Australian graduates face ban on work in Britain

On past form (i.e. the actions of the Whitlam Labor government), this may lead to retaliatory bans on Brits coming to Australia. And there are a lot more Brits coming to Australia than Australians going the other way. Phil Woolas had better discover some "historic ties" rather soon

AUSSIE university graduates may be barred from working in Britain with the recession forcing the British Government to toughen its immigration laws. Australian workers in Britain are already hamstrung by law changes late last year that made it tougher to extend or reapply for working visas. But British immigration minister Phil Woolas now plans to toughen the points-based immigration system for people from outside the EU, to protect 400,000 British university graduates entering the work force, particularly in the legal and financial sector.

The move comes just days after a backlash over recruitment advertisements targeting Australians for work on the London 2012 Olympics project and a series of wildcat strikes last week that saw thousands walk off the job demanding "British jobs for British workers".

According to British figures, between 10,000 and 18,000 qualified foreigners are expected to go to Britain to work this year without any job lined up. "The points-based system that has been introduced allows us to toughen the criteria and clearly in the economic situation that is something it is beholden on us to do," Mr Woolas said. "We want to maintain the highest possible levels of British graduate employment." Ironically, the British Government praised Australia when it adopted its points-based system last year.

After four quarters of negative growth, Britain was officially declared in recession last month fuelling fears of unemployment hitting three million people. Jobs fears have brought in a protectionist attitude across Europe with workers taking to the streets demanding jobs be given only to nationals. London Olympic chiefs were forced to dismiss fears construction jobs for the $20 billion 2012 Olympics project were being offered to Australians before Britons after a Sydney-based firm began offering positions.

Ironically, the Olympic Delivery Authority's chief executive is Australian-born David Higgins and a number of Australian companies are involved in the project. Britain's business minister Lord Mandelson said xenophobia and the recession was fuelling jobs fears.

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Children looked after by grandparents 'are naughtier than those who spend day in nursery'

More junk science. This was not a controlled comparison. The kids who went to nursery probably came from different sorts of homes to start with

Young children looked after by grandparents are more likely to be badly behaved than those sent to nursery, a study claims today. They tended to have wider vocabularies, but were also more likely to show 'problem behaviour' and find it harder to get on with other children, said researchers. They were also less likely to be ready for school, according to the study by the Institute of Education, a University of London research body widely viewed as left-wing. The Institute tracked 4,800 children of working mothers and found those sent to nurseries and playgroups had a better understanding of colours, letters, numbers, sizes, comparisons and shapes.

But other experts said the findings appeared to contradict studies which found that care by grandparents was linked to happiness and security. They said grandparents often developed almost as close a bond with children as parents and were able to give children one-to-one attention. Siobhan Freegard, founder of parenting website netmums.com, said the emotional benefits to children of being cared for by a grandparent may outweigh any short-term head start at school.

'There is a lot of research saying that children who went to full-time nurseries are ahead of their peers when they start school,' she said. 'But that head start is not sustained. It shouldn't be used so often as justification for putting children in daycare settings from a young age. 'There is plenty of time for education after the age of three. For a very small child, there are massive advantages in terms of brain and emotional development of having one-on-one attention from an adult who loves them.'

One Government-funded study previously found that toddlers put in daycare for long hours are 'significantly' more likely to bully or tease other children, and to demand their own way. Other Government-funded studies have found wide variation in the quality of day nurseries and creches, with the worst linked to slower progress at school and behavioural problems.

The latest research, publicly-funded through the Economic and Social Research Council, surveyed working parents when their children were nine months old and again when they were three. The three-year-olds were given simple assessments of their vocabulary and readiness for school.

Youngsters who were being looked after by grandparents at nine months were considered at the age of three to have more behavioural problems, judging from parental interviews, than those who had been in the care of a nursery, creche, childminder or nanny. This was particularly true of boys, and mainly manifested itself in difficulties getting on with other children. But while youngsters were also judged generally less prepared for formal education, they tended to have wider vocabularies and more accurate speech.

