Gloria In Excelsis Deo

They seem to have caught all four 21/7 bombers.

I see one is described as "Somali-born UK citizen Osman Hussein". I think John B and Jonathan had better brace themselves - could he have sought asylum I wonder ?

And the great Dalrymple has a post up which echoes the call of a teaching union to reintroduce selection into education.

Dalrymple :

While it is pointless, short of instituting a horrible dictatorship, even to think of equality of opportunity, it is certainly not pointless to think about giving everyone at least minimal opportunity, by - for example - teaching them properly to read and write, and by trying to educate them to the best of their ability. The latter means an open and wholehearted acceptance of intellectual elitism: that some people, for reasons that will never fully be understood, will be able to achieve more intellectually than others. Such elitism is not snobbery or social exclusivity, as some pretend: it is, in fact, a precondition of the supposedly ultimate purpose of equality of opportunity, social justice.

Peter Morris (himself a comprehensive teacher who failed the 11-plus) :

"We must face up to the reality that children who are academically gifted should be given the same level of encouragement as those children who are slow learners."

Most 16-year-olds today would not gain good grades in the old O-levels, which were replaced in the 1980s by GCSEs, he said.

Mr Morris, from Bishop Gore Comprehensive School, Swansea, said: "Perhaps even more importantly standards of discipline have dropped with the introduction of comprehensive education.

"If a teacher spends too much time with low achievers then the high achievers become disruptive. The converse too is true."