Kelly’s Eye

GARY KIBBLE, head teacher of Batley Grammar School in Yorkshire, has been condemned for caving in and apologising for the member of his staff who showed a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed during a classroom discussion about blasphemy.

So, would you have had the courage if put in his position to stand up to the protest that ensued?

I’m sure most of us like to believe the answer to that question is yes.After all, this is an attack on free speech. But it is hard to blame those at the sharp end of the debate, like Gary Kibble, who have seen which way the wind is blowing and decided to bend with it.

They hear the local Labour MP Tracy Brabin say: “I welcome the school’s apology and and recognition of the offence caused.” They hear a deafening silence from the unions that supposedly represent them.They know that there will be no celebrities – so anxious to be associated with the easy virtue-signalling of much more fashionable issues – within a million miles of standing up alongside them.

His name and address made public, the religious studies teacher, along with his wife and four children, has fled the family home – at which people have already been seen peering through windows and trying the doors.

And looming behind all this already chilling intimidation is the spectre of poor Samuel Paty, the French teacher beheaded for a similar “crime” last year.

Real bravery has been shown – by the school’s pupils who started a petition in support of the teacher, since signed by tens of thousands.

But if we expect future Gary Kibbles to take a rightful stand for a persecuted colleague, it requires Boris Johnson and the likes of Keir Starmer and Ed Davey (the Lib Dem leader) to make their support united, unequivocal and repeated constantly, and for every public organisation, from the police to big business and all religious leaders, to back that.

If they keep their heads down on such a fundamental issue, we can’t really blame those directly in the firing line for doing the same.