Latest news with #SocialistWorkersParty
Telegraph
a day ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Teaching unions are guilty of a great betrayal
What is the point of trade unions? Do they exist to stand up for the interests of their members or are they really there to pledge solidarity with Gaza? This is what members of the National Education Union (NEU) are increasingly asking themselves. The NEU was formed in 2017 from the merger of the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers. The latter was the major union operating in the private sector and, thus, the NEU has over 34,000 members teaching in independent schools. Ampleforth College, Charterhouse School, Christ's Hospital, Merchant Taylors' School, St Mary's School Ascot and Winchester College are among the leading public schools that recognise the NEU for collective bargaining purposes. The NEU leadership may not be entirely delighted with this situation. Whilst the NEU and the other main teaching union, National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), are not affiliated to the Labour Party, the far-Left have long had a dominant presence in the former and are fast replicating this in the latter. Daniel Kebede, the NEU general secretary, is an avowed Marxist, who has spoken on Socialist Workers Party platforms. Much to the anger of some of its members, Matt Wrack, the acting general secretary of NASUWT, is a fireman, not a teacher. He headed up the far-Left Fire Brigades Union – they disaffiliated from the Labour Party in 2004 in opposition to Tony Blair and only rejoined in 2015 when Jeremy Corbyn became leader – for 20 years before being challenged and defeated. Wrack is a past member of the Trotskyist Militant tendency. The NASUWT has moved a long way in its 100-year-plus history. It is one of the few organisations operating today that was set up with an explicitly sexist purpose, as the history of the union by Nigel de Gruchy, its former general secretary, sets out. During the First World War, as men went to fight, more women became teachers. The NAS part of the union was set up to demand that the returning men should not have female superiors, and that pay differentials between the sexes be maintained (the UWT part of today's union was only set up when that battle was lost). Perhaps in our era where apologies for past wrongs are so popular, it is time for NASUWT to take the knee and make amends. After all, the Garrick and other formerly men-only clubs were not set up to do down women. This union was. The NEU's conference this year had time to pass motions condemning Israel. Last month, the union supported a 'Nakba 77: workplace day of action for Palestine' and a 'solidarity' march. Its actions have been anything but 'behind the scenes'. When Wrack was asked about his support for Corbyn and Labour's anti-Israel turn, he acknowledged with admirable understatement that he 'would not describe [himself] as a Zionist'. Whether Britain's teaching unions can really do much to achieve Middle East peace may be rather in doubt. But there is an issue which affects every one of their members teaching in the private sector – VAT on school fees. This Labour imposition will mean some of these members will lose their jobs as schools close. But what it will inevitably mean for many more teachers is that their conditions of employment will worsen, or at the very least, not improve as they would have done without it. While some schools including Eton have passed the full 20pc levy on to parents, many more have tried to ameliorate the full impact of Labour's onslaught. To balance their budgets, these schools will inevitably have to cut costs elsewhere. This will certainly mean that pay increases will not be as generous as they would otherwise be. It will also undoubtedly lead to more independent schools leaving the Teachers' Pension Scheme. Historically, most independent schools have been part of the state's generous, pay-as-you-go unfunded scheme. Back in 2012, the employer contribution to the pension scheme was 14.1pc. Michael Gove as education secretary then hiked the cost, and this year it has reached 28.68pc. This is largely a charge on the independent schools who are members of the scheme as, for state schools, the contributions are paid for by the Government and it is really just a matter of churning. Private schools have already been planning to leave the unaffordable scheme – it led to industrial action at the Girls' Day School Trust in 2022, the first independent school strikes in memory. But many more will be heading for the exit. So there can be no doubt that VAT on school fees is a direct assault on the interests of members of the teaching unions. What did the NEU do about it? They stated that whilst their focus rightly was on 'protecting members' jobs and conditions', they would not be campaigning against the move. Their excuse was that 'independent schools have their own influential lobby'. Not nearly influential enough, as it turned out. The schools failed to resist Gove's pension raid in 2012 and have achieved nothing to ameliorate the full impact of VAT and the scrapping of mandatory business rate relief for those schools with charitable status. In contrast with its attitude to Palestine, the NEU has stated that it could best 'use our influence behind the scenes'. The Labour Government's Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill – reversing many of the Tories' laudable education reforms and constraining academies and free schools – shows that this influence is indeed great. That Bill could almost have been dictated by the NEU. But over VAT? Nothing. It is as if the union leadership is so blinkered by socialism it does not have time to stand up for its members.
