Camden New Journal - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Published: 18 October 2007
No faith in councillors to protect children’s future
• I ATTENDED a meeting at the Synagogue in West Hampstead on Monday evening to hear about University College London’s ethos for the proposed new school at Swiss Cottage. The meeting was held at 7pm which, of course ,meant that one-parent families could not attend and babysitters had to be organised if any parent wanted to attend.
There were about eight mums and four dads who managed to make it.
At the end of the meeting, Councillor Keith Moffit disingenuously suggested that the whole consultation had been “politicised” (a usefully vague and disturbing word) and that the reason there were not many parents there was that they put off by this politicisation. Rather neatly Keith is now blaming the parents for putting off other parents rather than wondering whether it is the lack of transparency in the consultation process and the rather bully-boy bluster of some councillors, with their strange references to creationism and second hand cars. It was good at last to hear from Professor Michael Worton who grandly told us that his secular standpoint will enable us poor benighted faith people to ask the real questions that we have been hiding from our children.
The reason many of us want a competition to run this school is that we do want someone else to choose because our councillors are showing themselves not to be trusted on our children’s future. ALISTAIR TRESIDDER
Vicar of St Luke’s Hampstead
Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, Camden New Journal, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@camdennewjournal.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Tuesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space.