Once the Fraud Squad of the West Midlands Police had cleared Bilston Community College (BCC) of any legal malfeasance, the other two main charges, that it was the worst College the Further Education Funding Council ever inspected and that it had swindled the government of many millions of pounds were easily dismissed as fabrications and moral ascendancy passed to the FRIENDS OF BILSTON COMMUNITY COLLEGE. Those who closed BCC should have then understood that unless they could put together another case which could be publicly defended the game was up and they must confess to institutional racism.
Meanwhile, on the ground, Wolverhampton City College had failed to meet the needs of the 16-19 students in the city despite being given susbsidies of about £50m over other Colleges and were being accused of institutional racism in their accepting inspection by a team which might well have contained some of those who inspected BCC and found it `the worst college they had ever inspected'.
The last straw has been that the principal of the education faculty has taken upon himself to nominate Ms. Jane Williams, the ex-principal of Wolverhampton City College for an honorary degree in education, which has been duly awarded.
This has opened a can of worms which the FRIENDS would not willingly have opened. For the above mentioned principal had previously been involved in an incident which did not entirely redound to his credit. This was Tony Blair's campaign to find `super heads' for schools. Quite out of the blue Northicote School was put into special measures and Geoff Hampton was appointed Head. His success in turning the school round led to his being given a knighthood, again on the recommendation of Blair. This caused considerable discontent among educationalists in Wolverhampton. Mature reflection suggested that Northicote School had been neither as bad when it was put into special measures nor as good as was claimed when Hampton resigned, and other Heads could have done the same if they had had as much money thrown at them as Hampton had.
This brings us to our last point. The whole question of Bilston Community College has been an illegal scam from start to finish. The usual response to our demands for an enquiry into the closure of BCC has been not to respond, to say nothing. But unless you are going to see your adversary off quickly this only stores up trouble and you find yourself in a Catch 22. This is just what has happened to the LSC who voluntarily and foolishly took over the sins of the FEFC. The opposition has not gone away as quickly as it was hoped and so the refusal to answer complaints becomes cumulative and other matters rise to the surface.
For instance much early right wing support for the closure of BCC came from Codsall which is not merely right wing but neo-nazi, the leader leading the way. He was once nominated as a governor for Wolverhampton City College, but this was too much even for the Express & Star and his nomination was withdrawn.
We are about to learn how prevalent such attitudes are, because we are now in the process of questioning all those who were active in closing BCC. This will include the then Tory councillor and self proclaimed supporter of Enoch Powell, John Mellor who probably reported the unproven complaints against BCC to the police.
What is happening is that institutions set up to improve the lot of ethnic minority people are being taken over by Blairites, both white and black, and resistance now must be on the Zephaniah scale if black people are not to be trussed up like turkeys for Christmas.