Telegraph
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Pro-Gaza local election candidate refused to denounce Hamas
A pro-Gaza candidate standing at this week's local elections once refused to denounce Hamas. Michael Lavalette, running as part of a Preston Independents group in the Lancashire city, declined to condemn the terror group when asked about the Oct 7 attacks. It comes amid growing fears that sectarian voting patterns seen at last year's general election will be repeated at the county council level. Mr Lavalette, an academic and member of the Socialist Workers Party, is on the ballot in Preston Central East and ran to become the MP for Preston in last year's general election. At a hustings event in June last year, the 62-year-old was asked whether he would 'denounce Hamas as a terrorist organisation regardless of your views' on the war in Gaza. Mr Lavalette replied: 'No… I think when your land is occupied, and when it has been for 76 years, people have the right to resist. 'They had the right to resist in the Second World War, the French resistance, the Yugoslavian resistance, the Italian resistance, the Greek resistance. And the Palestinians have the right to fight against their own disposition.' The Gaza conflict began on Oct 7 2023 when Hamas carried out a massacre in southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking another 251 into Gaza as hostages. At the same event, Mr Lavalette insisted that the conflict 'didn't start on Oct 7' and called for a Palestinian state to extend 'from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean'. In a social media post at the start of the local election campaign, he said: 'Palestine remains a central issue in British politics... so on May 1 in the local county elections we've decided that we are going to stand to raise the voice of Palestine once more at the elections.' Mr Lavalette has also been pictured on a pro-Palestinian march in front of a banner with the slogan 'from the sea to the river' – a variant of the phrase 'from the river, to the sea'. The slogan has been condemned as anti-Semitic by campaigners because it implies the destruction of Israel. It has been adopted by Hamas and is used in its official charter. Candidates running on a pro-Gaza platform elsewhere include Ahsan Jamil, standing in Doncaster for George Galloway's Workers Party of Britain. Mr Jamil's slogan is 'For Doncaster, For Gaza'. Khalil Ahmed, an independent candidate in High Wycombe, is a supporter of Gaza and Kashmir. He has been photographed on a pro-Kashmir march. Three Green Party candidates in North Hertfordshire and Stevenage have listed 'Israel genocide in Palestine' as a key campaign issue in their candidate profiles on the Green's website. Activists in Wycombe are telling Muslim voters who to back in next month's local elections, with a campaign video declaring that 'Allah sees everything' circulating in faith communities in Buckinghamshire. Pro-Palestinian MPs effectively became the sixth largest party in the Commons last year after five independent candidates unseated Labour rivals. Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, narrowly held on to her seat to shouts and boos from onlookers at her election count, including chants of 'shame on you' and 'free Palestine'.
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Star-Telegram endorsement: Sprawling Fort Worth City Council District 11
Voters in Fort Worth City Council District 11 have a clear choice of a candidate who knows how to get things done in government. Incumbent Jeanette Martinez was the first representative for the district, an amalgamation of varied neighborhoods pieced together in the last round of council redistricting. She has earned a second term. Martinez, a Rosemont resident who turns 42 before Election Day, is best positioned to help the district catch up on basic needs, especially street improvements, sidewalks and other essential infrastructure. But she also understands that council members must consider priorities for the city as a whole and work well as a team to ensure they are met. She works as executive administrator for County Commissioner Roderick Miles, after years in the same position for his predecessor, Roy Charles Brooks. While that creates the potential for conflict of interest, as Martinez acknowledged in our interview with the candidates, it also gives her knowledge of government processes and connections that her rivals cannot match. Martinez said she wants to ensure District 11 gets its share of the city's next bond package, slated for voter consideration in 2026. She noted the importance of keeping the focus on infrastructure needs and less on amenities that, while important to city life, can wait while basic needs are addressed. Her status as a county employee is fodder for opponent Christopher Johnson, a 57-year-old Polytechnic Heights resident. Johnson raised it in our interview; Martinez said she seeks city legal advice for when to recuse herself from any issues. Johnson, who owns a cosmetics line and formerly had a salon, touted himself as the only candidate with extensive business experience. The third candidate, Hilda Cuzco, a 77-year-old Central Meadowbrook resident, is running as a representative of the Socialist Workers Party. She works as a packer in a bakery plant. The district's neighborhoods include Echo Heights, Meadowbrook, Riverside, Rosemont and Worth Heights. If no candidate wins an outright majority, the top two vote-getters will participate in a runoff election. The winner earns a two-year term. Early voting starts April 22 and ends April 29. Election Day is May 3.
