look with a red and green scarf. and who could ignore this cheeky little elf? this is ld, striking a pose earlier. i always wanted a sausage dog just so i could name it toulouse—lautrec. think about it. coming up, the weather. hello, again. a stunning weather watcher picture to start off with. it shows sunny weather across the hills of cumbria. low down, though, we've got low cloud and some mixed nest. that's exactly how the weather has been across the uk today. lowerareas, cloudy, misty. western and high areas have seen more clear weather and sunshine through the day. overnight tonight, we keep clear skies through parts of scotland. it turns cold. lowest temperatures here could be —8 in some of the deeper glens. the low cloud, though, keeping it frost free elsewhere but there will be some mist and fog patches as we head into monday morning. for some it could be quite murky. through the day this area of cloud across eastern scotland and eastern england should be more prone to thinning and breaking. overall through the afternoon you might well find it being a little bit on the brighter side. temperatures around six or seven. this quiet weather is going to last into the middle part of the week but as we get close to christmas, it gets more interesting. colder from the north. some of you might even see a bit of snow later in the week. hello this is bbc news with martine croxall. the health secretary refuses to rule out tighter covid restrictions before christmas in response to the rapid spread of the omicron variant but says it is time to be cautious about social interactions. there are no guarantees in this pandemic. i don't think at this point we have to keep everything and everything under review. germany bans british travellers and the netherlands goes into full lockdown — as europe ramps up its fight against the spread of omicron the brexit minister lord frost resigns over concerns about the government's "direction of travel" and its covid policy richard rogers, the architect behind london's millenium dome and the pompidou centre in paris, has died at the age of 88 now on bbc news, it's time for political thinking with nick robinson. she's been called the strictest headteacher in britain, a teacher who argues that the state education system is broken because of what she calls a culture of excuses of low standards, something that permits chaos in the classroom. my guest this week on political thinking, the programme where we have a conversation, not an interrogation, about what shapes the thinking of someone who help shape our political thinking is katherine birbalsingh. she's the head of a free school called michaela near wembley, and she's just been appointed as the new chair of the social mobility commission. katherine birbalsingh, welcome to political thinking. thank you. that phrase, strictest head in britain. do you glow with pride? do you blush or do you laugh because you think it's absurd? well, all of that really is it's a bit funny. i think people imagine that i walk up and down the corridors with whips and chains when actually i'm often in my office meeting with teachers. what does trict mean is what i'd say. it means immersing children in love and keeping your standards high with regard to your expectations, both in terms of discipline and in terms of what you can teach them. that's what strict is. and the children always prefer the strictest teachers at school. think about who you liked at school. it was the ones that had the highest expectations of you. there's expectations, yes, but strict in some of the ways, isn't it? in the sense of it's often said that the children queue up in silence in the corridors. yeah. to go to classroom. yes. and if so, why is that important? well, especially in the inner city, i understand that not every school needs that. but in the inner city, the alternative is children getting into fights in the corridors, screaming and shouting and running and shoving places where the shy children are terrified to walk down the corridors. not only that, but it means you lose enormous amount of lesson time because it takes so long to get them into the lessons. and when you're trying to catch children up for at 11 years old who have a reading age of a six—year—old, you need as much time in the lessons as possible. so it's about loving the music and high expectations in your school. do you see yourself as imposing a sort of order, a safe environment that doesn't exist the second they leave that school gate? yeah, that's exactly right. the children, especially if you come from a chaotic background, you're desperate to be somewhere that's orderly and structured and some of the children try and stay late deliberately because they're not, they'd rather be in that kind of environment rather than go home. and when you say imposing it, i'm not imposing anything. the children themselves love it. if you come to our school and and eat lunch with the children and have a tour, they'll all tell you how there's so much safer here than they have felt elsewhere and how they really enjoy that, they like it. so are you arguing that if there are lots of katherine birbalsinghs around the country, if you could kind of drop them? yeah. we could have schools all over the country like that with the results. yes. even your critics can't deny that you are very, very good results. that's exactly right. and when you were saying about me being this strict disciplinarian and i feel that there's a culture of excuses and so on that's in our society, notjust in our schools in 2021, we as a people are letting ourselves down and letting our children down because we're not expecting enough of them. now, what's interesting is you did a whole series of teaching jobs, but you became and turned yourself into over time, into a public figure, starting with a blog about your experiences, an anonymous blog. i've got to ask you, why were you the head? why are you now known online as miss snuffer? yes, it's a good question. well, because ok, so the blog was called to miss with love, like to sir with love. and everybody will know the book. and