Investigations, conspiracies, and a media frenzy— these are all things you’d expect in the aftermath of a scandal. But was the Trojan Horse Scandal real? Or was it all a hoax?
In part two of our mini-series on the Trojan Horse Scandal, we’ll explore the details of the investigation, its key players, the Serial podcast about it, and the consequences of the affair.
[00:00:04] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today it’s part-two of our mini-series on the Trojan Horse scandal, the alleged Islamic plot to infiltrate British schools and radicalise students from within.
[00:00:32] I should say that if you haven’t listened to part one yet, please press pause and listen to that, as we are going to pick up directly where we left off last time.
[00:00:42] OK then, let’s get right into it.
[00:00:47] As you’ll remember, in November of 2013 a mystery letter arrived at Birmingham City Council claiming that there was a conspiracy to infiltrate British schools and instil hardline Islamic values.
[00:01:03] It alleged the plot was already underway in Birmingham, would spread to other British cities, and included banning sex education classes, inviting anti-western speakers into the schools, and even forcing students to attend Friday prayers.
[00:01:21] When the letter leaked to the press a few months later, the story quickly became a national scandal and paranoia spread around the country about Islamic conspiracies and Jihadi terror plots.
[00:01:35] British schools, it seemed, were under attack.
[00:01:39] But as you may remember, we left the last episode on a bit of a cliffhanger, a big question.
[00:01:46] What if it wasn’t true?
[00:01:49] What if the letter was a fake?
[00:01:52] Picking up where we left off, by mid-2014, with Britain’s newspapers stuffed full of scandalous stories about the plot, people demanded answers, and there were several official investigations into what had been dubbed “Operation Trojan Horse”.
[00:02:12] Britain’s Department for Education, OFSTED, which is Britain’s school standards body, you might remember, and Birmingham City Council all looked into the allegations.
[00:02:23] And they didn’t just investigate schools in Birmingham, or the schools named in the letter, but schools in Luton, Bradford and parts of east London, areas with large Muslim populations, and areas, I should stress, that had nothing to do with the original letter.
[00:02:43] In Birmingham, which was the focus of the investigations, OFSTED investigated more than 20 schools they suspected could have been vulnerable to radical Islam.
[00:02:55] The investigators went in for emergency inspections, and In May of 2014 all five Birmingham schools named in the letter had their official ratings downgraded significantly.
[00:03:10] All five were put into what is known as ‘special measures’ - the lowest possible rating. Essentially, they were doing very badly and needed urgent attention. That was the official verdict.
[00:03:25] Why, you might ask, when we’d already established that students’ exam results had improved significantly?
[00:03:33] Well, this school regulator gives marks to schools based on all sorts of criteria, not just exam results.
[00:03:43] And what they found, the inspectors believed, was cause for serious concern.
[00:03:50] Among the reasons given for these sudden downgrades were that the schools didn’t educate students enough about religions other than Islam, didn’t provide adequate sex education classes, prevented boys and girls from socialising and even segregated some classes, keeping male and female students apart.
[00:04:11] One of the schools at the centre of the controversy, Park View, went from being rated as ‘outstanding’ to the lowest possible rating despite being the first school in the country to be scored ‘outstanding’ under new criteria just two years before.
[00:04:28] If you remember the name “Park View”, yes, that’s the school where Tahir Alam, the supposed mastermind of the plot, was governor.
[00:04:37] Alam and a number of other teachers and governors were suspended from teaching, and during the initial media frenzy some reports suggested that as many as 100 teachers in Birmingham alone were involved in this plot.
[00:04:53] Operation Trojan Horse was, according to the British media at least, a huge conspiracy.
[00:05:00] But it was the job of the government to find out whether this was really true.
[00:05:07] Was there really some wider conspiracy, a real “Trojan Horse Plot”, or was it simply a case of some teachers implementing some socially conservative policies that they shouldn’t have done?
[00:05:21] The man tasked with the job of finding out, or at least the man in charge of everyone who was tasked with the job, was a man called Michael Gove. He was the Secretary for Education at the time, essentially the Minister for Education, the top official in the country responsible for education and schools.
[00:05:42] Now, we need to talk about Michael Gove, because he is one of the main reasons that some have said that this investigation was doomed from the start, and that it was more like a witch hunt rather than an impartial inquiry.
[00:05:59] Even before the Trojan Horse affair, Gove had long had an interest, let’s say, in Islam.
[00:06:06] Following the terror attacks in London in 2005, he wrote a book in which he suggested that Muslims were more prone to violence and radicalisation than other religions.
[00:06:19] To quote the book directly, Gove wrote that “The west faces a challenge to its values, culture and freedom as profound in its way as the threat posed by fascism and communism.”
[00:06:34] He made his views clear from the outset, and was described by one journalist as the, and I’m quoting directly, ‘unsung commander in chief of the Islamophobes inside the Conservative Party’.
[00:06:47] This is the man who led the investigation into Operation Trojan Horse; the man who updated the Prime Minister, British parliament and media throughout the entire scandal. A sceptic might rightly say that he would struggle to have a completely objective assessment of the matter.
[00:07:07] Crucially, and perhaps unsurprisingly, Gove thought the educational investigations didn’t go far enough and he asked for a former counter-terrorism expert, a man named Peter Clarke, to lead another investigation.
[00:07:23] Gove's message was clear: the Trojan Horse affair was not an educational issue but a problem of terrorism and extremism.
[00:07:34] Gove had long suspected this of British-Muslims, and now he had the evidence: the letter.
