>
Thursday 23 October 2008: The Wembley Park Action Group gathered for the Academy School conference in Wembley to expose the controversy behind the privatisation of UK state education and examine the evidence on the proposed ARK Wembley Park Academy “Super School”.
Hank Roberts, Bob Blackman, Martin Francis, Bill GreenshieldsTwo videos have been posted to YouTube with highlights from that meeting: Video One – Video Two.
The main speakers were NUT President Bill Greenshields, Brent NUT and ATL Secretary Hank Roberts, Martin Francis of the Brent North Green Party and Harrow East Conservative Councillor Bob Blackman.
Local residents talk about the biased and misleading council-backed literature designed to sway them towards Academy schools and witnesses talk of the “vermin-ridden” Wembley site.
Wembley ARK Academy Head Teacher Jacqueline Steele is caught in a bold face lie, denying the children would be put at risk by being educated on a construction site, yet video evidence shows the temporary school site still under construction at a time when the first 60 pupils were being educated there.
Recent further investigation also gives an us an idea who is behind the ARK Charity, the most favoured academy school sponsor, and also shows it is the same faces trying to privatise UK state education that are the very same people behind the global economic crisis.
The Liberal Democrat campaign trail in the last Brent council election was in total opposition to the Academy School program, the brainchild of ex-prime minister Tony Blair. But as soon as they gained control of Brent they went about-face and started the most aggressive program to install the ARK Wembley Academy.
Enter Paul Marshall, co-founder of hedge fund Marshall Wace. Marshall invested £162,000 into the Lib Dems and was a researcher for Charles Kennedy. Marshall is also listed on the trustee/director page of the ARK Charity website.
With him you will find Stanley Fink, hedge funder, short seller, multimillionaire and regular donor to the Conservative party.
Also on the list of ARK trustees and directors is Jennifer Moses, who you may remember in the Goldman Sachs scandal. Her secretary managed to steal £1 million from her own savings. Moses, of the Lib Dem think-tank CentreForum, was appointed special advisor to Gordon Brown this year. Her job was to be advising the PM, from her £10 million Hamstead mansion, on finance and poverty. Further rumours claimed she would advise on PFI contracts, the Iraq war and non-taxation of the rich.
The most recent report to be found in this scour of the online newspapers said Moses backed out of the unpaid advisory job, due to her husband losing £20 million in the credit crunch.
All material on this blog – stills, video and print – is (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2008. All Rights Reserved.Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive four-year video archive.