then there was the film with sidney poitier and, um, and the, i called myself miss snuffleupagus. you remember snuffleupagus from sesame street. and he was the big mama type elephant who was big bird's friend. and no one could ever see him because he was the elephant in the room. are you the elephant in the room? no, no. there's lots of elephants in the room that we never want to talk about. we don't want to talk about the importance of culture, the importance of of small c conservative values, expecting children to take personal responsibility, having a sense of duty towards others, and understanding the importance of family. all these things are pushed under the carpet these days, and we never talk about them and we just talk about, well, what is the government doing? and and all of those things are good. i mean, i'm not saying government shouldn't do anything. i work for the government. i've worked in state education all my life. but there is so much that values and culture, they are so important and they are massive elephants. and you had to be anonymous to start what they do to feel that you could say those things? yeah. i mean, then those days i sort of tell stories about how, you know, littlejohnny came to school and had his money stolen or got beaten up and how sad that was. and you don't want to get anyone into trouble. and so you write anonymously. and at the time, there were various people who were reading my blog, including michael gove and borisjohnson, i didn't know that, obviously i was just writing. but of course, as a result of them reading it, as a result of other people reading it, you then get an invitation to walk onto a political platform. yes. to stand at the conservative party conference in 2010 where michael gove was the education secretary. yes. did you have any idea that that speech would change your life? i knew i was being naughty. i knew i was saying things you're not meant to say. elephants, you know, i was doing that. but no, i had no idea what i was doing. i was very naive. they told me that it would go out on bbc parliament and i thought, well, nobody watches that, so i'll be fine. they lapped up your message that attack on the culture of excuses of low standards, a sea of bureaucracy, the chaos of our classrooms, they loved every single word you had to say. yeah. i mean, i was surprised. you'll see me sort of smiling awkwardly every time they clap because i'm taken aback and i'm thinking, oh, i don't know what to do right now. but yes, they did like it. and that was the thing. they then stood, you see, and gave me a standing ovation. and then that's when the press turned towards me. i had not expected that to happen after a while. then did you understand why the speech made people angry so well? i knew i was being naughty. so remember, i did know i wasn't allowed to sort of say these sorts of things. they wouldn't say naughty. they were saying, you're a black woman reinforcing the prejudices of conservatives who don't use state schools, many of their activists. and do you think black kids need to just pull their socks up and get on with it now? there are lots of tories who don't think that, but there are some who were on their feet applauding you, who did, and plenty in the press. it's interesting you put it that way, because i don't think anyone ever said that. i mean, at least i didn't say that to my face. what they'd say were things like we'd be trying to set up our school, having a parents�* evening evening, and they would come and stand amongst the parents and start shouting at me about how i betrayed them. why do you think? well, that's what's interesting. i do think it's because i'm a black woman and i'm state educated and i worked in state education all my life. therefore, i'm sort of owned by the left. so they weren't as articulate as what you just said. they just got very upset. and i'd be saying, but look, i'm working with these sorts of children that you say you want to help. and i've been doing a greatjob all my life. but that work stopped. i mean, you were suspended from your school. you decided to resign. now, what's so interesting about this, when you read a little bit about your background, you're not from the right at all. despite the fact that you are labelled as being on the right. some people even say you're on the on the far right. yourfather, still alive, is an academic. yeah. living in canada, frank. i mean, he was not a tory, was he? no, he's very much a man of the left, as is my mother. i grew up in a very leftist household. my father grew up without any shoes, very poorfamily in guyana, british guyana. my mother's jamaican and they, like so many immigrants before them, moved halfway across the world in order to give their children a better life. and they came first to england because that was the mother country. and then eventually they went to canada. and that's where i spent the first 15 years of my life. and we always used to come back to england, you know, during the summers, because my father was a great fan of cricket, because in those days the west indies would bash england and he took great delight and we would all sit and watch how the west indies had thrashed england. and and so i grew up in a caribbean household, eating jerk chicken and so on. and just very much that immigrant thing, talking politics with a small pay, if not a large me. -- talking politics with a small p? oh, i don't know if we did so much more. so what does he think? what does your mother think about your politics now? well, you know, i think they think that my small c conservatism is quite like theirs because it used to be the case that families who vote on the left could be small c conservatives. spell out what you mean by small c. i mean, you mean believe in values in family. the things i support social conservatism, belief and traditionalism and belief in the family, belief in personal responsibility and duty towards others. so this is intriguing. you think the left left you run the other way around? yes, absolutely. because you were when you went to oxford, you went to a