Britain has a system of state-funded religious schools, and it is these schools that the teachers union are asking to change. What the article seems to suggest is that 1) this is a political rebuke to Tony Blair, who promoted these schools, by his political opponents, the unions; and 2) an maneuver to extract concessions from these schools in terms of more inclusive admissions – and probably more control over curriculum.

In other words, this in an effort to neuter religious distinctives that might challenge the PC and secular orthodoxies in Britain, an effort to indoctrinate the children into the post modern values infesting Europe and seeping into Britain.

Curious are these numbers:

There are about 6,400 primary and 600 secondary faith state schools in England. Of these, about 4,700 are Church of England, 2,100 Roman Catholic, and 150 Methodist, with 36 Jewish, six Muslim, two Sikh, one Greek Orthodox, one Hindu and one Seventh-Day Adventist.

The low number of Islamic schools (6) surprised me until I saw this sentence that followed:

There are a further 140 Muslim schools in the UK which are not part of the state system.

Thus this could turn out to be a blessing for people of faith if they see the red flag here on the consequences to their integrity of accepting state money and instead opt-out of the state funding system, like these Muslim schools have done.

This is where the churches in England should be looking to spend their money – on educating their youth in the faith rather than the many ways they piss away their donations. The Muslims are doing a good job of looking after their youth (aided perhaps by Saudi money?)

And for us in the U.S., this is another warning of the perils of accepting government funding for faith-based activities – with government funding inevitably will come calls for state control – or state manipulation.