#136 - Katharine Birbalsingh - Why Britain Stopped Believing Children Need Discipline

Katharine Birbalsingh is the headmistress and founder of Michaela Community School in Wembley, and a former UK Social Mobility Commissioner.

She built the most successful school in Britain from nothing — in one of London's poorest boroughs — by insisting on the things the educational establishment now treats as radical: discipline, gratitude, knowledge, and the belief that every child is capable of excellence. Her results are extraordinary. Almost nobody in the profession will copy her.

In this conversation, we think out loud about:

• Why Katharine believes children are born naughty rather than good — and why saying so out loud triggered a national media storm
• Why the most progressive schools in Britain are often the expensive private ones, not the state schools everyone assumes are failing
• What actually happens inside a school that treats children as capable of excellence rather than victims of circumstance
• The ARC speech that caused a stir — on minoritarian victimhood, institutional shame, and why she thinks a certain group of people in Britain need to simply "take a break"
• Her real disagreement with Connor Tomlinson — whether ancestry or shared values are what actually holds a nation together
• Why she believes schools now shape children more powerfully than families do — and what that means for the future of the country

Find Katharine Birbalsingh:
- Strictly Education: https://www.youtube.com/@StrictlyEdPod
- Michaela School: https://www.michaela.education/

Related episodes:
- Lord Tony Sewell — Life At The Bottom In Broken Britain: https://youtu.be/WKf26_Va_yM?si=AjIKvZdCndHSyTx4
- Frank Furedi — In Defence of Populism: https://youtu.be/qTdxAR40T4E?si=MREy9eLow-XGWoS4
Jonathan Rose — What The British Working Class Lost And Who Is Responsible: https://youtu.be/OKHcEo2QrJg?si=cE6cr_Ypgs6geVyh

The Call of England — a documentary series retracing a 1927 journey through England to discover what remains of the national inheritance. Watch Episode 1 here: https://youtu.be/muBQWIP6ZQQ?si=y2zHLbn8juRbQidl

Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical and civilisational forces shaping England, Britain, the Anglosphere and the wider West. Hosted by John Gillam.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, classmates, and welcome to Thinking Class. I'm John Gillam, and today I'm speaking to Ricardo Duchesne. Ricardo is a historical sociologist, retired professor from the University of New Brunswick in Canada, and the author of The Uniqueness of Western Civilization and Greatness and Ruin. In this conversation, Ricardo and I think out loud about what made the West so continuously innovative across thousands of years, from the Indo-European origins through Greece and Rome and on to the modern era, why the Faustian drive, which is the relentless urge to create, to discover, and to push beyond every known boundary, is unique to European civilization, why the very qualities that made the West great rationalism, individualism, and universalism actually contain the seeds of its own unraveling as a civilization. How liberal progressivism evolves logically from John Locke through to John Stuart Mill, and to the open borders multiculturalism of today, why capitalism and liberalism together have created a system that structurally resists reform, and whether civilizational recovery is possible, or whether we are witnessing an irreversible decline. If you value serious long-form conversations like this, then subscribe to Thinking Class on YouTube, follow on Spotify, and support the show on Substack. And if you haven't already, go and watch The Call of England, my documentary series retracing H. V. Morton's 1927 journey to find out what is left of the old country and to see the evidence of the new England that has emerged since that time. Episode one is live now on YouTube. Enjoy the show, classmates, and now Ricardo Duchesne. Joining me today is Catherine Burbel Singh, who has built the most successful school in Britain, and from scratch, it's the Michaela Community School in Wembley, where children from some of the poorest backgrounds in London outperform children who go to Eton. And Catherine did it by insisting that the educational establishment should do things that are now considered unspeakable. We should focus on discipline, we should care about knowledge, we should be grateful, and that every child, regardless of background, can be capable of excellence. And today I have Catherine with me so I can ask her why the profession that should be replicating her model is instead doing everything to destroy it. So let's begin with the Michaela model and why no one's copied it. Catherine, I spoke to your friend and colleague Lord Tony Sewell a couple of months ago, and we spoke a little about how the Catherine Burbel Singh model is something that has been agreed would be a good thing for the educational establishment of Britain to follow, and that any sensible government would suggest we should roll it out en masse. But we both came to a bit of a problem, which was the ideological proclivities of the teaching profession seem to show that they would be inclined to non-compliance with your model, perhaps a refusal to implement it or to pay lip service to it. Do you agree? Is that right? And what would it take to actually do what we need in the country?

