The National Trust's climbdown on gay badges is a temporary setback for the forces of Progressivism - which never rest, never sleep

'Dame' Helen Ghosh has been stymied in her attempt to punish National Trust volunteers who refuse to wear pro-Gay rainbow lanyards by forbidding them contact with the public. This is very good news. The former civil servant's tenure as director-general of the organisation is due to end soon in any case: she's due to take over as Master of Balliol College next March, where she will no doubt busy herself rooting out anything tainted by custom, tradition or common sense. After all, this is the woman who attempted to ban the word "Easter" from the the annual Cadbury's/National Trust Easter egg race. She can now tinker and busybody away to her heart's content overseeing a vital section of Britain's educational assembly-line, whose main purpose these days appears to be churning out yet more self-righteous fools to further swell the ranks of left-liberal elite social engineers determined to rewire our brains and our instincts...

Why do young people vote Labour? They've been taught to. And it's going to get worse.

If you're a secondary school pupil, eight out of ten of your teachers vote for left-wing parties. Presumably...

The Simpsons tackle Yale's SJWs

The takeover of academia by cultural Marxists - Niall Ferguson's "Decline and Fall of History" is funny, depressing and utterly magnificent

A few years ago...

Is it safe to watch TV news again? I had to switch off because of all those middle-aged blonde women getting shrieky about grammar schools!

One of the benefits of one's offspring finishing university and entering the wonderful world of paid employment is that you no longer have to pay any attention to news stories about education. Private school fees going through the roof? GCSE grades plummeting? Teachers striking because 14 weeks paid leave just isn't enough? University tuition fees heading for outer space? Your kid's arts degree won't get them a decent job? Meh. 

Why are our taxes paying for a senior British Council employee who advertises her contempt for the Royal Family?

Angela Gibbins, the head of global estates (?) at the taxpayer-funded British Council posted the following comments under someone else's view that "Prince George already looks like a fucking dickhead":

"White privilege. That cheeky grin is the innate knowledge he's royal, rich, advantaged and will never know ANY difficulties or hardships in life... Let's find photos of 3yo Syrian refugee children and see if they look alike, eh?"

When others attacked her silly little outburst, Ms Gibbins responded with:

"...I do disagree with the system that creates privilege of any sort. And I have a dedication to calling that out for what it is...I'm sound in my socialist, atheist and republican opinions. I don't believe the Royal family have any place in a modern democracy, least of all when they live on public money. That's privilege and it needs to end."

Because being left-wing means never having to know anything, or to bring up children properly, or to accept a democratic vote

Let's face facts - Diane Abbott probably isn't the sharpest knife in the Westminster drawer:

 

And if the province of Davao del Norte actually existed, and was affected by drought...

The gutless cultural cringers who run Cambridge's Jesus College should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves

Jesus College has removed a bronze cockerel from its main hall following a protest led by an African student that it's "racist" because it "celebrated the colonial past". As a Benin bronze, it should, he demanded, be repatriated to Nigeria. The student claimed that the cockerel - bequeathed to the college by an army captain in 1930 - had been stolen in reprisal for the murder of British traders (in which case, fair enough, I should have thought). Another African student seconded the motion, saying “We spoke to a bronze repatriation expert who said that grown men cried after the return of pieces in 2014.” Cried with laughter at how gullible these stupid white folk are, presumably.

Student Jacob Williams on being reported to the police by Oxford offendotrons

And Jacob evidently isn't alone:

The 2015 Grønmark Blog Top 20 "Absolute Blister" Awards for Services to Bum-Holery

1. Angela Merkel, whose open invitation to Muslim immigrants turned a temporary crisis into an epic disaster set to rumble on for decades - or until European civilisation has been sundered from its Judeo-Christian cultural roots and turned into one enormous theocratic Third World slum. Thanks, Ange.

2. Black Lives Matter, for spreading the lie that racist, trigger-happy cops represent the greatest threat to American blacks, when cops are responsible for 4% of gun-related black deaths, while 87% are caused by other blacks. Motes and beams, race-hustlers.

