Comments on: Book review: The Great City Academy Fraud

By: Laurence Boyce

Laurence Boyce — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 23:43:07 +0000

Blimey, I never knew that! Lib Dem councillor for four years. Lib Dem PPC, but never fought a parliamentary election. According to Wikipedia. Crumbs.

By: John

John — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:15:59 +0000

Adonis DID stand didnt he? For the Lib Dems?

By: Laurence Boyce

Laurence Boyce — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:03:36 +0000

Thanks Anna. May the force be with you.

By: Anna Toon

Anna Toon — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 23:20:20 +0000

Hereford is being hit with an Academy and I am using my best endeavours to get the sponsors and the council to stick to the DCSF’s own rules and tell the public the truth about the. We’re still in feasibility stage but the Church sponsors (don’t start me on this one) they have still gone ahead and appointed a head designate, there has been little consultation, usually last minute and councillors and the rest of the city not informed. 2 Designs been presented and 1 was totally an impossible optiona. They’re going to demolish a successful adult learning centre and community centre (only 4 yrs old) on the site and suggesting everyone will now only be able to access the building in the evenings only. 100 places are going to be cut from other schools in the city to make this one stack up and it will jeopordise the existing tech college and nationally acclaimed 6th form provision. I had to get a copy of the Expression of Interest via Freedom of Information and I am a councillor on Childrens Services. Parents don’t stand a chance with this lot

By: Laurence Boyce

Laurence Boyce — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 08:48:28 +0000

Merci Jean!

By: John Mullen

John Mullen — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 05:49:04 +0000

Thanks for the useful review. I try to explain the academy scheme to people here in France, and I swear they think I am making it up. We have lots of problems here in France, but when a school is turning out lots of bad exam results, erm, they get MORE MONEY AND SMALLER CLASSES to try and help them sort it out…

By: Laurence Boyce

Laurence Boyce — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 09:37:40 +0000

Thanks Kevin. I enjoyed Beckett’s withering put down of Adonis from the acknowledgements section:

No thanks at all to the politician at the centre of it all, Lord Adonis, who could not find time to talk to me, or even to answer a few emailed questions. It is more comfortable for a politician to talk only to those who agree with them, but someone should tell Lord Adonis that dissent is a key part of democracy. He might understand it himself if he had had to stand in an election, rather than owing his position entirely to Prime Ministerial patronage.

By: Kevin Courtney

Kevin Courtney — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 05:58:33 +0000

Local authorities around the country including Lib Dems’s have had their arms twisted by Andrew Adonis to support Academies, being told it is the only way to get money for a new school.

(Although recently Barking and Dagenahm have managed to get a new school without it being an Academy)

So Gordon Brown’s attitude to academies will be tested almost as soon as he becomes PM.

If Andrew Adonis survives his first reshuffle, opponents of Academies will be very disappointed.

Kevin Courtney (anti academies alliance)