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Yeah, um well, the thing is that uh we uh in Britain have always been a country that allows for different models of schooling. Um, you know, we're we're we very much embrace the the idea of freedom. You know, there are religious schools, there are um Christian schools, there are Islamic schools, there are Hindu schools, there are schools that are those are our pips um for the uh uh lesson changeover. Um and so you know that you're definitely in school with me today. And um, you know, uh there are there have always been a variety of different schools. Um I have to say that in the 1950s, uh the sorts of values that were being taught in the schools and the discipline and the expectations of the teachers and the children were very similar. Even though there would have been a variety of different types of schools, um uh those things were constants. Uh nowadays there is much more variety um with regard to what happens in schools. And I always say that um head teachers are sort of um well, I you know, they're sort of tyrants in that depending on the head's uh personality and his values and what he thinks is important, uh the school will often uh take on um that what the head really believes is important. And of course uh there's lots of difference between what we all uh agree on in in education. And unfortunately, my sort of beliefs and what works in education are less popular than say the more progressive beliefs. There are more progressive headteachers than there are traditional headteachers, let's put it that way. Uh especially in 2026. Um and that is the case for any of the um big uh uh top uh independent schools. Um Eaton, you mentioned, for instance, recently. I can't I can't say about the head who's just started, but certainly the the head uh master, re most recent headmaster, was known as um I understand his his nickname by the boys was trendy uh uh Henry because his name was Henderson. Um and uh he was very trendy. And um and I and very much the opposite to me in terms of our beliefs about what is works well in the classroom. So uh I do think it is um uh ideolog ideological. I don't really blame um uh the heads of private schools so much in the sense that it's hard for them to tell because their children will do well regardless. Um uh I mean I say I don't really blame them. I mean I sort of I I think they ought to know better, but the fact is that um it's not obvious because it's not right in front of them. Whereas if you're in a normal state school, it's very, very obvious that what w we tend to do isn't really working. Um But people um I think people just have very low expectations of children. They don't realize how much children can learn. They don't realize how polite and nice they can be. They don't realise how much they can understand the old fashioned values of duty and sacrifice and decency. They just they they they we all just expect so little of children. Um and um uh I'm always inviting people to come and see Michaela so they can see what's possible. I always think of us as a bit of a show pony. Um you know, we get a thousand guests every year. Your audience are obviously very welcome to come and visit us. And um what the guests always say is, oh my goodness, the children are so polite, they're so nice, they're so decent to each other, um, they're so hardworking, they're so resilient, they're so ambitious. Um, and that that's the case that, you know, uh teachers from private schools come here and say that in comparison to the children at their schools, our children would outperform them. If you if you had a test for politeness, a test for kindness, a test for understanding the old-fashioned values of duty and sacrifice and what it is to be an honorable person, you know, um, our children would outperform all of those children. Um, and that that's what I'm most proud of, really, is who they are as people. Uh, I know our results are very good, but I mean, yes, our results are really good. That's great. Um, but actually, uh schools are not just about learning algebra. And I think um that, for example, is is one way in which the country has completely changed. We think of schools as the place you go to to get a good job. I mean, it's ridiculous. No one in 1955 would ever have thought the reason you go to school is to get a good job. You know, they the reason you go to school is to learn and to develop into an adult who other people would will admire and respect. That that is why you go to school. So, and it's hard to admire and respect somebody who doesn't know anything. So, yes, they do know need to know algebra, but they also need to be good people. And um we in the West have completely forgotten that children are not born good, right? They are born bad. And I mean, and I'll say that and then they'll clip that and they'll put it somewhere and they'll say, Oh my goodness, Calendar was saying says the children are bad. Well, I don't understand. When people say that to me, and I think, have you ever met a child? I mean, have you ever met a toddler? Do you not know that they're naughty? I don't really understand. Obviously, children are naughty. Obviously, they need to be taught right from wrong. And if you don't teach them right from wrong, they will do the wrong thing more often. Like that this for me, all of our grandmothers would have thought that I'm just telling you something that's perfectly obvious. Um apparently these days it is extremely controversial.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

You raise several interesting points there. One of them, just to pull on the thread a little bit before we move on, was how kids at Eton, for example, will kind of do well regardless. Uh, even if their head teachers might take on the trendy uh ideological proclivities of the day. And I wonder if that's if there are a few things driving that. I think partly maybe their home environments likely to be a bit more stable, so perhaps you can absorb a little bit of this ideological confusion in your your day-to-day. But also, I suppose the the independent schools, not all of them, but I think quite a lot of them, particularly those prestigious ones, they have uh a way of comporting oneself, the dress codes, uh the the age-old traditions. So it's almost like the heads of those schools that are flying the flag for the new ideological trends of the day are an epitome of what Rob Henderson calls the luxury belief class, insofar as they're not actually living that way themselves, and neither are really any of their students at the school, but they just know that there's high status that is linked to those ideals, but they're actually still going on as they always did.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

No, I wouldn't agree with that. I would agree they have luxury beliefs, but I wouldn't agree that they're going on the way they always did. In fact, um I'm quite horrified by the things I see at private schools when I visit them. Oh, interesting. I find the children generally quite rude. I find them And when I say rude, what do I mean? I mean their hands are in their pockets, they're slouching around, um, they will talk back to their teachers. Uh I've seen them storm out of lessons in private schools. Um, they're ungrateful, they have no sense of um loyalty to the country, uh, no sense of um um decency, just common decency. They don't have it, right? So, no, I would totally disagree with that point. They're not going on in the way that they've always done. And I think um a lot of your viewers would be surprised to hear me say this because I think a lot of people just assume that private schools are good. They're not. So I used to have a sign outside when we opened in 2014. I had a sign outside that said private school ethos without the fees. I took it down. I would never have that sign up now because we do not have a private school ethos. If I had a private school ethos, we would not be the school that we are. We are a traditional school, and you will find it very hard to find a traditional school like ours in the private sector. You might do. So you might find a private Christian school that really believes in Christian values, so you would find it there. You might find it in the smaller private schools, the ones that Bridget Phillipson is keen on closing down, um, and actually has managed to close down quite a number of them. So the the few traditional schools that we did have uh uh have basically been closed down by Bridget Phillipson, um, because financially they, you know, they weren't able to survive the VAT issue. Uh but the larger big uh day schools and so on, no, not at all. They're very progressive and they're pushing a progressive agenda onto those children. Those children grow up um filled with lots of white guilt, um desperate to be as trendy as possible, and there's uh understanding of uh leftist values as much as possible to make them into good people. Um they grow up rejecting the old-fashioned uh traditional values that I'm talking about, which I tend to call small c conservative. Um they don't embody those values at all, to the point where they genuinely just don't even recognize what I'm talking about. So if I were to speak to some of those young people, which I have done, and whenever I do, they always look at me and just think there's something wrong with me. And um, and they don't even understand the notion of having respect for your elders to my that they might learn from the wisdom that I have because I'm older than them. They they literally don't, like what I've just said, they wouldn't understand the concept because their schools have taught them otherwise. Because their schools think that being creative and independently minded is just to teach them to be rude. And they don't understand that having respect for your elders and and understanding that wisdom comes with age and so on, that sort of thing, they they think that they are masters of the universe at 18 or at 22 or at 25, um, and that they know better than the rest of us. And um I don't agree with that, you know. And that comes from the general cultural Marxism that this with the waters that we're all swimming in, that equality, uh equity needs to be everywhere. Therefore, the children are equal with us adults, as opposed to um no, it doesn't mean that they're inferior. Uh once upon a time we used to talk about being equal in in the eyes of God, which is somehow turned into we all need to be the same. And I'm sorry, but you know, clearly a a 12-year-old is not is not the same as us. We have to lead the child. It's for us to look after children, and it's for us to uh take charge of their moral formation. Um and if we don't do that, they will never become morally sentient beings. Um and we're doing a very bad job of raising our children.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