[00:07:42] But as I alluded to, or mentioned, in part-one, almost immediately after the letter first leaked many people, including members of Birmingham City Council, were sceptical of its authenticity, they didn’t think it was real.
[00:08:00] There were a number of issues with the letter.
[00:08:03] Why was there no date, for example?
[00:08:06] Why was it anonymous?
[00:08:07] Why was only part of the letter photocopied?
[00:08:11] And why, many people asked, did the letter seem like a caricature of Islamist extremism?
[00:08:18] In fact, it's even thought that Michael Gove was warned by members of Birmingham City Council about their doubts surrounding the authenticity of the mystery letter, but he ordered the investigation nonetheless.
[00:08:33] So, what did the investigations actually find?
[00:08:36] Well, the report, which was released later in 2014, concluded that there was, and I’m quoting directly, "no evidence of terrorism, radicalisation or violent extremism in the schools of concern in Birmingham.”
[00:08:52] However, the report did find, and again I'm quoting directly, "evidence that there are a number of people, associated with each other and in positions of influence in schools and governing bodies, who espouse, sympathise with or fail to challenge extremist views.”
[00:09:12] They found some offensive and conservative WhatsApp messages between Muslim teachers in Birmingham, particularly around homosexuality, but there was no evidence of any kind of planned conspiracy.
[00:09:26] In fact, despite all the horror stories and scaremongering about subversive Islamic school plots, four separate investigations couldn’t find any evidence of a wider organised plot.
[00:09:40] And as time went on, the number of alleged conspirators, which had been as many as 100 in initial newspaper reports, began to drop.
[00:09:51] Soon the number was 50, and by 2015, only 15 people faced charges.
[00:09:58] And crucially, none of them were charged under terror or extremism charges, but for ‘undue religious influence’.
[00:10:07] These cases were eventually thrown out, they were dismissed in 2017, and in the end only one teacher, the former headteacher of one of the primary schools named in the letter, had any actual charges made against him.
[00:10:23] After all the media frenzy and social panic, just one person was charged and it wasn’t for any kind of terror or extremism offence - nothing even close to what the letter alleged.
[00:10:38] So, what was the impact, the legacy, of this whole affair?
[00:10:44] Firstly, and despite all the investigations finding no evidence of a plot, Operation Trojan Horse has since been used as justification to ‘beef up’, or increase, Britain’s counter-extremism agenda.
[00:10:59] The ‘Prevent’ strategy, which is linked with Britain’ anti-terror laws, requires teachers to be vigilant of and report any evidence of what they believe to be ‘radicalisation.’
[00:11:12] In terms of the impact on race relations, and multiculturalism, it was a huge step back. The media spent months writing stories about this Trojan Horse plot, and there was significantly less time spent reporting on the fact that there wasn’t actually a plot at all.
[00:11:32] To many British muslims, it seemed like the government was determined to find evidence of an extremist plot in British schools, and when there was no evidence of any such plot, the government sort of shrugged its shoulders and moved on.
[00:11:48] But the damage was done.
[00:11:51] And for people like Tahir Alam, who was accused of “undermining fundamental British values,” their careers and reputations were ruined.
[00:12:01] As of the time of making this episode, Alam is still banned from having any involvement with schools in Britain, and his contribution to the Alum Rock community and academic turnaround at Park View have long been forgotten.
[00:12:18] Most of the schools named in the Trojan Horse letter have been renamed and had a complete overhaul of the governing boards and teaching staff.
[00:12:27] It didn’t really matter if no evidence of a wider plot was found, the idea of Islamic extremism in British schools just felt right for certain people, and the schools needed to be rebranded and injected with some so-called ‘British values’.
[00:12:45] Now, this Trojan Horse Scandal was big news at the time in the UK, as you've heard, but it wouldn’t be until almost a decade later, when it gained a global audience, with the release of a podcast series about it called “The Trojan Horse Affair”.
[00:13:02] This 2022 series, which was produced jointly between media powerhouses Serial and the New York Times, is a seriously in-depth investigation which tries to figure out exactly what happened and, crucially, who wrote the mystery letter.
[00:13:20] In fact, this podcast series ended up opening up the scandal again, and, as sometimes happens, the two reporters actually became characters in the story.
[00:13:32] So, it’s worth talking about this podcast briefly.
[00:13:35] And of course, if you would like to listen to this entire series yourself, you can find it on any podcast player - it’s called "The Trojan Horse Affair”.
[00:13:44] Now, this podcast’s main concern isn’t about the rights and wrongs of the schools, its main objective is figuring out who wrote the Trojan Horse letter.
[00:13:56] After all, the scandal was started by this letter, this letter is the only “proof” that exists, so it does seem like a sensible place to start.
[00:14:07] This podcast starts with the point of view that the letter was certainly fake, which is a point of view that is held by pretty much every media outlet that has looked into it, but the podcast tries to answer the question of “who sent it and why?”
[00:14:24] Was it some anti-Islamic teacher or member of the public? Was it an enemy of Tahir Alam? A prankster, a joker, someone who didn’t know what kind of trouble they would have unleashed?
[00:14:37] The conclusion this podcast comes to, or its hypothesis at least, is actually less interesting, it's more boring, than that.
[00:14:47] Their theory, and I must say that there is some evidence for this, is that the letter was written and sent by a headteacher from another Birmingham school.
[00:14:58] Why, you might ask?
[00:15:00] Their suggestion is that there was a legal dispute between a headteacher and her teaching assistants, and that creating another scandal would distract from the legal dispute.
[00:15:12] If that is indeed the truth, then it is quite undramatic.
