Essays & Opinion
Review: Imperial Heartland by David Holland, Cambridge University Press
Hardeep Singh explores a fascinating history that offers complex human realities instead of reductive moralising fables.
Once more unto the breach: arguments against decolonisation
Richard Norrie argues that decolonising universities will produce a poorer curriculum and ever-greater bureaucratic interference. Those who have really put themselves on the line to fight racism, like Nelson Mandela (aged 19, above), were inspired by the very philosophy and literature today’s radicals reject. We often find ourselves having to get to grips with new […]
Responses to Tate Britain’s rehang
On 23 May 2023, Tate Britain revealed a major reorganisation of the way its collection is displayed. The new galleries, says Tate, ‘explore art in its social context, revealing how artists responded to the cultural, political, economic and technological changes they lived through’. Here, Hana Abdulati and Rudra Simitri, two sixth-form students interested in art, […]
The Student Who Disagreed (and was brave enough to speak out)
Lest we think all young people agree with identitarian political ideas, Peter Hosangady, a 17-year-old college student, writes about what can happen in a classroom when a teacher confesses apologetically that he is the bearer of ‘white privilege’ and may not be able to teach ‘Black History’ very well. The effect is not liberatory or reassuring […]
Education policy – Let’s restore teachers’ sense of agency
The past five decades in education has seen a steady diminishing of teachers’ agency and autonomy, observes Dr Shirley Lawes. Could it be the reduction of teachers to curriculum deliverers/technicians that, in part, explains why a radically moralistic Critical Social Justice ideology appeals to some? When I started teaching in the early 1970s, there was […]
Letter from a Concerned Grandmother
In August 2021, Patricia Hutchinson, a concerned grandmother, wrote to the then Under Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan, to express her concerns about what her grandchildren, who live in rural Sussex, were being taught at school. How can it be good when teachers are encouraged to use their professional authority to preach from […]
Summary of the House of Commons meeting on the rise of anti-Semitism in schools
Daniel Ben-Ami is a writer and journalist with an interest in the relationship between contemporary anti-Semitism and identity politics. We asked him to report back on an event to launch a new report from the Henry Jackson Society (HJS). We also asked Charlotte Littlewood, one of the speakers from the HJS, if she wished to […]
Book review: ‘Among the Mosques: A Journey Across Muslim Britain’ by Ed Husain
Book review by Graeme Kemp The question of belonging in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious nation is the stuff of many a political and sociological text. Ed Husain draws on ethnography to give us a more granular description of various Muslim groups whose differences are more than geography alone. Graeme Kemp’s review brings out a crucially […]
The Guardian’s apology for its slavery links is a performance
The campaigning liberal newspaper has ‘discovered’ its links to slavery, and issued an overwrought apology. Why?, asks James Heartfield.
A primary teacher’s experience of anti-racist training
In September, all the staff in my primary school in East London took part in training, titled ‘Working Towards an Anti-Racist Curriculum’. The training was run by Global Learning London, who explained that we were going to move from a non-racist school to an anti-racist school. They explained that this would be a tough and […]
