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The Lady's Not For Turning
I'm disgusted to learn that the government plan to continue ignoring the overwhelming majority of people in Northern Ireland, who backed retention of grammar schools in various polls. It seems that Maria Eagle, direct rule education minister, will push the Education Order through Westminster before the executive is reestablished, abolishing both academic selection and grammar schools.
Maria Eagle, who has taken over from Angela Smith (another waste of space) said "It will be a matter for the Assembly on recall to determine how it wishes to engage with these matters," - failing to mention that by the time the executive is restored, her education order will already have been rushed through Parliament and that any executive elected will not have the power to undo that. No, they'll just be left with the unenviable task of implementing this hairbrained scheme.
Unfortunately this removes what was possibly the most pressing reason for restoring the executive - it doesn't matter if it's restored or not, it won't have the power to prevent this inevitably catastrophic legislation being imposed anyway!
I completely echo the words of Northern Ireland Conservative Jeffry Peel: "This is a doctrinally based policy – a policy designed to impose a one size fits all flavour of education to ape the failed policy agenda in Great Britain."