Sideshow Birb And The Racist Right

Those who look in regularly on Zelo Street will be all too familiar with the country’s allegedly strictest headteacher (or so she claims), Katharine Birbalsingh, most recently over her misattribution of a quotation to Winshton, along with a very public mardy strop when she was called out for it. Now she is in the news once more, and once more it’s for all the wrong reasons.

Katharine Birbalsingh

Ms Birbalsingh admitted to having read Living Marxism, of genocide denial infamy, in her student days, and so it should have surprised no-one when she recently gave an interview to Spiked, so called because it should have been long ago. Thus she confirmed her apparent crossing of the political floor to line up with those firmly, but deniably, out there on the right.

So her latest excursion into controversy should have surprised no-one: Tweeting out two photos of her with her free school’s latest guest, she added proudly “Look who is at Michaela today!” And who was at Michaela that day? The other presence in the photos was that of Jordan Peterson. Allowing him into her school soon attracted a great deal of severely adverse comment.

Sophia Jetta pointed out to her that “there are so many genuinely admirable people you could have invited but you went for the bloke who likes to deny racism exists and who thinks white privilege isn't real”. Ms Birbalsingh went on the defensive. “I tweeted two photos of Jordan Peterson visiting Michaela and someone reported me to the police for hate crime and various others have demanded Ofsted inspect us immediately. The world has gone mad”.

The Tweeter known as Buddy Hell was unimpressed. “He's a racist and a eugenics enthusiast. Exposing children to someone as toxic as Peterson is tantamount to child abuse”. Another Tweeter added “You invited a racist with a drug habit and thought this was fine. Don't start crying now. You should have done a CRB check before letting him anywhere near kids”.

Come on Kath! “Lots of people on here who think Jordan Peterson is a threat to kids. In a dining hall with loads of teachers! What’s he going to do?? Most of us in the school are brown and black. He was v polite and respectful. It is on Twitter where the insults come”. So he was polite and respectful. That does not adequately answer any of the points already made.

And it’s not difficult to find out where Peterson is coming from, as the Tweeter known as Snig’s Kitchen pointed out: “Jordan Peterson is trending. Here he is talking to Stefan Molyneux about intelligence and race. Stop justifying this man: he's clearly a racist”. Then came his views on women, and feminism.

Jordan Peterson

Views like “Feminists support the rights of Muslims because of their ‘unconscious wish for brutal male domination’”, and “The idea that women were oppressed throughout history is an appalling theory”. Who would she now quote in her defence? What would any head teacher have done? What would a sensible person have done? What would Nietzsche have done?

Sadly, the best Ms Birbalsingh could manage was “Father” Calvin Robertson, who has been ordained into the Free Church of England (not the C of E), and is therefore now a man of God, although he is still a regular on Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”). “Such targeted hatred. The woke Left seem to think he’s the devil” was Calv’s best shot, although there was no hatred.

Also, he has no idea what Woke means (no surprise there, then). But he did spur Ms Birbalsingh on to greater heights. “The reaction to my tweet of Jordan Peterson’s visit to Michaela is horrifying … We ought to believe in freedom of thought”. But freedom of thought is not the issue.

It is giving a platform to, and thereby legitimising in the eyes of the children in her school, an infamous bigot (and climate change denier). So he was polite to those he met there? So what? Inviting a known racist, then being appallingly defensive, with over the top responses like “Having Jordan Peterson eat lunch with the kids is not a safeguarding issue. But why do they do this? Because they know that screaming ‘safeguarding’ shuts a school down. And shutting Michaela down is their goal”, is not a wise move.

But there is a plus point for Ms Birbalsingh here: she can now run back to the people at Spiked, who will willingly give her a platform to tell the world how the Lefty-Liberal Woke Elite tried to Cancel her and her school. Or it may be the increasingly alt-right Spectator that comes calling.

And so she continues to be a darling of the right. No change there, then.

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