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Marxist teaching union leader planning to use strikes to ‘reorganise Britain'
'The British education system is fundamentally and institutionally racist,' announces the speaker, on stage at the Socialist Workers Party's Marxism 2019 conference in east London. The national curriculum has been whitewashed by powerful white men, he explains, and simply teaches a 'little-Englander, white-saviour narrative'. It's certainly a radical position to take, though perhaps one not entirely surprising given the company to whom it is directed. Yet what indeed might shock is the identity to whom it belongs – Daniel Kebede, now chief of Britain's biggest education union and in charge of representing the views of nearly half a million teachers and school leaders. As general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), he is currently readying his troops for strike action in the coming months after branding Labour's offer of a 2.8 per cent pay bump for public sector workers 'insulting'. This week, delegates at the NEU's annual conference in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, are due to vote on whether union districts and branches should 'immediately prepare' for a formal industrial action ballot. Kebede's members, it is claimed, are burnt out, working up to 60-hour weeks as they deal with ever increasing class sizes and shrinking budgets. Their reward? Salaries that in real terms are worth a fifth of what they were over a decade ago. Government ministers will have watched with concern that the results of an indicative ballot, announced on Friday, showed 93.7 per cent of voting members rejecting the pay offer and 83.4 per cent would be willing to strike. Yet for Kebede, 38, an avowed Marxist and hardened protester, joining the picket line is about more than just compensation. Instead, it would appear to serve a greater purpose – to 'take back control of an education system from a brutally racist state'. 'It's much more [than] about the issue of pay,' he told another Socialist Workers Party conference in 2022, while president of the NEU and standing for election as general secretary. 'It's about reorganising society where we are free from racism, and free from oppression.' A grand ambition indeed, though colleagues close to Kebede suggest that this is unlikely to be among the demands at any negotiation table currently. With schools struggling to recruit and retain teachers, more money remains the number one priority. To some extent, Kebede is limited by his membership, a broader church than their leader's narrow politics suggest who must agree to any strikes first. But with just over 47 per cent of members taking part in the indicative poll, parents, who may remember the chaos caused by the last school strikes in 2023, will be concerned about any repeat. More than 100,000 teachers across 23,000 schools took part, with one in 10 schools closed and around 40 per cent of pupils missing classes. What Kebede's words do provide, however, is a snapshot of the militant zeal fuelling the man that Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson is now facing. The outspoken primary school teacher, a Corbyn loyalist, has spent much of the past decade pounding the streets on countless anti-fascism and racism marches. The two issues, he says, run through him 'like a stick of rock' and remain central to his trade union work. So where did it all start? Kebede was born in 1987 to a white British mother and a father who came to the UK seeking sanctuary from the Mengistu regime in Ethiopia, which had sought to turn the east African country into a socialist state after overthrowing Emperor Haile Selassie. Ever since he was a child, he has told how the issue of racism never strayed far, recalling how Stephen Lawrence's murder had a profound effect on him aged six. While his early years were spent in west London, his family later moved to a 'predominantly white area' in Northampton. It was here that he experienced for the first time the racism that would go on to define his activism. At school, where he acted the 'class clown' to fit in, he told how in a Year 9 geography lesson the teacher scolded him for being disruptive, telling him: 'You're not in the jungle now.' 'I can remember being physically shocked by that,' he told the Talking Race podcast in 2020. It led him to join his first protest march, aged 17, against the National Front. After studying law at the University of Wales, Kebede chose to pursue a career in teaching after volunteering to help a child with special needs at a primary school in his early 20s. 'I fell in love with it,' he says, and moved to Newcastle to begin his teacher training. But it was witnessing the 'sorry' conditions faced by pupils at a school in Wallsend, North Tyneside, and delving into the works of Karl Marx, that then turned him into a true socialist. Further motivated by the police shooting of Mark Duggan in 2011, and the rise of the far-Right in the North East, he soon took his anger onto the streets as a coordinator for Unite Against Fascism. His move into the teaching unions came during one far-Right counter-protest when he spotted a banner for the NUT – precursor to the NEU – and decided to join as a rep in 2013. Since then, his rise through the ranks has been swift. Winning the union's prestigious Blair Peach award for his anti-racism campaigning in 2017, he joined the national executive two years later and became NEU president in 2021. Kebede had established firm links to the Left of the Labour Party. For several years he was in a relationship with Laura Pidcock, the Corbynite MP for North West Durham. In 2017, the couple – who have a six-year-old son – bought a £230,000 