Researchers suggested that while grandparents may struggle to provide physical activities for children, they compensate with plenty of conversation. Dr Kirstine Hansen, research director said: 'Our research shows that grandparent care contributes both positively and negatively to child outcomes and, perhaps with government support, this situation could be improved

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As a successful playwright this woman should have the world at her feet but at 36 she feels bitterly unfulfilled

Though I never thought I would be saying this, being a free woman isn't all it's cracked up to be. Is that the rustle of taffeta I hear as the suffragettes turn in their grave? Very possibly. My mother - a film-maker - was a hippy who kept a pile of dusty books by Germaine Greer and Erica Jong by her bedside. (Like every good feminist, she didn't see why she should do all the cleaning.) She imbued me with the great values of choice, equality and sexual liberation. As a result, I fought with my older brother and won, and at university I beat the rugby lads at drinking games. I was not to be messed with.

But, at nearly 37, those same values leave me feeling cold. Now, I want love and children, but they are nowhere to be seen. When I was growing up, I was led to believe by my mother and other women of her generation that women could 'have it all', and, more to the point, that we wanted it all. To that end, I have spent 20 years ruthlessly pursuing my dream of being a successful playwright. I have sacrificed all my womanly duties and laid it all at the altar of a career. And was it worth it? The answer has to be a resounding no.

Ten years ago, I wrote a play called Paradise Syndrome. It was based on my girlfriends in the music business. All we did was party, work and drink. The play sold out and I thought: 'This is it! I'm going to have it all - success, power - and men are going to adore me for it.' In reality, it was the beginning of years of hard slog, rejection letters and living on the breadline.

A decade on, I have written the follow-up play Touched For The Very First Time, in which the character of Lesley (played by Sadie Frost) is an ordinary 14-year-old from Manchester who falls in love with Madonna in 1984 after hearing the song Like A Virgin. She religiously follows her icon through the years, as Madonna sells her the ultimate dream - 'You can do anything, be anything, Go girl!'. Lesley discovers, along with Madonna, that trying to 'have it all' is a massive gamble. I wrote the play because so many of my girlfriends were inspired by this independent woman who allowed us to feel we could be strong and feminists and have careers and still be sexy. I still adore Madonna, and always will, but she has turned out not to be able to 'have it all'. The same goes for those of us who idolised her - and it's a huge disappointment.

I may be an extreme case. My views may not represent those of other women of my generation. Perhaps I am just a spoilt middle-class girl who had a career and who has now changed her mind about what she wants from life. But I don't think so. I would argue that women's libbers of the Sixties and Seventies put careerism at the forefront of women's lives and, as a result, the traditional role of women was trampled underneath their crusading Doc Martens. I wish a more balanced view of womanhood had been available to me. I wish that being a housewife or a mother hadn't been such a toxic idea to middle-class liberals of those formative decades.

Increasing numbers of my strongly feminist contemporaries are giving up their careers and opting for love and children and baking instead. Now, I wish I'd had kids ten years ago, when time was on my side. But the essence of the problem, I can see in retrospect, is not so much time as mentality. It's about understanding what is important in life, and from what I see and feel deep down, loving relationships and children bring more happiness than work ever can.

Natasha Hidvegi, 37, who recently left her job as a surgeon in order to look after her son, told me: 'I don't want to judge other women in similar jobs, but I found it impossible to be both a good surgeon and a good mother. Giving up my career was a terribly hard decision, but I don't regret it.' It's one thing to give up your career and have children before it's too late with the right man, but it's another issue altogether if you haven't yet found that man. Because, as my generation have discovered to their cost, men don't appear to like strong women very much. They are programmed to like their women soft and feminine. It's not their fault - it's in the genes.

Holly Kendrick, 34, who holds a high-status job in theatre, agrees: 'Men tend to be freaked out if you work as hard as them,' she says. 'It's like being the smart kid in the class: no one likes them.' This is why many of my girlfriends are still alone. Perhaps men haven't accepted women's modernity. (By modernity, I mean being the strong alpha woman who never questions her entitlement to the same jobs, fun and sexual gratification as men.) And this is the crux of the problem. Modernity has made women stronger, and that consequently means that we have higher standards; we want more. I am extremely capable, I really don't need a man. Seriously - it scares me how much I don't need a man. But that doesn't mean I don't want one. I am lonely, and terrified of being alone.

I have tried everything to stop the clocks, to stall time and find my ideal partner. I've considered the whole 'Let's adopt a baby from an African orphanage' thing. I have even had my eggs frozen (yes, really!) in the hope that if I do meet the right man, I will be in a position to have the children I now long for.

