People

- June 19, 2017: A group of Muslim worshippers were hit after a van slammed into them near Finsbury Park Mosque, north London, after many of them had attended evening prayers during the holy month of Ramadan. One person died. Darren Osborne was jailed for at least 43 years after being found guilty of murder and attempted murder. … [Read more...] about Terror attack in Reading: Police call stabbing spree a ‘terrorist incident’ after ‘Libyan’ knifeman randomly stabbed three people to death and injured three others before being tackled by unarmed police

One person tweeted a photo of a packed restaurant and wrote: 'You allow this restaurant to open a couple of feet away from Montrose Beach, but not the giant beachfront right past it. Shut the f**k up.' … [Read more...] about ‘It’s called a pandemic, people!’ Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot calls out ‘reckless’ crowds packed into a park over the weekend as she threatens to shut down the city’s lakefront

It is almost 20 years since Milton Friedman explained to the Washington Post how state education could be privatised in the US. He said: "I believe that the only way to make a major improvement in our educational system is through privatisation … Vouchers are not an end in themselves; they are a means to make a transition from a government to a market system." Now in the UK we have vouchers, in the form of the pupil premium, that follow poorer children to whichever school they attend. We have academies that are "managed by trusts, companies limited by guarantee", as my old comprehensive school in Oxford is now tagged. We are currently travelling on Friedman's road map. Geographical comparisons show that it is not a good route to take. … [Read more...] about Is the British education system designed to polarise people?

There is a terrible fear of the state school system among some parents. Anything that can be done to allay this is good. If you were to believe Gove (how I wish Spitting Image was on now – Gove already looks like a Spitting Image puppet of himself), you would think that the state education system was in a state of collapse and turns out only imbeciles, mouth-breathers, finger-counters and psychopaths. The private school system, on the other hand, is perfect and turns out only geniuses, billionaires and masters of the universe. Gove's rhetoric, which is in danger of becoming accepted, is that all private schools are inherently better than state schools and will give children a superior education. … [Read more...] about Charlie Higson: The risk is that when choosing a school, people ‘go private’ out of fear

"He was murdered... while on his way to his workplace in indigenous communities. For more than 20 years [he] had been in charge of... defending the rights of peasants and indigenous communities." … [Read more...] about French activist who worked with Guatemala indigenous people shot dead