I would say that parents are doing not so good a job as the people in the 1950s, and I would say the teachers aren't either the I'm gonna call it the LinkedInfication of education, where you you've talked about how it is now common for people to think that schools are a finishing school for a career. And it is actually remarkable how many CVs as someone who can be a hiring manager in the corporate world. I see from people who've effectively been on the CV building train since their early teens, uh the various extracurricular activities they do, the the things that they are lead and a chair of, um, the internships that they go and get. And uh I th that that seems to be pervasive um throughout the culture that we have distilled whatever a good life is meant to look like down to purely material achievement through career and I suppose material achievement and individualism.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

So it we we in the West have lost an understanding of us being part of something bigger. You know, you're you're part of your country. There should be a love of country there, there should be a love of your community, there should be a love of your school, love of your teachers, a love of your family. Um, and that when you behave in a particular kind of way, you are not just representing yourself, you're representing all of those various teams that you're a part of. Um that those concepts have completely disappeared because we've embraced individualism. Um, and that's not to say that we aren't individuals, we are, and obviously we have our own desires and so on. But those desires are not just um uh they don't live on their own. We we live as part of uh various teams. And um I I I don't I I think that young people these days don't really have any understanding of that at all. I actually think, you know, so when it comes to Gen Z, people say, oh, Gen Z are so different in the workplace, etc. I actually have to have a a special onboarding system for my new Gen Z uh recruits because I have noticed a real difference. So I've been recruiting Michaela obviously for years now, for for the 13 years. Um, I can tell you that the young people I used to recruit in 2014 um are very different to the young people I recruit now. And that is because the young people who are Gen Z uh who are coming on board now um are I I believe, one, they've been brought up in a in a much more progressive culture in the schools, two, uh they are online. And um, you know, they were online when they were young. And so the online world throws things at you. You don't have to go in search of of a life. And so just the simple idea of you owning your own development, you uh wanting to reach point B, and you are at point A, and you figuring out how you're going to get there, um, requires a set of old-fashioned values again that if you don't have, uh, because your family haven't given them to you, your school hasn't given them to you, um, and you've been bombarded online by a completely different way of seeing the world, which is much more uh things happening to you as opposed to you making things happen. You being responsible for yourself, you having agency, uh, you then being held to account for the things that you choose or choose not to do, that there is a difference between right and wrong. There isn't just your truth and my truth, and anything goes because you need to live your best life and you need to you do you, um, and that all that matters is what you want in this individualistic world. Um that is um unfortunately, I would say what I've just said there is the is the agenda that is pushed in most schools and online and uh everywhere, really, in the media and so on. It's a culture that we swim in. We just we don't even realize that we're swimming there. And so when I speak the way that I speak, many people in education go, what's wrong with her? And um, and I think, no, no, no, no, no, what's wrong with you? That's what I think.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Well, uh, you mentioned individualism a few times, and you're right to say, of course, we're all individual, and we ought to recognise we're all equal in the eyes of God. And that's the key point, really, is that the individualism that has historically been expressed, particularly by the English-speaking peoples, you can see it in the anthropological record going back over a thousand years, that it the individual nature of people was written into our our property laws, into our legal codes more broadly. You could see it within the culture, but it was always nested within something bigger than that. There was always a civic uh understanding of a common life that was obviously expressed in things like church life or community building. And Carl Truman, who I know you and I both mutually admire, uh has effectively pinpointed the problem as being the rise of expressive individualism when the individual breaks out from all of those common bonds and finds themselves just try trying to self-create and self-invent. The irony being, of course, they end up just looking like everyone else around them as they go about their transgressive ways, is that you just end up with this huge group of people trying to transgress, but they're they're largely quite similar in their outlook. And I I I just want to pull on this a little bit more because you've talked about how in the 1950s, when people went to school, it was about learning, character development, bettering oneself. It wasn't just purely for an abstract end, like I want a good job. Peter Hitchens, in his two of his books, The Abolition of Britain and A Revolution Betrayed, effectively spoke how about how the cultural revolution that took place from the 60s onwards wasn't accidental. It was a deliberate product of a teaching professional profession that was trained in in progressive education theory. And so there was a systematic systematic dismantling of standards, discipline, transmission of knowledge. But as you just said, this changes my question a little bit. Um as you just said, we're all swimming in that water, and some of us aren't even just the children of the revolutionaries, with the grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We're so far removed from the world that you're describing that actually I was going to ask, what does the public not understand about how the profession thinks? But actually, maybe the deeper question is: does the public really care? Are we so in the mire here that this is just the way things are?