The problem is this: now I have decided I am ready for a new relationship, I am well prepared and I am totally efficient at running my life. But efficiency is not a very endearing quality; men find me daunting, and I can see that. It's not as if I'm famous or anything. It's just - like other women of my age - I seem to know it all. I do. And that's a massive turn-off for a bloke. This is why I say: do it early, girls - do it before you get cynical and jaded. Do the whole 'falling in love thing' when you honestly can embrace that joie de vivre. And, for goodness' sake, have children when you are young enough to enjoy them and to have more if you want them.

I feel a great pressure from other women of my generation who have husbands and children to join their club. In their eyes, I am not the trailblazer but the failure. My friend Rita Arnold, who's 36, works in marketing, says: 'It's not men who judge me for being a careerist - I find they are more accommodating of "modernity" - it's other women. The claws come out.' This leaves a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. We are letting each other down, but there is a worse betrayal even than that. Apparently, I am a failure in my own eyes. Somewhere deep inside lurks a women I cannot control, and she is in the kitchen with a baby on her hip and a ball of dough in her hand, staring me down. She is saying to me: 'This is happiness. You can't deny it, this is what it's all about.' It's an instinct that makes me a woman; an instinct that I can't ignore, even if I've tried to for 15 years.

Had I had this understanding of my inner psyche in my 20s, I would have mentally demoted my writing (and hedonism) and pursued a relationship with vigour. There were plenty of men and even a marriage offer from someone with whom I would have happily settled down. But no, I wasn't prepared to give up my dreams, the life I had been told was the right and proper one for a modern woman.

Struggling to understand my confusion, I went back and talked to the girls who were the subject of my play Paradise Syndrome in 1999. Sas Taylor, 38, single and childless, runs her own PR company. 'In my 20s, I felt as if I was invincible, unstoppable,' she says. 'Now, I wish I had done it all differently. I seem to scare men off because I am so capable that I just don't appear to need them, but I do. I have business success, but it doesn't make me happy in the core of myself.'

Nicki P, 35, single and also childless, works in the music industry and adds: 'It was all a game back then. Now, it's serious, and I am panicking. No one told me having fun isn't as much fun as I thought.' As I write this, I feel sad, as if the feminist principles my mother brought me up to have are being trashed. Am I betraying womanhood? No, I am revealing a shameful inner truth. Women are often the worst enemies of feminism because of our genetic make-up. We only have a finite time to be mothers, and when that biological clock starts ticking, we receive the most enormous reality check. That's why we suddenly abandon all our strength, forget all talk of deadlines and Powerpoint presentations, and start keeping ovulation diaries.

Of course, not all women want children. But I challenge any woman to say they don't want loving relationships. I wish I had been given the advice that I am now giving to my sister, who is 22. If you find a great guy, don't be afraid to settle down and have kids because there isn't anything to miss out on that you can't go back and do later - apart from having kids.

In the future, I hope there can be a better understanding of women by women. The past 25 years has been confusing for our sex, and I can't help feeling I've been caught in the crossfire. As women, we should accept each other full stop, rather than only appreciating professional 'success'. I have always felt an immense pressure to be successful, to show men I am their equal. What a waste of time that was. The traditional role of wife and mother should be given parity with the careerist role in the minds of feminists as well as men.

My mother has managed to juggle a career as a film-maker and being a great mother. She was part of the generation that overlapped in the sense that they had feminist values, but still had children early. She hasn't had the career opportunities that my generation of women have had because she had to make sacrifices and take lesser jobs so she could be there at parents' evenings. That is not a clash of priorities that I or most of my friends have ever faced.

Before the sisterhood rise up in fury, I would say this: I am not betraying feminism at all. Choice and careers are vital, of course, but they shouldn't be held up as a Holy Grail and pursued relentlessly. I love being a writer, but my career hasn't made me feel as fulfilled as I had imagined it would. So, now I am facing facts. The thing that has made me feel best in life was being in love with my ex-boyfriend - whom I was with for five years from the age of 30 - and the thing that makes me feel the most centred is being in the country with other people's children and dogs, and, yes, maybe in the kitchen.

Of course, I still have time to find a man and have children, but it doesn't often work like that, does it? I don't want to be an old mother whose arthritic knees don't allow her to run in the park with her little ones. It's all about now, now, now. And sod's law says that every day, minute, hour that goes by makes you older and more desperate. It might as well be tattooed on my forehead.