comprehensive school. you then go to new college in oxford. yeah. word has it you were notjust left wing, but pretty radically so. so i like to give time to everyone. nobodyjoins the socialist workers party because they're joining every club. it's pretty radical maybe. but i don't think i went along to lots of meetings. i mean, i used to read i think it was living marxism rather than marxism. i was a lefty, there's no question. so what explains the journey? my teaching in the inner city? so what happened was i went into teaching because i thought i. lived all the normal things, there isn't enough money white racist teachers are preventing black boys from succeeding all of that stuff anyway. i went in and then i looked around and i just saw the evidence. i saw what was happening around me. and i thought, this isn't actually happening. i'm seeing some very hard working, dedicated white teachers who are doing the bestjob that they can and that, yes, of course, one can always want money, more money, but actually it's the power of bad ideas that are doing the worst damage here. was there a moment? mm hmm. was this a gradual process? gradual. and that partly was the blog. and then over years, you know, you start writing these things. and what happened was with the blog, lefties would come on and get very angry with me. and how dare you write aboutjohnny�*s money being stolen and so on and on. and then conservatives would come on and say, oh, no, we agree with you. and i kept saying to the lefties, look, i'm unlike you. ——look, i'm like you. i'm on the good side. i'm a good person. i'm on the left. and the conservatives would say, i don't think you are on the left. actually, i think you'll find you're actually conservative. and it took me a very long time. so when in 2010, i went to the party to the party conference and i was sort of coming out, i say i voted conservative for the first time and it was this big revelation. i'm still intrigued by your mum. a jamaican nurse. yes. your dad. yeah. an academic of guyanese extraction. yes. when you come out, as you put it. yeah. do they say, well, well done, we're delighted you're on a national platform or is there just a little bit of that moving or some to a little girl? no, i think you're sinking into a kind of middle class way. we immigrants don't have time to think that. all my parents are thinking, our poor little girl is in trouble. our poor little girl is going to be eaten alive, and then she's going to lose herjob. and then how is she going to pay her mortgage? all my parents care about is that they went halfway across the world in order to give their children a better life. did you worry because you did lose yourjob? yes. after that speech, you had, what, three years i think it was before you set up your own school? yes. well, i spent three years trying to set it up. and because of the detractors, it took a very long time and there was no... i thought, well, i could do my career. i couldn't think that because what else was i going to do? what you could write, you could have become a pamphleteer. the truth is, you were a pin up of parts of the conservative media and also of think tanks. you could have made a life that way. all i know are schools. my whole life is education. i loved working with disadvantaged children. i still do. i don't know how to do anything else. so i had to get back into education somehow. i'm intrigued by, ithink three times in this conversation, maybe twice you've referred to other leftists or lefties. there's an anger. i read something you wrote the other day where you say it's always acceptable in our work culture to mercilessly, mercilessly attack black conservatives. people like you. you wrote betrayed their leftist masters by daring to think for themselves. yes. leftist masters. yes. so it's a particularly aimed for a black woman to use the word master. i mean, you're making a very big and quite controversial point. yes. and i would say that i mean, obviously, this isn't the case for all people on the left. i'm talking i'm saying that there is a view some of them who where they feel that they own black people, they feel that they own the way we think. and the idea that there should be diversity of thought amongst black people is something they don't like. they feel they've bought their vote and they ought that we owe them. so i've been accused of betraying the left over and over again because how dare i not support the leftist cause? and the thing is, is that my views are quite complex. i mean, some views you might you might call lefty. small c conservatism is the thing that allows for so many to make the most of their lives to live lives that have depth, that have real meaning to them, where you're notjust blaming the outside world all the time. as i always say to the children at school, there may very well be racism and sexism and so on. but you've got one life and you've got to grab it by the horns and you've got to do what you can with what you've got. and that doesn't mean that you're not going to be oppressed and there won't be obstacles. clearly, there's a very strong argument that that makes sense at an individual level. yes. to say to an individual child or to say to a school of children, whatever the barriers, you're up against background, whether it's race or geography or poverty, put those out of your mind and focus on what you can do. the reason i think your appointment as chairman of the social mobility commission is controversial is people say that is work at all on a societal ground. if you want to do with social mobility overall, you have to worry about racism. you have to worry about inequality. you have to worry about poverty. otherwise, all you're doing is taking a few people and helping them climb out? well, i'm not suggesting that we all celebrate the existence of racism. i'm saying that we have to spend time concentrating on the elephants. if we never do and all we do is say the problem is racism. the problem is racism, which, of course, as we know, it's far more complex and that then we're not allowing people to be able to take control