[00:15:17] There was no Islamic conspiracy in the first place, and in fact, there was no anti-Islamic conspiracy behind the letter, it was simply a case of a headteacher having some personal difficulties that she wanted to go away.
[00:15:32] Now, this podcast series, as you may know, was hugely popular, but it did have its fair share of critics.
[00:15:42] Many say that the podcast is one-sided, and ignores the homophobia and sexism present in Birmingham schools in order to defend Tahir Alam, who speaks at length with the journalists.
[00:15:55] It has also been criticised in the British press for ‘cherry picking’ facts that support their theory, that is, only selecting some evidence and ignoring other pieces of evidence that contradict it.
[00:16:08] Michael Gove, the former Secretary of Education, roundly rejected the podcast and described the two journalists, one of whom is a British-Pakistani from Birmingham, as ‘useful idiots’.
[00:16:22] And the show was criticised by some listeners for having a boring, uneventful ending. The reporters never managed to definitively prove who wrote the letter, or why. Yes, it provides some suggestions, but it never manages to come to any neat, clever conclusion.
[00:16:44] And you might rightly criticise me, and this episode, this mini-series for finishing in a similarly uneventful way, without any real conclusions or answers.
[00:16:57] But what I do want to leave you with are some questions and reflections on what this entire scandal, this story, left behind.
[00:17:06] What’s the real story, or meaning, behind so-called Operation Trojan Horse and what does it tell us about British society more broadly?
[00:17:16] Almost ten years later, the Trojan Horse affair is still one of the most divisive episodes in Britain’s long process of social integration, multiculturalism, and relationship with Islam. Even if no evidence of a plot was found, for people who wanted to believe that there was, this entire scandal symbolised the failures of British multiculturalism and dangers of radical Islam in society.
[00:17:45] Regardless of the evidence, to some people, Muslims plotting to take over British institutions just sounded right, it played into what they wanted to believe, even if the investigations didn't find any evidence of this.
[00:18:01] For others, the whole thing was a media-generated moral panic and represents how British Muslims, and the British-Pakistani community in particular, are viewed.
[00:18:13] And despite the letter almost certainly being fake, it was too late - the damage was already done.
[00:18:22] Now, were there Muslim teachers in majority Muslim areas of Birmingham who held, and perhaps even encouraged socially conservative views with their students?
[00:18:33] It seems that this is almost certainly true, and there was little evidence to hide this.
[00:18:39] Were certain school governors like Tahir Alam targeting Muslim teachers for his Muslim-majority schools?
[00:18:47] Certainly, he admits as much; it was part of his entire educational philosophy, and it seemed to have very good results.
[00:18:56] That is something entirely different to a conspiracy to infiltrate British schools, but it did leave some people asking some important questions.
[00:19:07] If making cultural changes to a school lead to better academic outcomes, should these be acceptable?
[00:19:14] Where should the line be drawn?
[00:19:17] What are “British” values, are there any “British” values, should these be taught in schools, especially schools where most pupils come from a different cultural background?
[00:19:29] How should a school in a multicultural society be run, according to the religious customs of most of its pupils, or without any religion at all?
[00:19:40] These are some big questions, and despite the huge media frenzy, the tens of thousands of hours spent on investigations into the scandal, and the millions of words printed about it, it seems like we are not all that much closer to agreeing on any answers.
[00:19:59] Ok then, that is it for part two of this mini-series on the Trojan Horse affair, a complicated scandal that all started with a mystery letter but became a frenzied debate about Islam and social integration in Britain.
[00:20:15] I should say, as a final message, that if you think this sounds like an interesting story, and you would like to listen to 8 more hours about it, then you can listen to the Serial podcast I mentioned. It is a good listen, although some of the accents are quite tricky to understand.
[00:20:32] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode and this mini-series in general.
[00:20:38] What do you think about this entire affair?
[00:20:41] How do you think people would have reacted in your country, if there had been a similar scandal?
[00:20:46] Have you already listened to the Serial podcast about this, and if so what did you think?
[00:20:52] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:20:56] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:21:04] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:21:09] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:04] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today it’s part-two of our mini-series on the Trojan Horse scandal, the alleged Islamic plot to infiltrate British schools and radicalise students from within.
[00:00:32] I should say that if you haven’t listened to part one yet, please press pause and listen to that, as we are going to pick up directly where we left off last time.
[00:00:42] OK then, let’s get right into it.
[00:00:47] As you’ll remember, in November of 2013 a mystery letter arrived at Birmingham City Council claiming that there was a conspiracy to infiltrate British schools and instil hardline Islamic values.
[00:01:03] It alleged the plot was already underway in Birmingham, would spread to other British cities, and included banning sex education classes, inviting anti-western speakers into the schools, and even forcing students to attend Friday prayers.
[00:01:21] When the letter leaked to the press a few months later, the story quickly became a national scandal and paranoia spread around the country about Islamic conspiracies and Jihadi terror plots.
[00:01:35] British schools, it seemed, were under attack.
[00:01:39] But as you may remember, we left the last episode on a bit of a cliffhanger, a big question.
[00:01:46] What if it wasn’t true?
[00:01:49] What if the letter was a fake?
[00:01:52] Picking up where we left off, by mid-2014, with Britain’s newspapers stuffed full of scandalous stories about the plot, people demanded answers, and there were several official investigations into what had been dubbed “Operation Trojan Horse”.
[00:02:12] Britain’s Department for Education, OFSTED, which is Britain’s school standards body, you might remember, and Birmingham City Council all looked into the allegations.
[00:02:23] And they didn’t just investigate schools in Birmingham, or the schools named in the letter, but schools in Luton, Bradford and parts of east London, areas with large Muslim populations, and areas, I should stress, that had nothing to do with the original letter.