SPEAKER_01 21:10

That's right. So, like Carl Truman and Peter Hitchens, you know, they're super clever and they write their books about these sorts of things. And um they're saying the same things that I'm saying. I'm just saying it from a teacher's point of view. I'm just saying, look, um, it's obvious to me because I know kids and I know what what what they're doing and I know what's happening in their schools, you know. But th th they are Peter Hitchens, those two books you just said, yeah. I mean, he explains it 100% accurately. Um and uh Yeah, the thing is is that I always say this we cannot expect teachers to do the right things if the public are doing all the wrong things because teachers are just part of the public, right? They're just normal people. So uh you know, and I say, Well, I don't Blame the head teachers of private schools or even frankly the state schools. I mean, it should be obvious to the state schools, look, this chaos in the classrooms and so on. But what are they meant to do about it? Are they really meant to take on board the idea of being uh you know uh hated by everyone? Are they really meant to um uh risk their their their picture in the local press uh and all kinds of parental groups uh campaigning on Facebook to get them fired? Are they really meant to send their own children to school and for their children to get bullied because they're the child of that head teacher who insists on doing all those crazy things in their school? Are they really meant to take on board all of the issues that will then follow on from this, which will include death threats and fearing, literally fearing for your life? I mean, if that's what you have to do to run a good school, then there's something wrong with society, right? I mean, and that is ultimate that is what you have to do. I mean, that's what I've had to do. So, I mean, in fact, it's been much worse than that, obviously. I've been, you know, paraded around the national press in all kinds of ways and been attacked by everyone and so on. So, like, I'm odd. You know, I'm odd in that I think, well, to hell with you, I'm doing what's right by these children, and I'm doing what's right by by by the world, by everyone. I mean, I'm not gonna die knowing that I lived my life in such a way that means that I just had to I I bet I I I end up bending to everything that's wrong. I'm not doing that, but I'm odd. Most people want to pay their mortgage and drop their children at school and walk the dog and you know, have a drink in the pub on a Saturday night and um go and watch the football. That that's what most people are like. And so uh it's not fair to ask teachers to do otherwise. My own staff will tell you they end up losing friends for having for working here. Um, you know, they like who who wants to live like that? Now, of course, my staff are amazingly courageous and they're a fantastic group of people, and um uh and they realize that you know what they get out of the school uh makes up for the fact that they can, you know, they have these sort of personal tragedies that can happen to them. But um it's quite hard. It's hard. It's it's an expectation that no profession should have on it, and that is the expectation that we have on schools right now.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Yes, I mean that is the power of uh um the prevailing middle class sensibilities, is that it is such a censorious place, actually. Um there is a cordon sanitaire uh that is remarkably narrow, and that even just expressing uh opinions that would probably be agreed with up and down the country amongst 70% of people could see you effectively uh cast out as being beyond the pale, uh quite shocking. I I've had it happen to me, and uh I uh I don't particularly know what I do. That's um that's supposedly um so triggering, but uh people people don't people don't want to hear anything that doesn't uh concord with the way that they see the world. And and and I suppose in in what you've described, I mean some of these things, discipline, sacrifice, duty, they all call for something more than just your own personal comfort, and they also put a mirror on people, right? On their own conduct and their own standards and their own the way that they think. And I think people just get deeply offended by the notion that someone else might actually have a better way on how to form oneself, to form the character of others, because then it suggests that perhaps there's something wrong with me, and I know there's nothing wrong with me, and I know what's right. And so, how dare you suggest this? That's just totally unfair. Uh, do you think there's a an element of people wanting to avoid judgment in this as well?

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Yes, I think that's true, but I think ultimately so it comes back to the point that I was saying about children being naughty. Um we have rejected the concept of original sin and instead embraced the concept of original virtue. So if you were to ask uh uh young mums or young teachers, uh they would tell you without you know skipping a beat that obviously children are good. Um and they would say that um you know, our role as adults is of course to look after them, but you know, they're they're good, and it's for uh it's our job to sort of draw the goodness out of them. In the same way as we think in a progressive way, that our job is to draw the knowledge out of them. So this just stems back to Rousseau. Rousseau put thought like that, and you know, you just allow, you know, man is everywhere in chains, just break open the chains, and then we'll all be free to be good people. Now, ultimately, if you believe in original sin, however, we believe that we're all flawed. Um I just recently had a journalist in here um a few weeks ago, um, and she pressed me on the point of original sin because once some years ago I retweeted somebody's tweet um saying um they said something about children being naughty or something. And I said, Well, yeah, obviously, original sin. I I said it off the cuff. I was actually standing on the Champs-Élysées, I was on holiday, and I just went, yeah, you know, original sin, didn't think of it, and didn't think much of it. And then um, well, within an hour or two or whatever it was, suddenly it was everywhere. I had to go on television to defend myself. I had all these people writing to me about the Catholic nuns who had destroyed their lives, and honestly, it was just crazy. And um, I was thinking, but I'm just saying that children are naughty. I don't understand. Now, uh when I was speaking to her, it was fascinating because I obviously defended what I'd said. And when she wrote it up in the paper, she said, she still defends this point of view on original sin. She stands by it as if I was doing like, what do you mean? I don't I I I I I'm j I'm genuinely just baffled by the whole thing because it's just obvious to me that children are naughty. Look, if you put two ta toddlers together and you give them one toy, they're going to hit each other over the toy.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

There's war.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

Everyone who knows children knows this. So the thing is, we like to lie to ourselves. So I always like that program. Do you know remember that program Doctor House with Hugh Laurie playing the the the doctor? And um his thing was he always said to his young doctors, who he was sort of training, um, he would always say to them, Everybody lies. And he said, even if we get a patient in and they're about to die, and they have to tell you the truth about what they've been doing so that they can they can figure out what's wrong with them, the doctors can figure it out. The person will still lie, even when it's a matter of life and death. Now, Dr. House is right, and it's more than that. Not only do they does everybody lie, but so many people prefer the lie to the truth. They would rather live with lies than the truth. And that is because the truth is too hard to bear. Um, and so I I think that the the idea that children are naughty and that we have to then train them out of that naughtiness, um, by giving them praise and punishment, merits and demerits, you give them detentions, you say, well done, you give them a gold star. It's all very straightforward. And and and a headmistress from 1955 would be saying to me, Catherine, this is all very normal. And I would say, no, not in 2026, I'm afraid. Um it's uh yeah, it's very controversial saying what I'm saying. And that's because everybody gets partly what you're saying. They don't want to be judgmental of themselves. And um, if you say there's such a thing as right and wrong, that requires judgment, right? Um, it requires deciding what is right and what is wrong. Um, and we don't like doing that in 2026.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Certainly not. Certainly not. It's a post post-revolutionary time. We're so confused about all the concepts we use and almost have no reference point for our moral values anymore. You you've mentioned today white privilege, and I think it's fair to say that you made a speech that if people haven't seen, I uh exhort you to go onto the YouTube channel of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship and watch Catherine deliver a speech that caused, I think, a considerable stir uh amongst the usual crowd of people who probably don't like what Catherine's got to say, but also amongst people who understand that something's gone wrong. And you argue, Catherine, that the language of white privilege and the concept of decolonisation has become so widespread and is actively damaging not just the children that they claim to help, both the ethnic minorities who might see themselves as victims, but also the white children who see themselves as purely oppressors. And you made not a policy claim. This is an issue that we have in society where everyone's going, give us the policy, give us the policy, but actually you're making a civilizational claim, uh, which is this is going to put the future of Western nations at risk unless we root it out. I don't imagine that we see this taking root in your school, but what was it that you saw in the broader culture that made you feel like you had to stand on stage in front of a conference of up to 4,000 people, knowing it was going to be beamed across the internet and likely hitting the mainstream media, that made you put it in so stark a terms?