three-bedroom home together in County Durham. The move courted controversy as it came just months after Pidcock had said raising a deposit for her first home was 'out of reach' – even on her then £76,000 salary – and claimed she would 'love a council house' but 'there aren't enough'. Kebede's leadership bid in 2023 was also backed by his friends in the NEU Left, a powerful faction within the union pushing for more work to address social injustice within education. Kebede defeated his more moderate rival Niamh Sweeney by three to one to become general secretary, taking over at the start of the last school year. In the near 18 months since, his robust stance on underfunding in schools, teacher workload and calls to reform Ofsted have proved popular. Yet questions have continued to be raised amongst union members whether his political sentiments have distracted from the NEU's ultimate aims. The union after all is not supposed to be affiliated with any political party. For all his dedication to teaching reform, Kebede has continued to wade into various political debates, no matter their relevance to education. Most recently, his strident views on Palestine have been met with unease from some NEU members. A clip from 2021 shows him speaking at an anti-Israel rally in Newcastle calling to 'oppose apartheid… and fight for Palestinian liberation'. In the background are chants of 'Khaybar, oh Jews', a phrase historically associated with inciting violence against Jewish communities. After the footage emerged, Conservative Friends of Education called for an investigation and warned of the impact it could have on Jewish teachers and students within the union. That same year, Kebede also had to apologise after posting an anti-Semitic trope on Facebook claiming those close to the downfall of Corbyn were being paid '30 pieces of silver' for book deals – the price for which Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus Christ in the Bible. Deleting the post, he said he did not realise the phrase had been used by the Nazis to suggest that the Jews were traitors and responsible for Christ's death. Last year, Kebede used the NEU's annual conference in Bournemouth to reaffirm his anti-Israel stance, condemning its 'relentless' bombardment of Gaza following the Hamas atrocities of October 7. A few months later, he was taken to task on Teachers Talk Radio as to whether this stance was in danger of losing members. 'Let me be really clear: I do not care what your opinion is on the situation in Gaza or Israel,' he replied, stating that all were welcome regardless of their view. 'That is the point of being in a union, that there is a diversity of opinion.' One key area Kebede is particularly keen to influence is the national curriculum. He has welcomed the Government's review led by education expert Prof Becky Francis, a Left-winger whose life mission is to even the playing field for disadvantaged children. For Kebede, the aim should be 'decolonising education and embedding anti-racism throughout the curriculum', he told the Talking Race podcast in 2020. Children are taught a 'nationalistic, simplistic' version of history that is 'alienating' for pupils. 'I think we should be teaching children about the brutality of the British past,' he said, citing the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya and the Amritsar massacre in India. But for now, the focus remains on improving the proposed pay deal. Last academic year, teachers received a fully funded 5.5 per cent pay rise, but the amount put forward this year is less than half – an unfunded increase of 2.8 per cent. 'It's an issue that every teaching union leader would fight for, no one could agree to more cuts,' says Kevin Courtney, who, with Mary Bousted, was Kebede's joint predecessor as general secretary of the NEU. Having known Kebede since they first marched together on the streets of Newcastle a decade ago, Courtney suggests Kebede has toned down his language since becoming leader, becoming more 'thoughtful'. He continues: 'I think his fundamental drives are the same, but when you're speaking on behalf of an organisation of half a million people, you have to use words they would be happy to hear.' Kebede agrees. Speaking to this newspaper earlier this year, he said: 'I certainly do feel a great sense of responsibility in my role. I no longer can just speak as an individual, anything that comes out of my mouth is a representation of the union, and that's something I take really seriously.' He stands by his comments that teachers need to 'take back control'. Education is now broadly led by bureaucrats in Whitehall, he says, with 'teacher autonomy greatly removed, and their professional control eroded'. Any industrial action is 'by no means an empty threat', but 'the reality is we absolutely want to avoid it'. 'I prefer to deal with these things through dialogue,' he adds. The earliest time frame would be autumn, he says, 'so it gives loads of opportunity for me to talk with the Secretary of State to try and avoid this action.' So what should Bridget Phillipson expect around the negotiating table? Kebede himself said shortly after the election that the pair enjoyed 'a very good relationship' and he has backed the Government's Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill. 'He gets on very well with people, it's a real gift,' says Courtney, though he adds that Kebede's steely determination should not be underestimated. One former Tory minister, who has dealt closely with Kebede, agrees. 'The most interesting thing about Daniel is how nice he is,' the former minister says before adding: 'But he's proper Left-wing. 'While he can be disarming, one should never be disarmed.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