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Resentment of mothers by the foolishly shallow and self-centred

That motherhood might actually be a more important, profound and valuable experience than a "career" seems to be overlooked by those who have been brainwashed by feminism. One can now only laugh at those whose chief topic of conversation up until recently was real-estate

Don't you just hate mothers? They're always droning on about breast pads and lack of sleep and those darn kids. Unlike, you know, the normal people who don't have children and aren't, well, boring. The Observer's Rachel Cooke has noticed. "…I might as well be honest and say that, right now (I am 39), my refusal to have children is also connected to the sense of horror and fear that I feel when I encounter a certain kind of mother." That mother is the kind who bangs on about antenatal classes. The kind who sighs and says she doesn't have time to see movies anymore. The kind that isn't interested in Cooke's recent trip to Yemen.

Let's not make excuses for boring mothers, even taking into account the hormones, the exhaustion and the relative isolation of early motherhood that means you can temporarily forget how to talk to other people. Like Cooke, I've met my fair share of women with mummy-on-the-mind-fulltime. The one at a dinner party who couldn't quit talking about weaning; the one I'd considered previously sane who insisted that babies are literally little angels (instead of tiny humans).

It IS irritating when parents make the same old tired jokes about "I haven't slept for the past 2 years ha ha" or women you previously considered comrades in the workforce suddenly quit and spend their time organising playdates and coffee mornings that you inevitably can't attend. But let's face it, there are bores everywhere, prattling on about their celebrity obsessions, their diets, their latest shrink sessions, their training regimen for the marathon (tell me again about the carb-loading!).

Cooke's exasperation with the reactions of mothers - overly focussed on their children, concerned that Rachida Dati's speedy return to work will become a template for "successful" working motherhood - occurs precisely because she isn't a mother, as many of her acquaintances so irritatingly point out. (Sorry, Rachel, but in this case it's true.) The reason why new-mummy talk is so boring to Cooke is precisely because it's niche. Motherhood temporarily takes over women's lives. It's a physical event that - Dati's silhouette notwithstanding - takes a year from which to fully recover, and psychologically it divides a woman from her old life in which she could unabashedly be her own top priority and one in which she must prioritise the needs of another person uniquely dependent on its parents.

Or perhaps Cooke just needs to find a more stimulating circle of friends. There are plenty of mothers out there who are interested in talking about good graphic novels or David Mamet plays or holidays in Ethiopia (it's the new Yemen, I'm told).

So why are mummies making such nuisances of themselves by blathering on so? For one, parenthood has become a much more visible topic these days, incorporating our larger societal angst about everything from the dynamics of the workplace to youth crime. We've also left behind the era of power suits and having to pretend that young children haven't changed our lives at all. Additionally parents are a lot more visible because of the internet - where their conversations flourish, their pictures are posted and their daily activities tweeted.

Cooke smirks at those silly mums who join in a discussion of, for example, the funny things kids say. Who would want to spend their time on something like that? Well, someone like the writer John Dunne, late husband of Joan Didion, who kept slips of paper with amusing phrases their young daughter said. Or the humorist Art Linkletter, whose book Kids Say the Darndest Things has become a best-seller and inspired a television series. She should be grateful for the message boards she disdains - at least these parents are talking amongst themselves, rather than ruining the cocktail party for everyone else. Visiting them then bemoaning the conversations there is a bit like going to a Trekkie convention then complaining when everyone dresses like Spock. Alpha Mummy even got a mention as the kind of place that warns Cooke off parenthood:

For all that I love my girlfriends, then, it's no wonder that, whenever one announces that she is pregnant, I am wary until I know the lay of the land. I visit them, I dandle their adorable new babies on my knee, and I watch and I wait. Only when they ask me a proper question (and really listen to the answer), or make mention of the outside world and their own temporary absence from it, do I know that they haven't turned, overnight, into the kind of person who actually posts chummy comments on the Alpha Mummy blog (just think about the phrase "Alpha Mummy" for a moment: assuming you are with me thus far, doesn't it make you, on every possible level, about as mad as you can be?).

Getting past the misinterpretation of name, I wonder whether Cooke actually has taken the time to read a blog she condemns for its friendly conversations. Our most popular post last year was about foreign correspondent Christina Lamb and the issue of mothering from the front line of war. It's a blog of ideas, not updates about what we fingerpainted that morning. It seems to represent the kind of motherhood she champions. There are plenty of mothers out there with more on their minds than nappies. There are loads who can talk about their kids without meaning it as a judgement on those without kids. At least Cooke can take solace in the most basic fact of babyhood for children, parents and the people they sit next to at dinner: at some point they get over it.

