Friday’s Guardian carried a scary piece, headed:
Extremist groups active inside UK universities, report claims
So? What do you expect? I was getting ready to say. Of course students like to try on new ideas and they suck up stuff from all sorts of weirdos from the Hare Krishna, to the Federation of Conservative Students (RIP), to the Department of Gender Studies. Some of my best friends are “extremists”. A university that’s a tepid-bed of moderation is scarcely worthy of the name.
Then my eye hit the scary bit. The second paragraph reads:
Yesterday the education secretary, Ruth Kelly, ordered vice-chancellors to clamp down on student extremists in the wake of the July terror attacks in London.
I may have had very little administrative contact with my own universities, but I am fairly sure it wasn’t part of the vice-chancellors’ job description to tell students what they can say and what they can think. And I knew the current administration had taken the first steps to control by seizing admissions procedures, but I definitely missed the bit where universities ceased to be independent institutions, and Mrs Secretary of State Kelly could order vice-chancellors what to tell the student body what it may say and think.
The excitable self-promoting report by erstwhile history professor Anthony Glees (who seems interestingly close to the security establishment) was picked up in a number of places, but I haven’t heard suggestions elsewhere that Kelly is doing any such thing. Let us hope that this is just a mistaken presumption on the part of the journalists involved that all-powerful ministers can order anything… not a PR prelude to the Government “discovering” it does not have such a power and that it is vital it gets it quick “for national security”.
From my readings of history, looks like PM Mosley-Blair is going to do a rerun of Adolf’s operations in Germany during the thirties.
Let the book-burnings begin !!!
Guy has made an error with his html. The second half of this post reads:
seizing admissions procedures, but I definitely missed the bit where universities ceased to be independent institutions, and Mrs Secretary of State Kelly could order vice-chancellors what to tell the student body what it may say and think.
The excitable self-promoting report by erstwhile history professor Anthony Glees (who seems interestingly close to the security establishment) was picked up in a number of places, but I haven’t heard suggestions elsewhere that Kelly is doing any such thing. Let us hope that this is just a mistaken presumption on the part of the journalists involved that all-powerful ministers can order anything… not a PR prelude to the Government “discovering it hasn’t such a power and that it is vital it gets it quick for national security.”
Cheers Slowjoe… code error fixed.
Guy
One of the 9/11 bombers was brainwashed by extremists on a university campus. Therefore it makes sense to target extremists attempting the same thing in the UK.
Well, if you want to find gullible halfwits to exploit, academia is the place to look.
What on earth does “was detected” mean ? Does this mean a single BNP/Islamist type on Campus marks you out for this list or do they have to form a society ?
Also how are staff supposed to know the political views of their students ? Are potential students to put their political leanings on their UCAS forms so we can have quotas of new Labour ones , old Labour ones , Tories etc etc.
The ‘Palestine issue’, if I can call it that, is very popular with students on campuses across the UK and it’s being used by dodgy student Islamist societies and organisations (which are often affiliated with somewhat suspect national Islamic groups) to appeal to a wider audience that might then accept calls for jihad as somehow just. This is definitely an issue at a number of British universities.
But the bigger threat is probably Ruth Kelly. First the vile ‘Kelly hours’ and now this. Kelly is a nasty woman – she’ll go places in the Labour Party.
If some groups are preaching violence, and inciting to crimes, and recruiting potential terrorists, it is the duty of every citizen, including fellow students and faculty, to inform on them, so the crimes can be prevented.
Likewise, it is the duty of every citizen to inform the police of crimes being planned, if they stumble upon information concerning those crimes.
Free speech and academic freedom should not be used as a shield behind which you can conspire and plan violent acts.
The Government might not be your friend, but neither is it your sole enemy, it is your friend at least part of the time.
Stephen Hodgson – I would advance your last sentence for ‘Post of The Year on The British Blogosphere’ – if only there were such an award.
She’s a Blair favourite. One has to ask why.
She’s not very bright; she has an ego the size of the Ritz (Kelly hours); she is ineffective; people are repelled by her. Which of these star qualities is it?
I think it is a mistake to assume New Labour politicians are “not very bright”. Their public utterances and demeanours are oafish because they are aimed at oafs, studiedly demotic.
Likewise “ineffective”. In fact they are mostly very effective at developing their political strategy through their departments. They aren’t effective at getting those departments to what you or I would (variously) want, but they aren’t trying to.
I don’t think one can put down Kelly hours to Kelly’s arrogance. It isn’t the official name. It’s a nickname that follows an established pattern of nomenclature for blaming unpopular Whitehall interventions in education on the minister. C.f. “Baker days” (enforced training sessions during what were previously staff holidays).
I wonder will Ms Kelly include the creepy Opus Dei group, of which she is a member, in the dragnet?
“report claims” ?
That’s it ? That’s all you need to ‘clamp down’ on people ? Claims ?
Not so long ago, a commission of some sort was at least set up to investigate and report on such ‘claims’. In a way, it’s nice of them to dispense with the pretense and niceties. Bonus points for authoritarian efficiency.
If you think that’s scary, then read today’s story:
Suspicious behaviour on the tube
David Mery
hopelessly off-topic. deleted.