Schools not ordered to go easy on gypsy children

There are few things the Mail group likes more than a nice "political correctness gone mad" story, and the website of the Equality & Human Rights Commission regularly provides a happy hunting ground for under-pressure hacks on a deadline. Here's today's effort:

"Schools have been told they have to make special allowances for misbehaving pupils from gypsy and traveller families Teachers have been warned they could be taken to task under the Equality Act if they discipline or exclude such children from schools."

I'm sure you'll all be shocked to learn that there's slightly more to the story than this. The source is guidance on the 2010 Equality Act, which appears to have been published last year. It explains what the phrase "you must not discriminate against a pupil by excluding them from school" means, and gives several examples. They include not expelling one misbehaving child because he is a boy while allowing an equally troublesome girl to remain, and not excluding a child because they are autistic. All sensible stuff that even the Mail doesn't have a problem with, which explains why the paper's headline doesn't scream "Schools told to go easy on disabled children".

Journalist Gerri Peev has seized upon the one example that deals with a group the Mail has no time for - gypsies and travellers. The guidance, in full, states:

...the procedures you use for deciding what punishment a pupil will receive and for investigating incidents must not discriminate against pupils with a particular protected characteristic.

For example:
As part of their procedures for investigating and deciding on a punishment, a school arranges for parents or guardians of pupils to come into the school and discuss a course of action with the head teacher. In cases where parents cooperate with the head teacher and are shown to be committed to assisting the pupil to manage their behaviour it is less likely that the pupil will face exclusion.

This procedure may indirectly discriminate against the Gypsy and Traveller pupil whose parents may be less likely to come to the school to speak with the head teacher as they face a range of barriers including a lack of confidence in speaking to school staff and a level of mistrust based on a perception that they are not valued by the school community.

The school reviews their procedures and puts specific measures in place to assist Gypsy and Traveller parents, including an outreach programme with a dedicated member of staff to build trust with the parents so they can get more involved in theschool community and their child’s education. This is good practice which can help avoid indirect discrimination.

Again, it's pretty sensible stuff that boils down to "don't expel a pupil because their parent fails to engage with the school disciplinary process." Nowhere does it say "go easy on disruptive pupils" if they come from gypsy families. Nowhere does it say schools should make "special allowances" for gypsy children. It certainly doesn't warn of terrible concequences if teachers discipline certain children. It simply notes that children from some cultures might have parents who, for whatever reason, are suspicious and distrustful of authority figures and don't want to engage with them, and that it's not fair for a child to be kicked out of school because their parents take this attitude. Nor is there any threat of "action" being taken schools that fail to do this - although you wouldn't know it from the headline.

However, these facts haven't stopped Tory MP Priti Patel (who has taken to sitting next to fellow "anti PC-campaigner" Dominic Raab on the Commons benches) splurting out this ill-informed rent-a-quote garbage:

"I have concerns with the Equalities and Human Rights Commission dictating to headteachers how to run their schools and burdening them with more bureaucracy. There are times when schools do need to exclude pupils to protect the rights of others to learn and headteachers should not be put off making these decisions by the patronising diktats of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The Commission’s recommendation on travellers only serves to reinforce stereotypes as well as showing that political correctness and the human rights agenda are being skewered further against common sense."

Note that she only manages to get the EHRC's name right the second time around. Had Patel bothered to read the guidance rather than just react to Peev's phonecall, maybe she'd have noticed that it does not do anything she accuses it of. If nothing else, the fact that it is guidance for schools - not an order - knocks down her accusation that it is a "diktat" from the EHRC.

It's bad enough that tabloid hacks churn out this kind of crap day after day, but you'd hope that an MP would be able to engage their brain before commenting.

It's interesting to note one story about the EHRC that doesn't make it into today's Mail - namely the news that the Commission is looking into hotels that advertise themselves as "gay-only". The paper was full of condemnation when the EHRC backed a court case against a Christian hotel owner who discriminated against gay people, but it seems that gay people being targeted by the "politically correct brigade" doesn't fit in with the Mail's worldview that all equality legislation is a bad thing.

Mail readers: "nothing wrong with murdering gypsies"

A Conservative councillor in North Wales has found himself in a spot of bother after allegedly telling a meeting that Hitler "had the right idea" when it came to dealing with gypsies. As this idea involved sending nearly a quarter of a million innocent men, women and children to the death camps, it's understandable that quite a few people are now calling on the councillor to resign.

Even the Daily Mail's coverage is fairly critical in tone:

Tory mayor faces calls to resign after claiming Hitler had the ‘right idea’ about travellers
A mayor has provoked outrage by allegedly claiming Adolf Hitler had the ‘right idea’ about dealing with Germany’s gipsies.

However, the paper's readers are only furious with one thing - the fact that the councillor is being criticised. Sort the comments in order of "green arrows" and you quickly discover that hundreds of Mail readers think that gassing people to death is a perfectly sensible course of action:


A bit further down there are fewer green arrows but the messages are still getting a positive reaction:


Yes, you read that correctly - according to RP in Daventry, the "great majority" of people in England think that gypsies and travellers should be sent to the gas chamber. And at least 18 readers of the Daily Mail agree. It does make you worry. Although perhaps we shouldn't be suprised - I've pointed out before that many of the Mail's readers are keen on a spot of recreational gypsy-killing.