[00:02:43] In Birmingham, which was the focus of the investigations, OFSTED investigated more than 20 schools they suspected could have been vulnerable to radical Islam.
[00:02:55] The investigators went in for emergency inspections, and In May of 2014 all five Birmingham schools named in the letter had their official ratings downgraded significantly.
[00:03:10] All five were put into what is known as ‘special measures’ - the lowest possible rating. Essentially, they were doing very badly and needed urgent attention. That was the official verdict.
[00:03:25] Why, you might ask, when we’d already established that students’ exam results had improved significantly?
[00:03:33] Well, this school regulator gives marks to schools based on all sorts of criteria, not just exam results.
[00:03:43] And what they found, the inspectors believed, was cause for serious concern.
[00:03:50] Among the reasons given for these sudden downgrades were that the schools didn’t educate students enough about religions other than Islam, didn’t provide adequate sex education classes, prevented boys and girls from socialising and even segregated some classes, keeping male and female students apart.
[00:04:11] One of the schools at the centre of the controversy, Park View, went from being rated as ‘outstanding’ to the lowest possible rating despite being the first school in the country to be scored ‘outstanding’ under new criteria just two years before.
[00:04:28] If you remember the name “Park View”, yes, that’s the school where Tahir Alam, the supposed mastermind of the plot, was governor.
[00:04:37] Alam and a number of other teachers and governors were suspended from teaching, and during the initial media frenzy some reports suggested that as many as 100 teachers in Birmingham alone were involved in this plot.
[00:04:53] Operation Trojan Horse was, according to the British media at least, a huge conspiracy.
[00:05:00] But it was the job of the government to find out whether this was really true.
[00:05:07] Was there really some wider conspiracy, a real “Trojan Horse Plot”, or was it simply a case of some teachers implementing some socially conservative policies that they shouldn’t have done?
[00:05:21] The man tasked with the job of finding out, or at least the man in charge of everyone who was tasked with the job, was a man called Michael Gove. He was the Secretary for Education at the time, essentially the Minister for Education, the top official in the country responsible for education and schools.
[00:05:42] Now, we need to talk about Michael Gove, because he is one of the main reasons that some have said that this investigation was doomed from the start, and that it was more like a witch hunt rather than an impartial inquiry.
[00:05:59] Even before the Trojan Horse affair, Gove had long had an interest, let’s say, in Islam.
[00:06:06] Following the terror attacks in London in 2005, he wrote a book in which he suggested that Muslims were more prone to violence and radicalisation than other religions.
[00:06:19] To quote the book directly, Gove wrote that “The west faces a challenge to its values, culture and freedom as profound in its way as the threat posed by fascism and communism.”
[00:06:34] He made his views clear from the outset, and was described by one journalist as the, and I’m quoting directly, ‘unsung commander in chief of the Islamophobes inside the Conservative Party’.
[00:06:47] This is the man who led the investigation into Operation Trojan Horse; the man who updated the Prime Minister, British parliament and media throughout the entire scandal. A sceptic might rightly say that he would struggle to have a completely objective assessment of the matter.
[00:07:07] Crucially, and perhaps unsurprisingly, Gove thought the educational investigations didn’t go far enough and he asked for a former counter-terrorism expert, a man named Peter Clarke, to lead another investigation.
[00:07:23] Gove's message was clear: the Trojan Horse affair was not an educational issue but a problem of terrorism and extremism.
[00:07:34] Gove had long suspected this of British-Muslims, and now he had the evidence: the letter.
[00:07:42] But as I alluded to, or mentioned, in part-one, almost immediately after the letter first leaked many people, including members of Birmingham City Council, were sceptical of its authenticity, they didn’t think it was real.
[00:08:00] There were a number of issues with the letter.
[00:08:03] Why was there no date, for example?
[00:08:06] Why was it anonymous?
[00:08:07] Why was only part of the letter photocopied?
[00:08:11] And why, many people asked, did the letter seem like a caricature of Islamist extremism?
[00:08:18] In fact, it's even thought that Michael Gove was warned by members of Birmingham City Council about their doubts surrounding the authenticity of the mystery letter, but he ordered the investigation nonetheless.
[00:08:33] So, what did the investigations actually find?
[00:08:36] Well, the report, which was released later in 2014, concluded that there was, and I’m quoting directly, "no evidence of terrorism, radicalisation or violent extremism in the schools of concern in Birmingham.”
[00:08:52] However, the report did find, and again I'm quoting directly, "evidence that there are a number of people, associated with each other and in positions of influence in schools and governing bodies, who espouse, sympathise with or fail to challenge extremist views.”
[00:09:12] They found some offensive and conservative WhatsApp messages between Muslim teachers in Birmingham, particularly around homosexuality, but there was no evidence of any kind of planned conspiracy.
[00:09:26] In fact, despite all the horror stories and scaremongering about subversive Islamic school plots, four separate investigations couldn’t find any evidence of a wider organised plot.
[00:09:40] And as time went on, the number of alleged conspirators, which had been as many as 100 in initial newspaper reports, began to drop.
[00:09:51] Soon the number was 50, and by 2015, only 15 people faced charges.
[00:09:58] And crucially, none of them were charged under terror or extremism charges, but for ‘undue religious influence’.
[00:10:07] These cases were eventually thrown out, they were dismissed in 2017, and in the end only one teacher, the former headteacher of one of the primary schools named in the letter, had any actual charges made against him.
[00:10:23] After all the media frenzy and social panic, just one person was charged and it wasn’t for any kind of terror or extremism offence - nothing even close to what the letter alleged.