of their own lives. they think you are saying forget about racism. i mean, a writer accused you of upholding the racial status quo. and i think in a way, for a prominent, successful black woman to make the argument, you are saying forget all that stuff. well, you know what? more than her and more than most people, i have totally changed the status quo when it comes to what what is typically expected of inner city children. and i've done that for over 20 years. i've dedicated my entire life to changing their lives for the better. and that's a good thing. do you accept those, you move in, you've onlyjust been appointed to chair the social mobility commission as a part time job. you'll carry on being a head teacher. do you accept that it is a different challenge? it isn't about speaking to an individual and saying to them, this is what makes sense in your life. it is about analysing the way society works. well, i'm not saying we shouldn't analyze the way society works. however, individuals make up society or each of those individuals needs to take on board the right set of values so that they can make something of their lives. i don't know what's wrong with that. why wouldn't we want all children to work hard and be kind? why wouldn't we want them all going to excellent schools? all to have families who support their education and push them forward, expecting the most out of them, holding them to account when they get things wrong, celebrating when they get things right, and then being there for them. do you know how many children i've known in my lifetime where their families just aren't there for them now? and the ones who do have families, who are there for them, who are just as poor as the ones who don't, are the ones who are able to really make something of themselves. now, that doesn't mean that we just say we say the schools don't matter. i spent my entire life fighting to make education better and to make schools better. so, of course, the state has a part to play, but so do families have a part to play. and for us to insist that all we should be doing is talking about racism, it undermines the sense of self—worth that children can have in themselves, that they desperately need to be able to change their stars and make something better of themselves. i'm absolutely clear. what you don't want to do in the job as social mobility commission chair. you don't want to bang on about race, my phrase, not yours. to be fair, you do want to emphasize most conservative values. yes. in practice, i understand what that means in your school. i understand that you want to scale it up, but what, a few days a month with a body that doesn't set government policyjust recommends action. what can you actually do? that's a very good question. do you yet know the answer? i mean, i don't mean that rudely. i mean, in otherwords, you're so new to it. but i'll give you some ideas. i mean, i've always been keen on education, obviously. so how do we get schools generally to be better? that's a key point. i'm also very interested in routes into the workplace where i find it can be, can fall down when it comes to children of lesser ability that, you know, in terms of what they can do, that that's it's much more difficult for them finding places and where they can go. and then there's also the early years. what should families be doing with their toddlers, for instance? that's something that in the day of technology is very hard because families can make the mistake of handing their child, a 2—year—old, a smartphone and thinking that this is a good thing. and then later at four or five years old, when you're trying to get them to read, the child doesn't really like reading and they don't know why, but they've kind of fixed it that way because they gave the child a smartphone when they were two. but what can you do? a lot of people may well say hear, hear to that. yes, but what can the commission you're going to chair who works a few days a week do to alter the behavior of an entire society and its attitude to mobile phones? well, take how we all know that we should eat four to five vegetables a day, right? fruits and vegetables. it became a national campaign. everybody sort of knows that now. no, not everyone always follows it, but we know it. no one talks about technology in that kind of way. and i would really like to be talking about it incessantly. so we get to a point where families are far more likely to know what works and what doesn't work. the outgoing commission had a very different view. yes. they did. how would you describe that view? well, that's more about well, for instance, they came out with a report that said in the civil service, in order to get promoted, you need to be by the water cooler. and i suppose what they meant was there are certain cultural phrases and ways of being that if you don't have, you find it difficult to get promoted. well, that's the case in anyjob. now, we can lament that and go on about it or we can do something about it and make sure that our schools are equipping our poorest children to be able to compete with the richer ones. but why not change the civil service so that you don't need to know latin, is it actually helpful to the governance of britain to learn latin or go to oxford and do so? you really want to ban latin? no, no, no. what does the civil service change? well, but the only solution is to ban really high quality stuff. so ban shakespeare ban latin band, really complicated maths, because what we're doing is we're accepting that children who come from poorer families can't access that. you don't think i suggested that you should ban any of those things? what you might say is that there are certain things that are assumed amongst people of a particular background to go to a particular type of school, usually private schools, that if they're a barrier to people reaching the top, particularly as it's not necessarily evident that all civil service is any more the best in the world, that it would be sensible to change. i think that's what the body, you now head suggested just a few months ago