Trojan Horse probes exposed truth – Gove
MICHAEL Gove, education secretary when the Trojan Horse controversy erupted in Birmingham schools, has doubled down on his conclusion that investigations uncovered “a sustained effort to change the character of city schools”.
Mr Gove, now levelling up, housing and communities minister, spoke up in the aftermath of a recent New York Times podcast about the issue. It has reignited an alternative reading of the probe as one rooted in Islamophobia.
Asked about the affair during a visit to Birmingham, he said: “The New York Times podcast was a shoddy piece of journalism which is tendentious and misguided. There were separate reports (at the time) by Peter Clarke, by Birmingham City Council, by Ofsted and others, that all point to a sustained effort to change the character of state schools.
“The recent comments of Khalid Mahmood, MP for Perry
Barr, reinforce how important it was that action was taken. We cannot have a situation where those in charge of young people are responsible for some of the behaviour that Peter Clarke uncovered and which he was absolutely right to stop.”
Mr Gove addressed the podcast findings briefly during a visit to Birmingham Energy Innovation Centre in Tyseley as part of a whistle-stop tour of the city. He also visited Erdington to support by-election candidate Robert Alden on the high street.
The podcast, called The Trojan Horse Affair, and now facing legal challenges over accuracy claims, has opened up wounds that still scar the city.
Triggered by an anonymous, and almost certainly bogus, letter claiming to be an exchange between co-conspirators, it appeared to expose a ‘plot’ to Islamify schools. The letter proved to be incendiary.
It triggered a lengthy probe, with national intervention led by Mr Gove, leading to several substantial inquiries - one led by counter terrorism chief Peter Clarke - more than 20 urgent Ofsted inspections, sackings, resignations and school closures.
Lead investigator Peter Clarke found a “sustained, co-ordinated agenda to impose segregationist attitudes and practices of a hardline, politicised strain of Sunni Islam” in several Birmingham schools.
Chair of a trust running three Park View schools, Tahir Alam, and 14 teachers were initially banned for life - the bans were later overturned, dropped or dismissed against all except Alam, who remains barred from education. In a statement last month, Birmingham’s deputy leader Brigid Jones said the affair had “rocked our city” but that the matters had been long since dealt with.
In a self penned piece in The Spectator earlier this week, MP Mr Mahmood said the podcast “portrays a city that is unrecognisable to me. It is an act of utter irresponsibility.” He said the podcast and the aftermath - with some commentators, including himself, shot down for speaking against it was symbolic of deeper issues around who ‘speaks for’ Muslims.
“The current contest for who speaks for British Islam is one of the dirtiest in our liberal democracy,” he said. He slights the programme makers Hamza Syed and Brian Reed for trying to make a case that because the letter that triggered the inquiries was not itself proven to be genuine, so it follows there was no problem.
And he adds: “The challenge in Birmingham is this: a small number of activists are committed to developing an education system rooted in their own interpretation of Islam, rather than an approach which recognises the importance of all faiths, but also prepares children for our wider society.”
A spokesperson for the New York Times said: “Brian Reed and Hamza Syed spent more than three years reporting on “The Trojan Horse Affair,” which underwent extensive fact checking and legal review before publication.”