To be fair to the Mail's readership, most of the commenters don't explicitly support genocide. They prefer to complain about yet another example of political correctness going mad and how you can't say anything anymore without the thought police locking you up and so and so forth:


And of course someone had to quote Voltaire:

However, cast your mind back a fortnight to 11 November, when a small group of Islamic extremists protested against Britain's armed forces by burning poppies during the two-minute silence. Did the Mail's readers rush to defend the protesters' freedom to express their views, however, abhorent many people found them? Did they fuck:


But perhaps the most interesting reaction was the almost 500-strong net "red arrow" rating to the person who said this:

Freedom of speech: only applicable when we agree with what's being said.

Daily Mail still undecided on merits of mob rule

Last week two Pakistani boys, aged 15 and 17, were beaten to death by a 200-strong lynch mob after being mistaken for burglars. This, in itself, is depressing. The fact that the video of the killings is currently one of the most-viewed clips on YouTube is even more depressing in its own way.

The Daily Mail shares the revulsion felt by all right-thinking people, condemning the "horrifying" and "brutal" killings and noting that the Pakistani nation is asking itself how so many people could stand by without intervening. What kind of savage, backward country would allow such a thing? The Mail's online readers are in no doubt:

And Pakistan wonders why the world is reluctant to give them aid money when crimes like this go on in the street with no sense of law and order.
- Matt P, Wootton Bassett, 22/8/2010 20:42

"Is this what we are? Savages?" Yes, that pretty much sums it up.
- Peter, London, 22/8/2010 19:23

It is difficult to make a comment on this awful incident, where were the Islamic Imams when all this was going on? I can see why donors are scarce in helping Pakistan with flood aid, if this is a sample of cultural democracy
- lionel Clarke, macclesfield, Cheshire,

I'm more surprised that there actually people in Pakistan who have the decency to protest against this. As Bill Maher said - our culture is better than theirs, and we shouldn't be afraid to say it.
- Mephistophiles, Accrington, 23/8/2010

And who could possibly disagree? If a crime has been committed then the police should be called, the case should be investigated, and the suspect tried by a jury of his peers. Or maybe not. Because elsewhere in Mail World things are very different.

Sitting just below the Pakistan story on the Mail home page is the charming tale of a man who has been arrested after allegedly opening fire on a five-year-old gypsy child who "trespassed on his land" while committing the heinous crime of... collecting ladybirds. Comments are not being allowed for legal reasons but the article oozes sympathy, noting that the shooter "must have been very scared", that he had been "plagued by break-ins" and that "gypsy children had cleared the shelves of local shops". Must've asking for it, then. After all, the kid was probably planning to steal the ladybirds.

For many years the Mail and its readers have idolised and fetishised another gypsy-shooter, Tony Martin. You may recall that Martin spent three years behind bars after being convicted of murder, later reduced on appeal to manslaughter, of 16-year-old gypsy Fred Barras, who shot in the back while fleeing Martin's farmhouse empty-handed. Almost exactly a year ago today, Martin gave an interview to the Mail in which he proudly stated that he had "no regrets" and suggested that he'd cheerily do the same again should the opportunity arise. Far from being horrified at this example of unrepentant vigilante justice, the paper described him as an "eccentric". The most highly rated comments under the interview stop some way short of condemning the killer of a teenage boy in the terms used to describe the foreign, Muslim killers of two teenage boys:

The guy is a hero ,in my book we need more like him.
- Peter, kent, 22/8/2009 21:17

I'm afraid I find it hard to sympathise with the victim, no matter how young.
- Catherine, York, 21/8/2009 14:08

His prosecution was an injustice at the time and it remains so. Enjoy a long and happy life Mr Martin, you did nothing wrong. As the support from these pages show, the people are behind you even if the discredited and bankrupt politicians are out of step.
- FU, Queensland, 21/8/2009 1:11

I dont think many people have any remorse or pity for those 2 thieves. Tony Martin is an inspiration to all law abiding citizens.
- dave, nottingham england, 20/8/2009 20:51

Tony Martin for Prime Minister!!!
- andrew, king's Lynn, 20/8/2009 20:54

And so on and so forth. The pattern repeats itself with every case where a householder is brought before the courts to answer for their actions after attacking a suspected criminal (and it IS "suspected", as I'm pretty sure we still have the presumption of innocence in this country). The householder is a hero, the victim had it coming, we can't expect the police to do anything about it so we have to take the law into our own hands.*

The coverage is presented this way because it fits in with the Mail's narrative on the state not just of this nation but of others, too: Britain is a wonderful, civilised place that is being ruined by Harriet Harman-style lefties, political correctness, a hopeless police force and a legal system that puts the criminal before the victim. So, if a Briton kills someone they suspect of committing a crime, they're a hero and all right-thinking people should support them. Meanwhile, Pakistan is a backward nation populated by savages who live in the dark ages and do awful things like take the law into their own hands. Clear?

*It's also worth noting that, in most cases, the householder is either cleared by the jury or cleared on appeal within six months. The fact that the Tony Martin case continues to occupy the public imagination more than a decade after Barras was shot dead shows how few people actually are jailed for such acts.