15-04-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
The Marxist teaching union leader planning to use strikes to ‘reorganise Britain'
'The British education system is fundamentally and institutionally racist,' announces the speaker, on stage at the Socialist Workers Party's Marxism 2019 conference in east London. The national curriculum has been whitewashed by powerful white men, he explains, and simply teaches a 'little-Englander, white-saviour narrative'. It's certainly a radical position to take, though perhaps one not entirely surprising given the company to whom it is directed. Yet what indeed might shock is the identity to whom it belongs – Daniel Kebede, now chief of Britain's biggest education union and in charge of representing the views of nearly half a million teachers and school leaders. As general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), he is currently readying his troops for strike action in the coming months after branding Labour's offer of a 2.8 per cent pay bump for public sector workers 'insulting'. This week, delegates at the NEU's annual conference in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, are due to vote on whether union districts and branches should 'immediately prepare' for a formal industrial action ballot. Kebede's members, it is claimed, are burnt out, working up to 60-hour weeks as they deal with ever increasing class sizes and shrinking budgets. Their reward? Salaries that in real terms are worth a fifth of what they were over a decade ago. Government ministers will have watched with concern that the results of an indicative ballot, announced on Friday, showed 93.7 per cent of voting members rejecting the pay offer and 83.4 per cent would be willing to strike. Yet for Kebede, 38, an avowed Marxist and hardened protester, joining the picket line is about more than just compensation. Instead, it would appear to serve a greater purpose – to 'take back control of an education system from a brutally racist state'. 'It's much more [than] about the issue of pay,' he told another Socialist Workers Party conference in 2022, while president of the NEU and standing for election as general secretary. 'It's about reorganising society where we are free from racism, and free from oppression.' A grand ambition indeed, though colleagues close to Kebede suggest that this is unlikely to be among the demands at any negotiation table currently. With schools struggling to recruit and retain teachers, more money remains the number one priority. To some extent, Kebede is limited by his membership, a broader church than their leader's narrow politics suggest who must agree to any strikes first. But with just over 47 per cent of members taking part in the indicative poll, parents, who may remember the chaos caused by the last school strikes in 2023, will be concerned about any repeat. More than 100,000 teachers across 23,000 schools took part, with one in 10 schools closed and around 40 per cent of pupils missing classes. What Kebede's words do provide, however, is a snapshot of the militant zeal fuelling the man that Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson is now facing. The outspoken primary school teacher, a Corbyn loyalist, has spent much of the past decade pounding the streets on countless anti-fascism and racism marches. The two issues, he says, run through him 'like a stick of rock' and remain central to his trade union work. So where did it all start? Kebede was born in 1987 to a white British mother and a father who came to the UK seeking sanctuary from the Mengistu regime in Ethiopia, which had sought to turn the east African country into a socialist state after overthrowing Emperor Haile Selassie. Ever since he was a child, he has told how the issue of racism never strayed far, recalling how Stephen Lawrence's murder had a profound effect on him aged six. While his early years were spent in west London, his family later moved to a 'predominantly white area' in Northampton. It was here that he experienced for the first time the racism that would go on to define his activism. At school, where he acted the 'class clown' to fit in, he told how in a Year 9 geography lesson the teacher scolded him for being disruptive, telling him: 'You're not in the jungle now.' 'I can remember being physically shocked by that,' he told the Talking Race podcast in 2020. It led him to join his first protest march, aged 17, against the National Front. After studying law at the University of Wales, Kebede chose to pursue a career in teaching after volunteering to help a child with special needs at a primary school in his early 20s. 'I fell in love with it,' he says, and moved to Newcastle to begin his teacher training. But it was witnessing the 'sorry' conditions faced by pupils at a school in Wallsend, North Tyneside, and delving into the works of Karl Marx, that then turned him into a true socialist. Further motivated by the police shooting of Mark Duggan in 2011, and the rise of the far-Right in the North East, he soon took his anger onto the streets as a coordinator for Unite Against Fascism. His move into the teaching unions came during one far-Right counter-protest when he spotted a banner for the NUT – precursor to the NEU – and decided to join as a rep in 2013. Since then, his rise through the ranks has been swift. Winning the union's prestigious Blair Peach award for his anti-racism campaigning in 2017, he joined the national executive two years later and became NEU president in 2021. Kebede had established firm links to the Left of the Labour Party. For several years he was in a relationship with Laura Pidcock, the Corbynite MP for North West Durham. In 2017, the couple – who have a