SPEAKER_01 31:47

Yeah, well, I I just think if you are paying attention to what's going on in the country, it's pretty obvious that uh we are in trouble. And I have to say, I have, you know, I have been saying uh for um oh I don't know, 12-15 years, I've been saying it's the end of the West, it's the end of the West. And um, you know, my staff here sort of laugh at me. It was a bit of a joke, you know, oh Catherine's always talking about the end of the West. It's not a joke anymore. Um, and that's because um it's just obvious if you're really paying attention. So why is it obvious? Uh for those of us on the ground, uh, you know what's happening in school. So now you might say, but hasn't behavior always been poor? Yes. So uh behavior's always been poor in my lifetime, let's put it that way. Um, you know, in my career, it there's always been poor behavior. Um, it's always been more progressive teaching and so on. When we talk about progressive teaching methods, you know, that you have to draw it out of the child instead of putting it into the child, uh, desks not being in rows and instead facing each other because of the progressivism of the the children should leave the learning instead of the adult leaving the learning and so on. So that's always been the case. But what's got much worse uh recently, and in particular since George Floyd, is um the self-flagellation of the country. You know, the the the the white people being so uncomfortable. I mean, for goodness sakes, will white people just take a break? It's all right, it's okay being white. This is what I feel like saying to white people all of the time. And um, oh, I have a uh a brown friend who works in one of the academy chains. He tried to introduce Bible stories and he was shut down. Um, you know, I just there there's a sort of deep shame around Christianity, there's a deep shame around whiteness, there's um, you know, and where does that come from? I I think it's because uh young people in schools and in the online world are immersed in this culture of white guilt. And what do I mean by white guilt? So you're guilty about your privilege. You're constantly told that you are privileged by being white. Um so if if we did if we did the same thing to uh tall people, I mean, I do think there's such a thing as white privilege, but there's also tall privilege and there's pretty privilege, and there's um, I don't know, being fast privilege and uh, you know, clever privilege, there's a million different privileges. Um we don't go around talking about them. If we did, if we talked about the tall people constantly and saying, you know, they're privileged and it's not fair, we need to make sure that we um give quotas to businesses and make sure we don't have as many tall people as we do, you know, you know, short people, short and tall need to be equal and we need to be talking about it all the time. Tall people would begin to feel very guilty. And this has happened over decades, but it's got particularly intense since George Floyd. And so everyone doesn't want to be seen as racist. Now, um it it comes from a good place, you know, it comes from a good place. We look at uh the horrors of um history and we say, oh my goodness, it's terrible to treat people differently because of the color of their skin. That's absolutely right, 100%. We want that. We don't want, you know, uh people treat being treated differently. But that doesn't mean that you can't um stand up for yourself. Uh so uh take my school for example. I'm very clear about the values that we have at the school, and I won't let anyone push me around. That doesn't mean that I'm um Islamophobic or racist or um that I I pick out certain groups to have a go at them or that I treat them differently. I just defend what I believe in, but I actually believe in something. So you have to begin by believing in something. And part of the West's problem is that we don't really believe in anything, apart from you live your best life, and anything goes, and uh everybody's an individual, so you just do whatever you want, and as long as you don't sort of step on my toes, I won't step on your toes, and we can all live side by side. But we don't have to actually make up a country or have a culture that we share and a set of values that might might overlap. None of that's important, no, because uh we just happen to share the same ground that we're living on, um, and you just do your life and I'll do my life, and who cares? Because that's what modern 2026 living is like. Um you know, it's like we're uh we're just caught in some kind of twilight zone. You know, I used to talk about the twilight zone all the time. You might I don't know, John Getting John, if you're um, you know, uh like I just I used to talk about the the Twilight Zone to my staff, and one day one of my staff came up to me and he said, You know, Catherine, you're always talking about the Twilight Zone. None of us know what you're talking about. Now the Twilight Zone. The characters of the Twilight Zone know exactly what I was talking about because it's from a long time ago program, and the program it when I say we're in the Twilight Zone, it's just like, what is going on? What is wrong with everyone? It's like it's like invasion of the body snatchers. Something's happened to us, you know? So that's what I'm talking about when I say white guild. And um if you're not sure of what you believe in and you're not sure of what you need to defend, then other people will just walk all over you. That's just what happens. Like that's like that's the case even as individuals, you know. You you need to know, you know, if you think about people you know, you know when they say to you, um, don't have toxic people in your life, you know, they say that. And toxic people in your life will just march all over you. Um, well, they don't march all over you unless you allow them to march all over you. So when people complain about, oh, this is happening in the country, that's always happening in the country, I always think, look inward, what are we doing? Right? And what we're doing is being really ashamed of what we shouldn't be ashamed of. We should be ashamed, we should be proud of the nation, we should be proud of um uh of of what we what we've been as a country. And I don't understand why everyone is so ashamed. Or at least, you know, you said it. You said it, and you said there's lots of people who think who would agree with what I'm saying. They just won't say it out loud.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