[00:10:38] So, what was the impact, the legacy, of this whole affair?
[00:10:44] Firstly, and despite all the investigations finding no evidence of a plot, Operation Trojan Horse has since been used as justification to ‘beef up’, or increase, Britain’s counter-extremism agenda.
[00:10:59] The ‘Prevent’ strategy, which is linked with Britain’ anti-terror laws, requires teachers to be vigilant of and report any evidence of what they believe to be ‘radicalisation.’
[00:11:12] In terms of the impact on race relations, and multiculturalism, it was a huge step back. The media spent months writing stories about this Trojan Horse plot, and there was significantly less time spent reporting on the fact that there wasn’t actually a plot at all.
[00:11:32] To many British muslims, it seemed like the government was determined to find evidence of an extremist plot in British schools, and when there was no evidence of any such plot, the government sort of shrugged its shoulders and moved on.
[00:11:48] But the damage was done.
[00:11:51] And for people like Tahir Alam, who was accused of “undermining fundamental British values,” their careers and reputations were ruined.
[00:12:01] As of the time of making this episode, Alam is still banned from having any involvement with schools in Britain, and his contribution to the Alum Rock community and academic turnaround at Park View have long been forgotten.
[00:12:18] Most of the schools named in the Trojan Horse letter have been renamed and had a complete overhaul of the governing boards and teaching staff.
[00:12:27] It didn’t really matter if no evidence of a wider plot was found, the idea of Islamic extremism in British schools just felt right for certain people, and the schools needed to be rebranded and injected with some so-called ‘British values’.
[00:12:45] Now, this Trojan Horse Scandal was big news at the time in the UK, as you've heard, but it wouldn’t be until almost a decade later, when it gained a global audience, with the release of a podcast series about it called “The Trojan Horse Affair”.
[00:13:02] This 2022 series, which was produced jointly between media powerhouses Serial and the New York Times, is a seriously in-depth investigation which tries to figure out exactly what happened and, crucially, who wrote the mystery letter.
[00:13:20] In fact, this podcast series ended up opening up the scandal again, and, as sometimes happens, the two reporters actually became characters in the story.
[00:13:32] So, it’s worth talking about this podcast briefly.
[00:13:35] And of course, if you would like to listen to this entire series yourself, you can find it on any podcast player - it’s called "The Trojan Horse Affair”.
[00:13:44] Now, this podcast’s main concern isn’t about the rights and wrongs of the schools, its main objective is figuring out who wrote the Trojan Horse letter.
[00:13:56] After all, the scandal was started by this letter, this letter is the only “proof” that exists, so it does seem like a sensible place to start.
[00:14:07] This podcast starts with the point of view that the letter was certainly fake, which is a point of view that is held by pretty much every media outlet that has looked into it, but the podcast tries to answer the question of “who sent it and why?”
[00:14:24] Was it some anti-Islamic teacher or member of the public? Was it an enemy of Tahir Alam? A prankster, a joker, someone who didn’t know what kind of trouble they would have unleashed?
[00:14:37] The conclusion this podcast comes to, or its hypothesis at least, is actually less interesting, it's more boring, than that.
[00:14:47] Their theory, and I must say that there is some evidence for this, is that the letter was written and sent by a headteacher from another Birmingham school.
[00:14:58] Why, you might ask?
[00:15:00] Their suggestion is that there was a legal dispute between a headteacher and her teaching assistants, and that creating another scandal would distract from the legal dispute.
[00:15:12] If that is indeed the truth, then it is quite undramatic.
[00:15:17] There was no Islamic conspiracy in the first place, and in fact, there was no anti-Islamic conspiracy behind the letter, it was simply a case of a headteacher having some personal difficulties that she wanted to go away.
[00:15:32] Now, this podcast series, as you may know, was hugely popular, but it did have its fair share of critics.
[00:15:42] Many say that the podcast is one-sided, and ignores the homophobia and sexism present in Birmingham schools in order to defend Tahir Alam, who speaks at length with the journalists.
[00:15:55] It has also been criticised in the British press for ‘cherry picking’ facts that support their theory, that is, only selecting some evidence and ignoring other pieces of evidence that contradict it.
[00:16:08] Michael Gove, the former Secretary of Education, roundly rejected the podcast and described the two journalists, one of whom is a British-Pakistani from Birmingham, as ‘useful idiots’.
[00:16:22] And the show was criticised by some listeners for having a boring, uneventful ending. The reporters never managed to definitively prove who wrote the letter, or why. Yes, it provides some suggestions, but it never manages to come to any neat, clever conclusion.
[00:16:44] And you might rightly criticise me, and this episode, this mini-series for finishing in a similarly uneventful way, without any real conclusions or answers.
[00:16:57] But what I do want to leave you with are some questions and reflections on what this entire scandal, this story, left behind.
[00:17:06] What’s the real story, or meaning, behind so-called Operation Trojan Horse and what does it tell us about British society more broadly?
[00:17:16] Almost ten years later, the Trojan Horse affair is still one of the most divisive episodes in Britain’s long process of social integration, multiculturalism, and relationship with Islam. Even if no evidence of a plot was found, for people who wanted to believe that there was, this entire scandal symbolised the failures of British multiculturalism and dangers of radical Islam in society.
[00:17:45] Regardless of the evidence, to some people, Muslims plotting to take over British institutions just sounded right, it played into what they wanted to believe, even if the investigations didn't find any evidence of this.
[00:18:01] For others, the whole thing was a media-generated moral panic and represents how British Muslims, and the British-Pakistani community in particular, are viewed.
