps was not in any position to know what was possibly being deliberately arranged behind his back as a way to indirectly finance extremists from the public purse.
Not that Balls' handling of this, nor his manner toward David Cameron in particular, could be said to be at all appropriate when dealing with a matter of such potential gravity, but I suppose that's Ed Balls for you — he never changes or matures: it's all just a party political game to him.
Of course, it might turn out that Balls
was a part of this all along — which, bearing in mind the exaggerated pro-Islam anti-Christian stance and policies of the Labour government, would hardly be a huge surprise if that were to emerge one day.
For now, the story will continue to be in the news for at least another day or two, and perhaps again later if and when something of the unsullied truth is finally unearthed. At least now that the public are aware of yet another misuse of their tax money, they
might just learn the lesson when they go to the polling station next year.