Yes. And that's actually partly why I started this show a few years ago was to practice saying things out loud because I'd become totally aware of how much I'd begun to self-censor, and was seeing it widespread throughout the institutions I was working with that you would see various agendas advanced, whether it was diversity, equity, and inclusion, and people refusing to say, here are all the ways that it might go wrong, and how it might have the opposite impact that you're hoping it for it to have. And it has been remarkable, actually, to see during the course of my life I went to school hearing this as a really common response to anyone who was pushing back if you said you didn't like what they said, they would say, It's a free country. I'll say what I want. You don't hear that anymore, actually. It's it's gone. People don't believe it's a free country and they refuse to say what they think uh because they're so afraid of the consequences.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

Yes, it's true.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

Um, say that. They don't say it anymore.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

And and you know, it's not even it's not even that long ago that that was the the case. Um pulling on your arc speech a little bit more, but also on a um uh a conversation you had out in the public sphere recently with Connor Tomlinson. Um bit of a recap. You originally had a debate with him with The Spectator convened by Michael Gove. It never made it to publication in the end. I think Gove said it didn't fit with the papers in premature, and so you ended up having a conversation on Dan Wooten's uh podcast instead. The argument which I think you were having uh with each other was Tom Linson basically was saying that the demographic transformation um that Britain is experiencing threatens the various cultural and national identities of the English, Scots, Welsh, and Irish. And um that schools like Michaela are, I think, in his words, a replacement of Britain's high trust order with an authoritarian headmistress state, I guess he's saying, We're headed towards a Singapore uh style model. And you disagreed with him, but you also agreed on some points. And whilst you disagreed, I think, with his conclusions in the end, I wonder if your ARC speech, and do correct me if I'm wrong, um, maybe finds a little bit of overlap here and there. So you you concentrate on minoritarian victimhood, and you've talked a little bit about the pernicious impact of DEI and decolonisation. And then, as we we've said before, Lord Sewell has uh spoken a bit about the self-hatred of white liberals and a little bit of status seeking amongst ethnic minorities who can who can take advantage of various um uh DEI policies. Um so if Tomlinson carries some kind of w weight with his argument that people carry culture, I suppose um is there a version of his concern that you take seriously, even if you reject his c conclusions, or is there are there separate points being made here?

SPEAKER_01 41:31

Well, um I don't understand what he means when he says the high trust uh society. I don't see a high trust society here in Britain nowadays. Um and I don't think that that's just to do with immigration. You know, if you go I mean Glasgow, where there's very few immigrants, um, is is what is the most violent place in in in the UK. Um you you've got I mean the idea he thinks that ancestry um is uh what binds people together. And uh one's hist the history of Northern Ireland, for instance, where they would kill each other, they had the same ancestry, um, but they were killing each other. Um it's just a nonsense to suggest that that's the case. Now um I do think uh that uh and he I d I don't he like he never talks about values, he never talks about relationships and bonds and ties within a community, he never talks about um uh uh that which I would the values and the connections and the history and the culture and the tradition, that all of that is uh a huge part of what makes a country. Um now I wouldn't deny that ancestry has some place, you know, that it's a bit odd if you replace all of the people in the country. You know, he asked me in that conversation, uh, what if you replaced every uh white English person with uh other people from other c other countries? Would would this place still be England? And I don't think it would be. I, you know, so I I do think ancestry has something to do with it, but the idea that that is the vehicle that carries um what what makes a country, that it that ancestry is it, I just think is wrong. It's also just wrong to suggest that we have a high trust culture. It's also just bizarre to blame blame everything on immigration, you know. Uh white people are not having uh babies. Is that the fault of immigrants? Um I mean it's just bizarre. So I fundamentally disagree that um ancestry is everything. Uh and I think what he's doing is he's where I feel for him, he's 26 years old. So he's grown up in this culture of diversity is our strength, um, multiculturalism is this wonderful success, whether or not it's problematic, it doesn't matter. uh and has been problematic in certain ways, you know, the left will deny that. He's grown up frustrated, and I understand his frustration, which is why I speak to him. You know, I don't, you know, I haven't kind of refused twice, you know, I I I went once, it wasn't published, and then I went back a second time, you know. So um I'm certainly willing to have the conversation. But where I do fundamentally disagree with him, so for instance, in that conversation, I put to him that if he and his wife were to have a daughter, a biological daughter, and then they had another child, but it was an adopted child who was uh, you know, ethnically Nigerian, um, but she has nothing to do with Nigeria. She is brought up as a baby by Connor and his wife. Um if they were to bring up those two girls, I believe they would be indistinguishable. And the reason I think they would be indistinguishable is that they would both have the same loyalty to the country. And I would imagine this because Connor would bring them up, you know, in such a way to have a loyalty to Britain, to understand her uh tradition and and and and traditions and history to embrace uh the local community to uh very much be British um and so I then think well they are indistinguishable. Now you might say but ancestry they're different. Yes true I mean obviously they're also different in a million other ways you know one might be shy one might be um more outgoing one will be tall one will be short and so on. But in terms of what really matters in making the country they would be indistinguishable. He does not think so because of that difference in ancestry. And um I don't agree. Now I do see the point however if you have lots of Nigerian for instance ancestry people here and there's huge numbers let's say they then take up 80% of the country and they are the ones raising their children they themselves will struggle to uh give you know to teach their child the history of Britain the traditions the um someone was telling me about eggs and soldiers um and you know this and you know I've been here for many years and this is something that I've only recently discovered. So obviously as an immigrant you're not as able to pass on the values and the culture and the traditions and so on of the country. And so if you have lots of people unable to pass on those traditions and culture then that radically changes the country but not because of their skin color. What changes the country is the fact that they are unable to pass on the culture and the traditions and so on. Now the tradition tradition and culture and values and all of that matter and so do the relationships and ties that you have to the country and the respect that you show the country. And I think for the majority of people in this country I don't think that they would agree with Connor. I don't think that they would say that that that the the the the ancestrally Nigerian baby he brings up is um is fundamentally different and couldn't cannot be British. I just don't think that that's the case. I think you can be British with all of these other elements and um I think all of those other elements matter and that the respect that you show I think most people would think to themselves as long as the the the people who are here are demonstrating respect for the country are willing to embrace the country and love the country demonstrate loyalty um I don't think that they would think that that nurse who um uh who's been working here for 40 years who's brought her children up here always shown respect to the country always loved the country and contributed I don't think people would say no she she she she doesn't belong here. I don't think most people would say that. I certainly wouldn't say that um and I don't think it's right to say that I think it's unfair I think it's uh it's it's an unreasonable thing to look at someone who has spent their life here who's brought their children up here and done nothing but contribute and demonstrate respect to then say they must leave. Well where are they meant to go you know I mean I for instance where am I going exactly you know I mean um and it's this idea that I couldn't possibly be British. Well I don't see how I could possibly be anything else you know I and and certainly I mean that and that's for me who and I've been here since the age of 15. If you were born in this country brought up in this country you don't know anything else right um now the problem which he rightly points to and where I agree with him is that there are far too many people in this country who do not demonstrate a love of the country who would not identify as British who do not um uh have close ties and relationships with the various people in the country which will mean that they which which which which grounds us in the country you know and that is a real problem. I would agree with for instance the numbers of immigrants matter because if you have too many then you're unable to have a shared set of values culture tradition and history um and that loyalty is then uh undermined so I am I agree with him in that but I just think he pings to the opposite side and then says it's about skin he calls it ancestry but I mean you know skin ancestry whatever you want to call it the fact is I don't think ancestry does carry that I I just don't I don't it's obvious it's obvious because there's lots of people with that ancestry who uh reject the country who don't love the country who do not uh know the its traditions and its history um there's lots of people who are like that who are not immigrants and who are white in skin so um it is also the case that you can look at all kinds of parts of the country that are mainly white if not like like 99% white and um they are not high trust communities. So that the play what he's describing just isn't true.