[00:18:13] And despite the letter almost certainly being fake, it was too late - the damage was already done.
[00:18:22] Now, were there Muslim teachers in majority Muslim areas of Birmingham who held, and perhaps even encouraged socially conservative views with their students?
[00:18:33] It seems that this is almost certainly true, and there was little evidence to hide this.
[00:18:39] Were certain school governors like Tahir Alam targeting Muslim teachers for his Muslim-majority schools?
[00:18:47] Certainly, he admits as much; it was part of his entire educational philosophy, and it seemed to have very good results.
[00:18:56] That is something entirely different to a conspiracy to infiltrate British schools, but it did leave some people asking some important questions.
[00:19:07] If making cultural changes to a school lead to better academic outcomes, should these be acceptable?
[00:19:14] Where should the line be drawn?
[00:19:17] What are “British” values, are there any “British” values, should these be taught in schools, especially schools where most pupils come from a different cultural background?
[00:19:29] How should a school in a multicultural society be run, according to the religious customs of most of its pupils, or without any religion at all?
[00:19:40] These are some big questions, and despite the huge media frenzy, the tens of thousands of hours spent on investigations into the scandal, and the millions of words printed about it, it seems like we are not all that much closer to agreeing on any answers.
[00:19:59] Ok then, that is it for part two of this mini-series on the Trojan Horse affair, a complicated scandal that all started with a mystery letter but became a frenzied debate about Islam and social integration in Britain.
[00:20:15] I should say, as a final message, that if you think this sounds like an interesting story, and you would like to listen to 8 more hours about it, then you can listen to the Serial podcast I mentioned. It is a good listen, although some of the accents are quite tricky to understand.
[00:20:32] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode and this mini-series in general.
[00:20:38] What do you think about this entire affair?
[00:20:41] How do you think people would have reacted in your country, if there had been a similar scandal?
[00:20:46] Have you already listened to the Serial podcast about this, and if so what did you think?
[00:20:52] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:20:56] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:21:04] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:21:09] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:04] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today it’s part-two of our mini-series on the Trojan Horse scandal, the alleged Islamic plot to infiltrate British schools and radicalise students from within.
[00:00:32] I should say that if you haven’t listened to part one yet, please press pause and listen to that, as we are going to pick up directly where we left off last time.
[00:00:42] OK then, let’s get right into it.
[00:00:47] As you’ll remember, in November of 2013 a mystery letter arrived at Birmingham City Council claiming that there was a conspiracy to infiltrate British schools and instil hardline Islamic values.
[00:01:03] It alleged the plot was already underway in Birmingham, would spread to other British cities, and included banning sex education classes, inviting anti-western speakers into the schools, and even forcing students to attend Friday prayers.
[00:01:21] When the letter leaked to the press a few months later, the story quickly became a national scandal and paranoia spread around the country about Islamic conspiracies and Jihadi terror plots.
[00:01:35] British schools, it seemed, were under attack.
[00:01:39] But as you may remember, we left the last episode on a bit of a cliffhanger, a big question.
[00:01:46] What if it wasn’t true?
[00:01:49] What if the letter was a fake?
[00:01:52] Picking up where we left off, by mid-2014, with Britain’s newspapers stuffed full of scandalous stories about the plot, people demanded answers, and there were several official investigations into what had been dubbed “Operation Trojan Horse”.
[00:02:12] Britain’s Department for Education, OFSTED, which is Britain’s school standards body, you might remember, and Birmingham City Council all looked into the allegations.
[00:02:23] And they didn’t just investigate schools in Birmingham, or the schools named in the letter, but schools in Luton, Bradford and parts of east London, areas with large Muslim populations, and areas, I should stress, that had nothing to do with the original letter.
[00:02:43] In Birmingham, which was the focus of the investigations, OFSTED investigated more than 20 schools they suspected could have been vulnerable to radical Islam.
[00:02:55] The investigators went in for emergency inspections, and In May of 2014 all five Birmingham schools named in the letter had their official ratings downgraded significantly.
[00:03:10] All five were put into what is known as ‘special measures’ - the lowest possible rating. Essentially, they were doing very badly and needed urgent attention. That was the official verdict.
[00:03:25] Why, you might ask, when we’d already established that students’ exam results had improved significantly?
[00:03:33] Well, this school regulator gives marks to schools based on all sorts of criteria, not just exam results.
[00:03:43] And what they found, the inspectors believed, was cause for serious concern.
[00:03:50] Among the reasons given for these sudden downgrades were that the schools didn’t educate students enough about religions other than Islam, didn’t provide adequate sex education classes, prevented boys and girls from socialising and even segregated some classes, keeping male and female students apart.
[00:04:11] One of the schools at the centre of the controversy, Park View, went from being rated as ‘outstanding’ to the lowest possible rating despite being the first school in the country to be scored ‘outstanding’ under new criteria just two years before.
[00:04:28] If you remember the name “Park View”, yes, that’s the school where Tahir Alam, the supposed mastermind of the plot, was governor.
[00:04:37] Alam and a number of other teachers and governors were suspended from teaching, and during the initial media frenzy some reports suggested that as many as 100 teachers in Birmingham alone were involved in this plot.
[00:04:53] Operation Trojan Horse was, according to the British media at least, a huge conspiracy.
[00:05:00] But it was the job of the government to find out whether this was really true.
[00:05:07] Was there really some wider conspiracy, a real “Trojan Horse Plot”, or was it simply a case of some teachers implementing some socially conservative policies that they shouldn’t have done?
