Well done to Bridget for speaking openly about this. Most women in any powerful role have experienced this. I do wish the media would drop the Burnham vs Starmer factionalism. I bet Bridget gets on well with both of them. The agenda is not driven by the preferences of the males.

So excited! Off to listen to Obama this evening!

The village has spoken. These are now appearing in windows on The High Street. Let’s continue to make the argument.

Newcastle is taking a stand against the rise of fascism by holding an event on Saturday. Our cities have the power to show the way. We should not shy away from making kinder, inclusive values clear just because working class voters are caught up in this bigotry. Make the argument.

Reform are now coming after people with permanent residency. It'll be citizens next. No one is safe from authoritarian governments.

Last night, in my Cambs village, a bunch of far right thugs surrounded the kind citizens who had decided to clip down the flags that have been on our street lampposts and save the council money. The first thing they shouted to the citizens was “Are you white?”. Then they called them “faggots”.

Really looking forward to hearing this man speak next week. I often like what he says but it is the way he says things that inspires me most.

Lovely review of Tom’s play northernartsreview.co.uk/north-east/r...

What does a holiday in September look like?

Nobody wants to be thought to be racist. But whether you are or are not is for others to judge from what you say and do!

A balanced and sensible perspective on the new Ofsted framework from our friends at @headsroundtable.bsky.social

Right now, this is an extreme minority magnified by a social media that sends extremes viral. If nobody has the courage to say that’s what it is - & that normal people, even if worried about immigration, spend their Saturdays in Tesco or taking the kids to football - it won’t stay extreme for long.

The far right is not ‘uniting the kingdom’. It is creating terrible division and fear. This is uncool Britannia.

I very much hope that those on the fascist march have been popped on the Prevent list. Children with such extreme views in our schools would be.

The people marching in London today are very obviously the ideological descendants of the Mosleyite BUF fascists of the 1930s. The mainstream news and media are too timid to point it out, but that's what they are - and we normalise it at our peril.

The biggest indoor political rally ever held up to that point in Britain... and just weeks before we went to war with fascism.. about 35,000 attended...roughly the same number of people marching today

Flags of St George are haunting me! Here’s the Sardinian flag that is everywhere here, but unnervingly adorned with the black heads of vanquished princes. They are sometimes depicted with the blindfold on. More explicit than the way the English one is used by the far right but it feels the same.

I mourn for Charlie Kirk’s family. I didn’t agree with almost anything he said, but he had a right to go on a work trip and return safely to his wife and two young children. Like all Americans, he deserved to be safe from gun violence.

It is September. Retired folk said I had to have a holiday in September. So I did. Sorry.

Hmmmm. A letter written over a line drawing of a very young and barely developed female body in which youthfulness and secrets are cryptically referred to. No need for much subtextual reading there. But he will doubtless get away with it. Rich, powerful men invariably do.

There were no education events at Reform conference. Their only policies appear to be giving private schools their tax breaks back and changing the history curriculum to trumpet the benefits of empire.

The media mob last week: “she did not pay the proper stamp duty, she must go!” The media mob today: “she is an amazing woman who is raising a son with special needs and is the fall guy for an unpopular government.” They never take any responsibility. ‘Julius Caesar’ captured this so well.

Journalists questioning Nigel Farage should be pointing out Brexit has been a primary factor in the sky rocketing number of small boat crossings. How hard can this be? youtu.be/cKXFjbxSBBI?...

Last November Farage told Sky News: “I’ve just exchanged contracts on the house that I’ll be living there in – is that good enough?… *I’ve bought a house in Clacton* What more do you want me to do?” Oh, I dunno Nigel. Tell the truth? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Pleased to see that we don’t have a reshuffled SoS for Education . For a few years that job got reshuffled so many times that the wall of portraits at Sanctuary Buildings was so expansive that I wondered if some of the pictures would end up in the adjacent loos.

"Farage has given two contradictory versions of the purchase. One that he bought it and the other that his girlfriend owns it. If the second is correct then he has ­engineered a massive saving on stamp duty, larger than the one that forced Angela Rayner to resign." www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...

"Nigel Farage has admitted he misspoke when he claimed to have bought a house in his constituency of Clacton, saying the property is in fact solely owned by his long-term partner." What he meant to say is that he lied.

What utter dickheads we are… Rayner fought for workers: sick pay, maternity rights, protection from unfair dismissal Farage and his MPs voted it down Rayner gets binned over £40k in stamp duty Farage dodges £44k, shrugs & strolls on The mega wealthy win again.

He didn't "misspeak". He lied. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Make your own mind up!

The most important news from today's reshuffle:

Essex school leaders will see their students in every word Vic says here. @vicgoddard.bsky.social

You can be as patriotic as you like if you stand up against hatred in my book.

Councils in Essex saying that removing flags is not their priority. I wonder how it feels to be an immigrant or refugee family knowing that the authorities do not want to tackle the territorial marking by the far right in their community. Shudder.

6 through to 60. Today will involve cake!

@bphillipsonmp.bsky.social is still popular with teachers and school leaders a year on because she does not lay the blame for society’s ills at their feet and frankly that is a refreshing change for them.

Going into work as a School Leader for the last time this week. I finish on Friday when the bell goes. Thank you teaching and school leadership, it has been a blast.

Congratulations to students and staff at Saffron Academy Trust’s 4 secondary schools. Every one of our schools has GCSE results we are very proud of this year and I can leave my role as CEO with a happy smile on my face.

My last ‘Exam Results’ download and it is not a feeling I will miss. As a student you experience that existential dread 3 or 4 times, as a parent you do with every one of your children, but as a school leader it is an annual nausea.

Iona. A perfect beach for swimming. White sand, turquoise sea, no jellyfish and crystal clear. St Columba knew a thing or two.

This is my happy place.

Congratulations to students in SAT schools for their impressive A level results. Hard work and great attendance pay off. For a large non-selective state Sixth Form like SWCHS to deliver 68% A* to B is brilliant, but the results and accolades, as always, belong to the students.

21 degrees in Orkney may sound refreshing to those experiencing the heatwave in the south, but locals are hot and bothered. They have grown used to the wind chill for 5000 years.

Properly north now: Orkney!

Today we decided that John O’Groats is far too southern and walked to Duncansby Stacks and Dunnets Head.

Little pilgrimage to Halkirk in Caithness to find the graves of my ancestors. Uncovered my great great great grandfather who was a crofter. Now believe anyone living south of Caithness is a ‘soft southerner’!

There used to be a clear distinction between taking direct action which all parties accepted could lead to arrest and peaceful protest which was a human right. Has this distinction disappeared? We all need to know.

Starmer married an English girl and has stayed married to her. Farage prefers what his supporters describe as ‘foreigners’. His first wife was Irish, his second is German and now he is having an affair with a French woman. But anti-immigration? Not if it suits him. There is no comparison.

Starmer was the son of a tool maker, he went to a state school and was knighted because he did his job so well. Farage was son of a stockbroker, went to a posh private school and ruined the UK economy to the tune of 100 Billion quid by taking us out of the EU. There is no comparison between them.

First sea swim of holiday: Pittenweem tidal pool.