SPEAKER_00 50:15

Well you mentioned a point at the end there that I think's worth going into because I know we're we've not got too much longer left but I I wanted to talk a little bit about a cultural trait that's taken root in the country which you as you were describing how there is a a not insignificant proportion of white British who don't live in accordance with the traditional values cultural norms of the British nations um we've talked a lot about the educational establishment taking on trendy ideas whether it's white privilege decolonization but also just transgression repudiation of the past and anything that the country and its its peoples have produced.

SPEAKER_01 51:01

Sorry just to interrupt so and the point is when you say my speech sorry are you then sort of agreeing with Connor no my speech is saying exactly that I'm my speech is I'm basically accusing white people of behaving in a way that is not um conducive to the success of their country. That is what I'm saying in the speech and that's precisely what I've just said in more detail and what I was arguing with with Connor because Connor says no it's the fault of immigrants it's immigrants we just get rid of the immigrants and we'll be okay him and his followers they say things well he hasn't said this but his followers say just get Catherine Brebelsing out. We just get her out of the country we'll be all right and I look at them and I just think I really don't think that's the case. You could put me on a plane and send me somewhere wherever that is you're you're I've had great influence on the education system in the country. Our school does it makes the schools better. There are schools with lots of white children that have improved thanks to the things that we do in our school right you get rid of me and get rid of the school um well then all of those schools with those white children don't do as well. The kinds of culture that I push you know the idea of celebrating Britain having a British flag outside not allowing lots of other flags uh the pride flag the Palestinian flag and so on you'll find those flags all over our our white schools. So when he's talking about these high trust society I I said to him have you visited these schools do you know what they're like this is just absurd. So um you know the point is that getting rid of Catherine Burbel Singh because he seems to think that I'm responsible for mass migration in this country which is just absurd um getting rid of me is not going to fix the country right the country is far more broken actually far more broken than he is suggesting. And he's just going for the the the lowest hanging fruit and grabbing that and saying it's because of the immigrants and while I recognize that the multiculturalism is currently hugely problematic in various ways because it is political multiculturalism as opposed to um a multiculturalism where we would learn to get on with each other that that that that is not you know that is not what we've got and I get that I agree with that. But that my my speech does match what I was saying to Connor in that conversation and what I am now saying. You know yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:22

Understood well well on on that anti-social posture I suppose that you're saying you you've seen and which I think we we can all see I I did a road trip around the country as part of a travel log uh called The Call of England as we trace in the steps of a writer from a hundred years ago and I went around lots of the leafy shires and even within them regardless of ethnicity I found various different examples of antisocial postures. So there was the kind of um transgressive progressive types I suppose who uh look like they were distinctly checked out from the wider purpose of civic life. There's also just a roadman culture I think we've started referring to it as where people try and look menacing that listening to drill music in their ears again this is almost regardless of ethnicity though it was a bit of a class distinction those who see more middle class tended to be more progressive transgressive whilst everyone else was wearing a kind of a gangsterist um outlook.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