six-year-old son – bought a £230,000 three-bedroom home together in County Durham. The move courted controversy as it came just months after Pidcock had said raising a deposit for her first home was 'out of reach' – even on her then £76,000 salary – and claimed she would 'love a council house' but 'there aren't enough'. Kebede's leadership bid in 2023 was also backed by his friends in the NEU Left, a powerful faction within the union pushing for more work to address social injustice within education. Kebede defeated his more moderate rival Niamh Sweeney by three to one to become general secretary, taking over at the start of the last school year. In the near 18 months since, his robust stance on underfunding in schools, teacher workload and calls to reform Ofsted have proved popular. Yet questions have continued to be raised amongst union members whether his political sentiments have distracted from the NEU's ultimate aims. The union after all is not supposed to be affiliated with any political party. For all his dedication to teaching reform, Kebede has continued to wade into various political debates, no matter their relevance to education. Most recently, his strident views on Palestine have been met with unease from some NEU members. A clip from 2021 shows him speaking at an anti-Israel rally in Newcastle calling to 'oppose apartheid… and fight for Palestinian liberation'. In the background are chants of 'Khaybar, oh Jews', a phrase historically associated with inciting violence against Jewish communities. After the footage emerged, Conservative Friends of Education called for an investigation and warned of the impact it could have on Jewish teachers and students within the union. That same year, Kebede also had to apologise after posting an anti-Semitic trope on Facebook claiming those close to the downfall of Corbyn were being paid '30 pieces of silver' for book deals – the price for which Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus Christ in the Bible. Deleting the post, he said he did not realise the phrase had been used by the Nazis to suggest that the Jews were traitors and responsible for Christ's death. Last year, Kebede used the NEU's annual conference in Bournemouth to reaffirm his anti-Israel stance, condemning its 'relentless' bombardment of Gaza following the Hamas atrocities of October 7. A few months later, he was taken to task on Teachers Talk Radio as to whether this stance was in danger of losing members. 'Let me be really clear: I do not care what your opinion is on the situation in Gaza or Israel,' he replied, stating that all were welcome regardless of their view. 'That is the point of being in a union, that there is a diversity of opinion.' One key area Kebede is particularly keen to influence is the national curriculum. He has welcomed the Government's review led by education expert Prof Becky Francis, a Left-winger whose life mission is to even the playing field for disadvantaged children. For Kebede, the aim should be 'decolonising education and embedding anti-racism throughout the curriculum', he told the Talking Race podcast in 2020. Children are taught a 'nationalistic, simplistic' version of history that is 'alienating' for pupils. 'I think we should be teaching children about the brutality of the British past,' he said, citing the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya and the Amritsar massacre in India. But for now, the focus remains on improving the proposed pay deal. Last academic year, teachers received a fully funded 5.5 per cent pay rise, but the amount put forward this year is less than half – an unfunded increase of 2.8 per cent. 'It's an issue that every teaching union leader would fight for, no one could agree to more cuts,' says Kevin Courtney, who, with Mary Bousted, was Kebede's joint predecessor as general secretary of the NEU. Having known Kebede since they first marched together on the streets of Newcastle a decade ago, Courtney suggests Kebede has toned down his language since becoming leader, becoming more 'thoughtful'. He continues: 'I think his fundamental drives are the same, but when you're speaking on behalf of an organisation of half a million people, you have to use words they would be happy to hear.' Kebede agrees. Speaking to this newspaper earlier this year, he said: 'I certainly do feel a great sense of responsibility in my role. I no longer can just speak as an individual, anything that comes out of my mouth is a representation of the union, and that's something I take really seriously.' He stands by his comments that teachers need to 'take back control'. Education is now broadly led by bureaucrats in Whitehall, he says, with 'teacher autonomy greatly removed, and their professional control eroded'. Any industrial action is 'by no means an empty threat', but 'the reality is we absolutely want to avoid it'. 'I prefer to deal with these things through dialogue,' he adds. The earliest time frame would be autumn, he says, 'so it gives loads of opportunity for me to talk with the Secretary of State to try and avoid this action.' So what should Bridget Phillipson expect around the negotiating table? Kebede himself said shortly after the election that the pair enjoyed 'a very good relationship' and he has backed the Government's Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill. 'He gets on very well with people, it's a real gift,' says Courtney, though he adds that Kebede's steely determination should not be underestimated. One former Tory minister, who has dealt closely with Kebede, agrees. 'The most interesting thing about Daniel is how nice he is,' the former minister says before adding: 'But he's proper Left-wing. 'While he can be disarming, one should never be disarmed.'
