Faith Schools Menace? – 18 Aug 2010

We get a little more serious today with a documentary, Faith Schools Menace? It’s presented by Richard Dawkins, who I use to really like when he was doing his great science writing, but I found his later pivot to being grumpy that religion is a thing a little less interesting, even though I agree with a lot of it. He talks to Charles Clarke, the minister who increased the number of faith schools in Tony Blair’s government. “You could say, well, we’re only going to keep it that you have Christian and a tiny proportion of other faith schools. I think that leads you into serious risk of discrimination in relation to saying it’s OK to have a Christian faith school with the sake of argument not a Muslim faith school, which I think is not acceptable, and therefore you’ve got to have the same rule for all.” He visits Mumsnet to take part in a webchat. He talks to a couple who started going to their local Catholic church so their daughter could get into the nearby school. Helen even converted…