change. the point is that you're suggesting we need to pull everybody down in order to make sure that we're all down here. so we're not going to learn shakespeare because it's hard for children in the inner city to access shakespeare. i think that's what's called an old sally that you're talking, that i didn't even mention shakespeare, but you're making your case very powerfully. let's just broaden out a bit. there's a part of you. that seems to me loves, relishes controversy, you want to make your arguments, you have the argument, as you're doing with me, as you did ever since you took to the stage of the tory party conference. but there are some who argue, including friends of yours to make real change. you're actually going to have to become a consensus builder, someone who brings people with you. well, you say that i'm brought people with me. in fact, when i was appointed, i the feedback i had from number ten was that they were amazed. there was there was very little negativity. i mean, there's obviously people on the fringes, but the generally speaking, we get over 600 visitors a year to michaela. these are mainly these are mainly teachers who've come who have been convinced by the things that they've seen. but i suppose what i'm asking you, i check you out on twitter the other day because you tweet quite a lot. you wrote on one day this week, 13 tweets in a day. i mean, a friend told us behind the scenes, katherine does a lot of supporting people quietly in the background, gives advice, gives moral support. i'm saying, are you at risk of creating a caricature of yourself? is that a danger that you've got to be aware of? now you're taking on a nationaljob which requires support from people across the political spectrum if it's ever to succeed. well, like i said, i don't know, a third of my twitter followers are are on the left, so ijust i don't see what you are saying. i think there are a lot of people, all those teachers who come to visit us. most of them are on the left and they take our ideas. i get so many letters saying thank you so much. i get so many private dms on twitter from teachers saying, thank goodness you're doing what you're doing, keep on going. but what's interesting is that they have to do it privately. so it says something about what people can say publicly and privately. it's very interesting you say that because in that famous speech at the conservative party conference, you ended with a quote, you remember the quote, success about from churchill, success is never final. you know, something about failure not being fatal and it's courage that counts. it was that you made me think of, in other words, is the story of your life, your public life in any way that you believe it's courage that counts, that despite the fact that you almost paid with your career... yes. despite the fact that you have had a lot of abuse online, the thing that keeps you going is that courage counts. well, it's more that i have a duty and you keep saying that i relish this and so on, not necessarily. you know, i'd love to just be able to go and go to the cinema loads and just have a nice life. no one knowing who i am. i mean this in the nicest possible way. i don't believe you. you are wrong. i mean, look, i interview people in public life all the time. you are one of the great performers. i mean, in that chair now, you all because you believe passionately, you want to convert people. you want the world to change people who want the world to change or not. contentjust going to the cinema. no, no, no, no, no. but i look, i used to love living and living in london because i was anonymous. nobody knew who i was. i don't want the limelight, but i have a duty. i have a duty because i want the world to change and because i've been cancelled once i can do things, i can say things. and somebody has to say something. i have a duty to do that because i cannot die at whatever age and think i could have done something and not have tried. when you leave this interview, you're going back to your school. yes, it's almost the end of term. yes. just let me ask you. how nervous a time is this, given the spread of the virus once more? do you worry notjust for the kids in your school, but for the whole disruption as a society we might be about to go through again and what it means for children's social mobility? absolutely. and it's a huge impact on children's social mobility, because children depend on their schools. if they're from disadvantaged families, they depend on their schools to be able to give them that opportunity. and i very i worry that there'll be another lockdown. i worry about so many of our families who are in jobs which weren't necessarily secure, and then they lost those jobs because of this pandemic. the pandemic has had a devastating effect on children from poor backgrounds. and ijust keep hoping that we'll finally get back to normal at some point. but i don't know when that'll be. katherine, thank you very much forjoining me on political thinking. thank you. thanks for having me. anyone who had any doubts that the new head of the social mobility commission would be a prominent public figure, someone who argued passionately for what she believed, won't have those doubts now. that's it from this edition of political thinking. thank you for watching. have a very good christmas. this is bbc news — these are the latest headlines in the uk and around the world. the uk health secretary refuses to rule out tighter covid restrictions before christmas in response to the rapid spread of the omicron variant. he says it is time to be cautious about social interactions. there are no guarantees in this pandemic. i don't think... at this point we have to keep everything under review. the netherlands goes into a tough new lockdown over christmas amid concerns over the omicron variant. sudan authorities have fired tear gas at protestors as pro—democracy marches continue outside the presidential palace in the capital khartoum. richard rogers — the architect behind london's millenium dome and the pompidou centre in paris — has died at the age of 88.