[00:05:21] The man tasked with the job of finding out, or at least the man in charge of everyone who was tasked with the job, was a man called Michael Gove. He was the Secretary for Education at the time, essentially the Minister for Education, the top official in the country responsible for education and schools.
[00:05:42] Now, we need to talk about Michael Gove, because he is one of the main reasons that some have said that this investigation was doomed from the start, and that it was more like a witch hunt rather than an impartial inquiry.
[00:05:59] Even before the Trojan Horse affair, Gove had long had an interest, let’s say, in Islam.
[00:06:06] Following the terror attacks in London in 2005, he wrote a book in which he suggested that Muslims were more prone to violence and radicalisation than other religions.
[00:06:19] To quote the book directly, Gove wrote that “The west faces a challenge to its values, culture and freedom as profound in its way as the threat posed by fascism and communism.”
[00:06:34] He made his views clear from the outset, and was described by one journalist as the, and I’m quoting directly, ‘unsung commander in chief of the Islamophobes inside the Conservative Party’.
[00:06:47] This is the man who led the investigation into Operation Trojan Horse; the man who updated the Prime Minister, British parliament and media throughout the entire scandal. A sceptic might rightly say that he would struggle to have a completely objective assessment of the matter.
[00:07:07] Crucially, and perhaps unsurprisingly, Gove thought the educational investigations didn’t go far enough and he asked for a former counter-terrorism expert, a man named Peter Clarke, to lead another investigation.
[00:07:23] Gove's message was clear: the Trojan Horse affair was not an educational issue but a problem of terrorism and extremism.
[00:07:34] Gove had long suspected this of British-Muslims, and now he had the evidence: the letter.
[00:07:42] But as I alluded to, or mentioned, in part-one, almost immediately after the letter first leaked many people, including members of Birmingham City Council, were sceptical of its authenticity, they didn’t think it was real.
[00:08:00] There were a number of issues with the letter.
[00:08:03] Why was there no date, for example?
[00:08:06] Why was it anonymous?
[00:08:07] Why was only part of the letter photocopied?
[00:08:11] And why, many people asked, did the letter seem like a caricature of Islamist extremism?
[00:08:18] In fact, it's even thought that Michael Gove was warned by members of Birmingham City Council about their doubts surrounding the authenticity of the mystery letter, but he ordered the investigation nonetheless.
[00:08:33] So, what did the investigations actually find?
[00:08:36] Well, the report, which was released later in 2014, concluded that there was, and I’m quoting directly, "no evidence of terrorism, radicalisation or violent extremism in the schools of concern in Birmingham.”
[00:08:52] However, the report did find, and again I'm quoting directly, "evidence that there are a number of people, associated with each other and in positions of influence in schools and governing bodies, who espouse, sympathise with or fail to challenge extremist views.”
[00:09:12] They found some offensive and conservative WhatsApp messages between Muslim teachers in Birmingham, particularly around homosexuality, but there was no evidence of any kind of planned conspiracy.
[00:09:26] In fact, despite all the horror stories and scaremongering about subversive Islamic school plots, four separate investigations couldn’t find any evidence of a wider organised plot.
[00:09:40] And as time went on, the number of alleged conspirators, which had been as many as 100 in initial newspaper reports, began to drop.
[00:09:51] Soon the number was 50, and by 2015, only 15 people faced charges.
[00:09:58] And crucially, none of them were charged under terror or extremism charges, but for ‘undue religious influence’.
[00:10:07] These cases were eventually thrown out, they were dismissed in 2017, and in the end only one teacher, the former headteacher of one of the primary schools named in the letter, had any actual charges made against him.
[00:10:23] After all the media frenzy and social panic, just one person was charged and it wasn’t for any kind of terror or extremism offence - nothing even close to what the letter alleged.
[00:10:38] So, what was the impact, the legacy, of this whole affair?
[00:10:44] Firstly, and despite all the investigations finding no evidence of a plot, Operation Trojan Horse has since been used as justification to ‘beef up’, or increase, Britain’s counter-extremism agenda.
[00:10:59] The ‘Prevent’ strategy, which is linked with Britain’ anti-terror laws, requires teachers to be vigilant of and report any evidence of what they believe to be ‘radicalisation.’
[00:11:12] In terms of the impact on race relations, and multiculturalism, it was a huge step back. The media spent months writing stories about this Trojan Horse plot, and there was significantly less time spent reporting on the fact that there wasn’t actually a plot at all.
[00:11:32] To many British muslims, it seemed like the government was determined to find evidence of an extremist plot in British schools, and when there was no evidence of any such plot, the government sort of shrugged its shoulders and moved on.
[00:11:48] But the damage was done.
[00:11:51] And for people like Tahir Alam, who was accused of “undermining fundamental British values,” their careers and reputations were ruined.
[00:12:01] As of the time of making this episode, Alam is still banned from having any involvement with schools in Britain, and his contribution to the Alum Rock community and academic turnaround at Park View have long been forgotten.
[00:12:18] Most of the schools named in the Trojan Horse letter have been renamed and had a complete overhaul of the governing boards and teaching staff.
[00:12:27] It didn’t really matter if no evidence of a wider plot was found, the idea of Islamic extremism in British schools just felt right for certain people, and the schools needed to be rebranded and injected with some so-called ‘British values’.
[00:12:45] Now, this Trojan Horse Scandal was big news at the time in the UK, as you've heard, but it wouldn’t be until almost a decade later, when it gained a global audience, with the release of a podcast series about it called “The Trojan Horse Affair”.
[00:13:02] This 2022 series, which was produced jointly between media powerhouses Serial and the New York Times, is a seriously in-depth investigation which tries to figure out exactly what happened and, crucially, who wrote the mystery letter.
