Labour Party is in a spin over Swiss Cottage Academy plan

The Labour Party has got itself into all sorts of trouble over Camden s academy in Swiss Cottage. High profile people like Fiona Millar and Frank Dobson MP oppose academies on purely ideological grounds, whilst nationally their party is pushing ahead to b

The Labour Party has got itself into all sorts of trouble over Camden's academy in Swiss Cottage. High profile people like Fiona Millar and Frank Dobson MP oppose academies on purely ideological grounds, whilst nationally their party is pushing ahead to build more of them through the 'Building Schools for the Future' programme.

And the local MP, Glenda Jackson, has said nothing to welcome a school offering a Camden education to hundreds more of her constituents.

These Camden Labourites are at war with their own government and chose to fight this battle on the streets of the borough, not apparently worrying that in the process they might deny Camden children the secondary school that they so desperately need. In their years in power, they were happy to close a secondary school and open none.

They have used Camden's plans for a UCL-sponsored secondary school as a way to strike out at national education policy. Over the past two years they've fought tooth and nail and used every trick in the book to try to stop it from going ahead. Their judicial review was just the latest ploy - aiming to stop not just our school but many others up and down the country.

Last week their judicial review wasn't just thrown out, it was comprehensively torn apart by the judge. It's now clear to everyone that this was a politically inspired waste of the taxpayer's money.

Many Camden parents will be very grateful that it failed.