And I suppose my question is is let's say uh we have lots of Michaela's um between eight and three they're being given your not only your curriculum but your character formation do you think that the mass casualisation I suppose that Britain has suffered this pop culture this transgressive culture this repudiation culture um this way of being um is going is basically going to s stop the civilization from re reproducing itself even regardless of what happens between eight and three with you or do you think that the educational establishment could set and train a um a revival a renaissance so to speak so at root in your question is a fundamental um underestimate of the impact that uh schools have on uh adults every single adult has been through school every single one right every single adult has been a child and um unfortunately uh we as a culture do not understand that childhood matters so ancestry does not teach you to be moral right your skin color does not carry with it a a a moral core right what what creates and builds a moral core is the teaching and the the habit formation that happens when you are a child right that's what makes you into the adult with the moral core that that adult might have that you become that adult through going through as a child from year after year through various different ritual formations that creates who you're going to be now whatever color you are it doesn't matter right now um the fact is that the only way that we influence that is by um looking at families and at schools well and the online world because it's now the online world that is also forming children right um those are the three things that they are being exposed to and um the families obviously when I said earlier the public what they think matters and then what the schools think matters. Of course schools I mean schools transform what people are like I mean what children are like and who they're going to become as adults. It's just that that it matters what school you send your child to um i i otherwise well who cares just send them to any old school and they'll become the same as they would do anyway no one in the developing world no one in China or India or any would ever think in the way that Westerners think which is that school doesn't matter. They all know they are all desperate in the rest of the world outside of the West they all understand that it matters where you send your child to school and what the tea what look the teachers the adults that you surround your child with are immersing them in a particular culture. If you uh send them to a school that um celebrates bad behavior your child will be badly behaved. If you send them to a school that is all about British history and loves British history your child will love British history. If you send them to a school where they swim every day right and swimming is everything your child will become a great swimmer right you know you you get good at what you do. I never play basketball so I'm not a very good basketballer. I talk about education all of the time so I'm very good when it comes to education. You get good at what you do so you if it depends on what you're immersed in. Children are immersed in their schools and it's not just eight to three children are in school I would argue more eight to four but in addition to that they're then doing the homework that they were set at home. So that is more immersion in the school all of their friends are made at school so that's more immersion in the school culture. They're online for hours with the friends that they make at school. So actually the school is influencing your child the vast majority of the time more so than the family will influence the child. As much as that might be concerning to people listening going how can that possibly be but that's true. The school is going to influence now let more and more as they grow older so when they're five less so when they're 12 13 14 15 it's all about school so the point is is that as a society as a country we should care about what our schools are teaching. We do not currently care what the schools are teaching how the schools are behaving. We think to ourselves oh schools are just about learning algebra and so if your child isn't very good at algebra you just get them a tutor they'll be okay who cares look I i I I I have been shouting about this for decades. Nobody pays me any attention because I'm talking about children and nobody cares about children. Frankly look it used to be the case when women were at home 50% of the population women were at home looking after their children. So that meant that 50% of the population got their identity through what they managed to accomplish with their children. That was their their reason for waking up in the morning was to raise their children. So they would argue for the sake of their children. Children mattered in those days because 50% of the population was on their side that isn't the case anymore. Everybody's working two, three jobs everyone's trying to balance a million things I'm not blaming anyone here. I get it. Everyone's but there's no one person anymore who's going my total focus is the children right and so no one is in their camp. Nobody's saying children matter. I am saying children matter. I've been saying it over and over again for a very long time and I'm saying it to Connor. Connor doesn't realize how much children he's no different from anyone else. No one else realizes it either. Schools matter children matter um and what we do with them what between the ages of zero and eighteen matters. And we could change everything. Of course we could change everything if we changed our schools but then that means before changing the schools you see that's not the first step. So where we come back to the beginning of what we were saying teachers are just members of the public. That's all they are right so teachers are going to teach what the public think. And if the public are fine with Palestinian and pride flags everywhere and don't really care about having a British flag, if the public think it's all a bit odd if you sing God save the king and Jerusalem and I vow to thee my country if the public think oh well everything's fine because you know various governments have told me everything's fine and there's nothing to worry about, except there is that mad woman Catherine Bribble Singh and a few others who are super clever like Carl Truman and Peter Hitchens I mean Peter Hitchens everyone just laughs at him. Somebody should listen to Peter Hitchens I've listened to Peter Hitchens I have to say when I first knew Peter Hitchens and I was younger and not as wise as I am now there were things I disagreed with him on. And now I listen to him and I think oh gosh Peter actually no he's right but none of us have paid any attention to him and we just treat him as some old crank. It's not true.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:15

We need to listen to those men and I I just um well you know we just keep fighting and we keep making the arguments we hope that someone listens to us well well before I let you go one I'll exhort any incoming government unless of course they like the plotheron to give you a call because you might actually be able to tell them what it would take politically, culturally institutionally as to what we might do to fix things. But secondly before I let you go Catherine the question I ask all of my guests is what have you changed your mind on during the course of your life perhaps it was a moral absolute maybe it was something more quotidian in your concerns and what was it that made you think differently well you know I began my my life as a teacher very much on the left um I thought the problem was racism the problem was uh lack of funding uh the problem was um uh mean conservatives who were um destroying the fabric of uh society I have moved massively on that obviously I've come to realize that um unfortunately very well-meaning people on the left are doing great harm uh to uh the very children they would like to help um and um I just wish they'd listen.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:36

I it took me time to change my mind. Uh I of course had the experience of being in the classroom so I could see the damage of progressive ideas. And I could then think oh my goodness let me try more traditional ones oh I see actually the more conservative way of being is the right way um so lots of people don't have that experience but um I don't know people have to have courage on both sides they one side they have to have courage to change their minds and on the other side the people who listen to Peter Hitchens and think what he's saying makes sense they have to have the courage to say so out loud well please everyone if you're tying your tongue refusing to say what you think find out whether they need to say what you think and follow Catherine and Catherine before I let you go we all know yes exactly tell them well you tell them I've got a podcast in mid-August coming out um it's called Strictly Education. You can find it on YouTube now and you can subscribe subscribe and what is it about? It's about children, the importance of childhood but it's it's it's it's a cultural program. So it's not like I'm just talking about you know how to you know change an appy or something. I mean that's not it's it's it's more uh talking about all of the big issues that are out there but always seeing it from the point of view of the child. And um what I'm hoping to do is persuade everybody just how important childhood is to the big geopolitical events that we think have nothing to do with children when they have everything to do with children.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:18

Well I look forward to that landing who who are some of your early guests that you've got on no I'm just talking it's me. It's me You are monologuing. This is good well judging judging by your public speaking abilities I don't think any of the episodes will be a dull watch that's for sure. Catherine it's been a great pleasure keep fighting the good fight thank you very much for joining me and I hope we can speak again.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:41

Thank you for having me thank you