[00:13:20] In fact, this podcast series ended up opening up the scandal again, and, as sometimes happens, the two reporters actually became characters in the story.
[00:13:32] So, it’s worth talking about this podcast briefly.
[00:13:35] And of course, if you would like to listen to this entire series yourself, you can find it on any podcast player - it’s called "The Trojan Horse Affair”.
[00:13:44] Now, this podcast’s main concern isn’t about the rights and wrongs of the schools, its main objective is figuring out who wrote the Trojan Horse letter.
[00:13:56] After all, the scandal was started by this letter, this letter is the only “proof” that exists, so it does seem like a sensible place to start.
[00:14:07] This podcast starts with the point of view that the letter was certainly fake, which is a point of view that is held by pretty much every media outlet that has looked into it, but the podcast tries to answer the question of “who sent it and why?”
[00:14:24] Was it some anti-Islamic teacher or member of the public? Was it an enemy of Tahir Alam? A prankster, a joker, someone who didn’t know what kind of trouble they would have unleashed?
[00:14:37] The conclusion this podcast comes to, or its hypothesis at least, is actually less interesting, it's more boring, than that.
[00:14:47] Their theory, and I must say that there is some evidence for this, is that the letter was written and sent by a headteacher from another Birmingham school.
[00:14:58] Why, you might ask?
[00:15:00] Their suggestion is that there was a legal dispute between a headteacher and her teaching assistants, and that creating another scandal would distract from the legal dispute.
[00:15:12] If that is indeed the truth, then it is quite undramatic.
[00:15:17] There was no Islamic conspiracy in the first place, and in fact, there was no anti-Islamic conspiracy behind the letter, it was simply a case of a headteacher having some personal difficulties that she wanted to go away.
[00:15:32] Now, this podcast series, as you may know, was hugely popular, but it did have its fair share of critics.
[00:15:42] Many say that the podcast is one-sided, and ignores the homophobia and sexism present in Birmingham schools in order to defend Tahir Alam, who speaks at length with the journalists.
[00:15:55] It has also been criticised in the British press for ‘cherry picking’ facts that support their theory, that is, only selecting some evidence and ignoring other pieces of evidence that contradict it.
[00:16:08] Michael Gove, the former Secretary of Education, roundly rejected the podcast and described the two journalists, one of whom is a British-Pakistani from Birmingham, as ‘useful idiots’.
[00:16:22] And the show was criticised by some listeners for having a boring, uneventful ending. The reporters never managed to definitively prove who wrote the letter, or why. Yes, it provides some suggestions, but it never manages to come to any neat, clever conclusion.
[00:16:44] And you might rightly criticise me, and this episode, this mini-series for finishing in a similarly uneventful way, without any real conclusions or answers.
[00:16:57] But what I do want to leave you with are some questions and reflections on what this entire scandal, this story, left behind.
[00:17:06] What’s the real story, or meaning, behind so-called Operation Trojan Horse and what does it tell us about British society more broadly?
[00:17:16] Almost ten years later, the Trojan Horse affair is still one of the most divisive episodes in Britain’s long process of social integration, multiculturalism, and relationship with Islam. Even if no evidence of a plot was found, for people who wanted to believe that there was, this entire scandal symbolised the failures of British multiculturalism and dangers of radical Islam in society.
[00:17:45] Regardless of the evidence, to some people, Muslims plotting to take over British institutions just sounded right, it played into what they wanted to believe, even if the investigations didn't find any evidence of this.
[00:18:01] For others, the whole thing was a media-generated moral panic and represents how British Muslims, and the British-Pakistani community in particular, are viewed.
[00:18:13] And despite the letter almost certainly being fake, it was too late - the damage was already done.
[00:18:22] Now, were there Muslim teachers in majority Muslim areas of Birmingham who held, and perhaps even encouraged socially conservative views with their students?
[00:18:33] It seems that this is almost certainly true, and there was little evidence to hide this.
[00:18:39] Were certain school governors like Tahir Alam targeting Muslim teachers for his Muslim-majority schools?
[00:18:47] Certainly, he admits as much; it was part of his entire educational philosophy, and it seemed to have very good results.
[00:18:56] That is something entirely different to a conspiracy to infiltrate British schools, but it did leave some people asking some important questions.
[00:19:07] If making cultural changes to a school lead to better academic outcomes, should these be acceptable?
[00:19:14] Where should the line be drawn?
[00:19:17] What are “British” values, are there any “British” values, should these be taught in schools, especially schools where most pupils come from a different cultural background?
[00:19:29] How should a school in a multicultural society be run, according to the religious customs of most of its pupils, or without any religion at all?
[00:19:40] These are some big questions, and despite the huge media frenzy, the tens of thousands of hours spent on investigations into the scandal, and the millions of words printed about it, it seems like we are not all that much closer to agreeing on any answers.
[00:19:59] Ok then, that is it for part two of this mini-series on the Trojan Horse affair, a complicated scandal that all started with a mystery letter but became a frenzied debate about Islam and social integration in Britain.
[00:20:15] I should say, as a final message, that if you think this sounds like an interesting story, and you would like to listen to 8 more hours about it, then you can listen to the Serial podcast I mentioned. It is a good listen, although some of the accents are quite tricky to understand.
[00:20:32] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode and this mini-series in general.
[00:20:38] What do you think about this entire affair?
[00:20:41] How do you think people would have reacted in your country, if there had been a similar scandal?
[00:20:46] Have you already listened to the Serial podcast about this, and if so what did you think?
[00:20:52] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:20:56] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:21:04] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:21:09] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
