This newspaper has no wish to publish the Danish cartoons many Muslims find so offensive

This newspaper has no wish to publish the Danish cartoons many Muslims find so offensive. She said intelligent design would only be discussed in the context of a sixth-form philosophy and current affairs course.. They will be given unprecedented control over the schools’ governors, with new freedom about what is taught in the classroom.A spokeswoman for the Vardy Academies said the schools did operate in a Christian context, but she denied creationism was taught as part of the curriculum. City Academies funded by evangelical Christians already insist on a Christian ethos in the school.A report by Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights, published yesterday, said parents could have their right to complain about religious treatment removed under the proposals for trust schools.The reports also saidthe reforms could contravene a child’s right to manifest their religion under the Human Rights Act.Churches and Christian groups are among those who will be encouraged by the Government to run the new state trust schools. Opponents believe this supports the theory of creationism – that the world was created by God, as described inGenesis, the first book of the Bible.

MPs yesterday warned that the Government’s reforms would make it easier for it to be taught in England.Intelligent design holds that nature is so complex and perfect it must have been the work of a creator rather than the result of natural selection. MPs have expressed fears that the Government’s education reforms could lead to children being taught a concept that contradicts Darwin’s theory of evolution. They have warned that “intelligent design”, which suggests human beings were created by God rather than through natural selection, could become a mainstream subject in some schools.
MPs have written to Ruth Kelly, the Secretary of State for Education, sayingthe increased control to be offered to sponsors of the new trust schools could lead to evangelical Christian bodies taking over the curriculum.Teaching of intelligent design, favoured by some evangelical Christians, has led to a row in the United States between parents and Christian groups. As a legion of camera-carrying journalists and researchers have shown, a little bit of chutzpah and a bit of derring-do can, if you are lucky, take you a long way in the undercover world.It’s difficult to believe that the police could not find volunteers for a home-grown MacIntyre; strapping on an undercover camera and leading a secret life for a couple of months must surely beat sitting behind a desk in the Commercial Branch, or even chasing criminals in powerful police vehicles.Directly gathered police evidence would get the prosecution off the hook when the defendant reached for the time-honoured argument that his case had been compromised because he had already been hung, drawn and quartered in front of millions of television viewers.The name of the author, who has experience making undercover documentaries, has been changed.. However, journalists have met this argument in the courts and defeated it.Undercover work should surely be meat and drink to the average police detective. The police attempt, long ago, to infiltrate and prosecute Chelsea hooligans, aptly named Operation Own Goal, badly misfired in the Appeal Court. Eventually, some newly rich hooligans left the scene clutching healthy compensation payments.The police may also be nervous of the ramifications of picking up their material after posing as someone else; defendants’ lawyers will jump at the chance to argue that evidence gatherers acted as agents provocateurs.

It could be a lot simpler than picking up on an investigation set up with markedly different goals by somebody else It may be they have been deterred by their own failures. Within hours of the Griffin outcome, the first negative remarks about the case appeared on the internet, lambasting all parties for mounting a pointless prosecution.This makes one wonder why the police don’t spend the time and money to pursue their own undercover investigations. Control passes from the journalist to the police, but if the case goes wrong, it is the broadcaster that stands to get it in the neck too. Material already been watched by millions must now go through the courts and measure up to a quite different set of rules – the rules of criminal prosecution.Court allegations must not only be factually correct (as they would be on screen), but proved beyond reasonable doubt.

On the one hand, it’s the world of the raffishly dressed media egghead; on the other, the cop in mufti who is probably more comfortable in his uniform. Put the two camps together, and the combination can sometimes prove an extremely unhappy one.A subsequent MacIntyre programme, involving an expos?f a care home, brought the investigative journalist into direct conflict with the Kent police. In fact, given the BBC’s subsequent secret-camera expos?f racism, The Secret Policeman, which involved a BBC reporter posing as a police trainee in the Greater Manchester force, it’s a wonder the two organisations can now work alongside one another at all.Media organisations may have little to gain from such prominent prosecutions. Its inquiry, following up MacIntyre’s investigations, was destined for the criminal courts but ended up instead in the libel courts after the police made erroneous allegations in a Sunday newspaper.The main beneficiaries of that collaboration were the libel lawyers and a small care charity to which MacIntyre donated his libel award.