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Rough NHS dentists kill little girl

Careless and arrogant treatment all along the line here. You are just cattle to government employees

An eight-year-old girl starved to death after developing an extreme phobia of dentists and refusing to open her mouth, an inquest has been told. Sophie Waller, from Cornwall, England, was so traumatised by a visit to the dentist that she refused to open her mouth to talk or eat.

Sophie’s extraordinary fear first developed when, at age four, a dentist accidentally cut her tongue during a check-up. Her fear became so extreme that when she needed a tooth removed four years later, she was taken to hospital. But doctors made the situation even worse by removing eight of her milk teeth. She was so traumatised by that procedure she had to be fed through a tube.

“She had blood running all down her face... It was very scary for her," her mother Janet told The Daily Mail. "She soon needed a feeding tube because she stopped eating and drinking.” “I signed a form to consent to have one tooth being removed, but not eight."

Despite her refusal to eat, Sophie was discharged from hospital. Her parent’s pleas for her to be readmitted reportedly fell on deaf ears. Doctors referred her to child psychologist Kerry Davison, who allegedly told them “not to worry”. Two weeks after leaving the hospital Sophie weighed less than 25kg. She died of acute kidney failure in December 2005, a post mortem examination revealed.

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Religious segregation in British school

Head 'forced out' over ban on Muslim assemblies. If it is a cardinal sin to segregate blacks and whites, why is it OK to segregate Muslims and non-Muslims? Rubbery Leftist principles again, it would seem

A head teacher who was accused of racism after she tried to scrap separate assemblies for Muslim children at her school has resigned. Julia Robinson's departure follows an 18-month dispute over her attempt to hold a single weekly assembly for all pupils at Meersbrook Bank primary school, in Sheffield, regardless of their faith. Although the plan was backed by staff and many parents, some Muslim parents objected and accused Mrs Robinson of being racist.

Sheffield council refused to discuss why Mrs Robinson had resigned but a teacher at the school said that she had been under a lot of pressure, while a parent claimed that she had her hands tied and was forced out. The school's chairman of governors has also quit.

More than 20 per cent of the school's 240 pupils are Muslims. Parents from the local mosque said that the Islamic services started ten years ago after they withdraw their children from the daily service. One said that the split came after a teacher tried to force a Muslim pupil to sing a Christian hymn.

The school and the parents agreed that Muslim pupils would attend four of the five weekly assemblies, which were inclusive in nature, but that on Tuesday, when a more formal act of Christian worship was held, Muslim pupils would take part in an Islamic service led by one of the parents.

When Mrs Robinson joined Meersbrook Bank in 2007 she set up a working group to review the separate practice. A teacher at the school said that Mrs Robinson took careful advice from the local education authority. “She wanted to hold assemblies for all the pupils, which would include all faiths. That is what happens in most schools but some parents wanted things to stay as they were. When she tried to stop them, feeling they did nothing to promote inclusiveness, she was accused of being racist.”

Mrs Robinson was “absent through ill health” for most of last year. She had been due to resume her duties this term, but some parents are understood to have objected to the local authority about her return. A teacher said: “She was under a lot of pressure. The plan was for her to come back but again some of the parents put a stop to that. Many of us here just feel this is all very wrong. Julia was doing the right thing and went through all the right routes. There's no other school we know that has separate assemblies like these. “The buzzword from the authority at the moment is all about community cohesion but there is little cohesion at this school. The staff are very upset at what has happened.”

A mother with three children at the school said that Mrs Robinson was “a marvellous head and loved by the children”. “What she was doing was quite right. The children sit together in class so why shouldn't they share a school assembly?” she said.

A Muslim parent said that the Islamic assemblies, which have been suspended for the past year, taught Muslim children to be good citizens and had “never received negative feedback” before Mrs Robinson's appointment. The parent, who is a police sergeant and a governor, said that the school was a place where children of different ethnic backgrounds “get on fantastically”.

The law in England and Wales states that children at state schools “shall on each school day take part in an act of collective worship”, which should be “wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character”. The head teacher is responsible for collective worship provision, in consultation with the governors. David Fann, who chairs the primary schools committee of the National Association of Head Teachers, said that he had never known a school to hold separate assemblies for children of different faiths. “Segregating children is not good practice. The whole point is to gather people together to share their views and to learn from other people's viewpoints.”