And the 2015 ungrateful little jerk of the year award goes to Rhodes Scholar Ntokozo Qwabe

Like me, you’ve probably had just about all you can take of the pronouncements of the Oxford law graduate who co-founded the Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford campaign, wants the Tricolor banned from the university, deeming it a “symbol of violence, terror and genocide for many” and comparing it to a Nazi flag; accuses the university of spreading “injustice” around the world; and claims that its students suffer ““systemic racism, patriarchy and other oppressions” on a daily basis.

That’s right - he’s a wanker (or “social justice campaigner”, which amounts to the same thing).

Safe spaces, trigger warnings - I reckon grown-ups have had enough of little fascists turning universities into laughing -stocks

The New Britain - summed up in one photograph and one caption

This is the woman whose apparently selective reporting of remarks by a Nobel prize-winning scientist led to his sacking

Her name is Connie St Louis, she's a journalism lecturer (in other words, one of those who can't), and she's the woman who tweeted evidently semi-humorous remarks about females working in labs made by the scientist Tim Hunt at a recent conference in Seoul. These remarks, she assured her followers, ruined her meal. Well, we can't have that - rather a distinguished scientist who has made a genuine contribution to the fight against cancer be stripped of his position at various institutions (UCL, the European Research Council and the Royal Society) by a baying pack of cultural Marxists and a few cowardly academic administrators than that a journalism lecturer should have her meal spoilt (and, let's face it, she looks like she enjoys her food). 

Ed Milliband’s student fees policy is mind-bogglingly, jaw-droppingly dumb - and vindictive. So no change there then.

I was so bemused by the clueless berk’s announcement that Labour will lower student fees by £3000 to £6000 a year if the British public are idiotic enough to vote for them in May that I actually read several reports just to make sure I hadn’t misheard or misunderstood. I hadn’t. He really has just come up with a policy that makes even less sense (if such a thing were possible) than his promise to freeze energy prices (good luck with than one, comrade).

Please read Brendan O’Neill on the rise of The Stepford Students in The Spectator

The Christ’s College Debating Society (1971-74) held a raucous dinner every term, but only managed to host one actual debate during the two-and-a-bit years of its existence. I can’t now remember the exact subject – something to do with immigration – but I do remember that one of the invited speakers was a Mosleyite fascist (I was convinced that he was a member of the British Union Movement, but, on reflection I doubt anyone would have chosen that particular acronym for their organisation). The only things I can clearly remember about that evening were that the elderly fascist was on the whole listened to in semi-respectful silence (with a few cat-calls thrown in), that the pro-immigrationists won handsomely, that nobody died, and that - despite having come into contact with the forces of pure evil - we didn’t all don white hoods preparatory to burning a cross on the Senate House lawn. Of course, such a debate couldn’t take place in any British university today.

Maybe we should ban the Oxford PPE course in order to save Britain

Guido Fawkes just tweeted the names of prominent current Labour politicians who studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford, here . The list includes Ed Miliband, David Miliband, Angela Eagle, Maria Eagle, Ed Balls, and Yvette Cooper. I just checked online to discover that the appalling Gerald Kaufman and the “snoring boring” Rachel Reeves were also PPEers. If those names didn’t send a shiver down your spine, just look at this (highly selective list) of former Labour politicians who made such vigorous attempts to destroy this country in the past 50 years:

This is what happens when left-wingers are allowed to run a great country's education system

Call an ambulance - Labour education spokesman Tristram Hunt has just been involved in a serious car crash on Newsnight!

Stories that make one wonder whether holding left-liberal beliefs shouldn’t be an imprisonable offence

The following stories are all from this morning's newspaper:

130 education “experts” have written a letter calling for schooling to delayed until children are six or seven – because “untold damage” is being wrought by a “too much, too soon” culture. Inevitably, they want Britain to adopt the Swedish system. (Children have been let down by 50 years of left-wing child-centric education policies. So don’t let Michael Gove implement nasty right-wing education policies – let’s not teach the little beggars anything at all!)