Some Islamic activists have urged Muslim parents to withdraw their children from school assemblies and to demand the right to hold separate acts of worship. Mrs Robinson was not at her home yesterday and was said to be “staying with friends to avoid the fuss”.

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A rare display of spine in the Church of England

Bishops oppose political censorship

Church of England clergy could be barred from membership of the far-right British National Party under a controversial motion to be debated this week, The Times has learnt. The move, which coincides with intense public debate over race and equality, is backed by Sir Ian Blair, the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who will attend the General Synod to support a policy borrowed from the Association of Chief Police Officers, which bans officers from joining the BNP....

It is likely to rekindle the dispute over racism, and what defines public and privately held views, less than a week after the BBC dropped Carol Thatcher from one of its programmes for using the word "golliwog" in an off-air conversation.

However, the motion will be opposed at the Synod by bishops and lawyers who will argue that banning individuals from membership of political organisations would infringe their human rights. William Fittall, Secretary General to the Synod, has circulated a paper which states that the Church's legal advice was that the policy could not be enforced. He wrote: "Since the BNP is not a proscribed political party, it is lawful to be a member. Merely being a member of it could not, therefore, provide a basis for disciplinary proceedings against a member of the clergy." Mr Fittall added: "Cases outside the Church concerning the BNP have seen employees bringing claims against their employers arguing that their less favourable treatment is an interference with their human rights."

Vasantha Gnanadoss, the proposer of the motion and a civilian member of staff with the Metropolitan Police, argues that the policy should be adopted to "carry a clear message to society at large". She said: "It will make it much more difficult for the BNP or similar organisations to exploit the claim that there are Anglican clergy or church representatives who support them."

Simon Darby, deputy leader of the BNP, said: "It is not a very Christian thing to do to say that because you belong to a political party you cannot work for the Church of England."

The BNP debate is one of a number which are likely to prove divisive at the Synod. Traditionalists are expected to resist plans to create "complementary" bishops who would look after opponents of women's ordination if women are consecrated bishops. However many parliamentarians and the thousands of women priests that the Church now depends on to sustain its ministry, along with their male supporters, will also be dismayed if Synod members turn their back on women bishops. Proposals to ordain women bishops depend on thenew class of bishop being accepted.

Anglo-Catholics are expected to resist the idea because the complementary bishops will ultimately be answerable to women bishops. A two-thirds majority will be needed when the final vote on women bishops takes place three or four years from now, after dioceses and parishes have been consulted. Wednesday's debate on complementary bishops will require only a simple majority but will signal whether the final measure will go through as traditionalists marshall their forces once more against women's ordination. Some bishops fear a re-run of the 1992 vote on women priests, when just one change of mind by an opponent of women priests secured the two-thirds majority that let the measure through.

In a third debate likely to set traditionalists against the liberal wing of the Church, the Synod will be asked by an evangelical lay member, Paul Eddy, to affirm the "uniqueness of Christ" in a multi-faith society. This motion, if passed, would implicitly confer a duty on Church of England clergy and laity to proselytise Muslims, Jews and other minority faiths.

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Must not mock atheists?



We read:

"My favourite moment of the show was cartoonist Martin Rowson recounting the fuss made by atheists when he lampooned Richard Dawkins in a cartoon for New Humanist magazine. After many abusive emails he attended a meeting of humanists and explained that he was making fun of Dawkins but wasn't suggesting the scientist was gay:

"After the meeting one of the atheists came to me and said "You mustn't mock Dawkins, he's the only saint we've got.

Source

An atheist "saint"?





Sense of humor not allowed in British schools

Actually, it can be dangerous anywhere these days

"A headmaster is facing the sack after allegedly describing his female staff as his `harem', referring to one woman teacher as his `lover' and calling a school governor `posh pants'. Malcolm Beresford, 52, was suspended from his post in the village of Willoughton near Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, in November 2005 on the grounds of 'unacceptable professional misconduct'. He also called a woman staff member his 'lover' and referred to another governor as 'vindaloo', it has earlier been claimed at a hearing of the General Teaching Council.

Mr Beresford joined the school in 1996 and helped win praise from a 2002 Ofsted report for its 'significant improvement' and ' harmonious atmosphere'. The 51-pupil, three-class school was selected as a guinea pig to test Government education projects because of the high quality of its teaching.

Source