AIBU to think this is what desperate governments with no real authority do?

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https://amp.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/30/revealed-uk-government-keeping-files-on-education-critics-social-media-activity

if they need to keep files on people who write books about nursery education etc. this is a sign of weakness. AIBU?

Does anyone care?

Fucking yikes. Yeah this is both desperate and performative and terrifying.

I’m glad someone else agrees. Not seen this news item anywhere else and it disappeared from the Guardian front page after Saturday night. If we are at a point in time where the government are wasting resources making extensive files on headteachers etc. but not funding schools properly (so that they are at risk of collapse) then this looks to me like the last days of Rome. Good riddance.

It's what fascist governments do

I was going to use the "f" word too @madamreign but didn't want to be accused of being dramatic.

Yes. Like the Canadian Government, which has just announced that it's going to start regulating PODCASTS.

That's more facist imho.

Keeping files on educational and political activity is more in line with the USSR tbh.

OP, in answer to your question - as long as any government has control of the army and police force, then that government has authority.

Once the army goes, then the government is over as we see in central Africa coups.

If they had no real authority, they wouldn't be able to make these records.

It does make them look scared and power hungry, but really this doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Governments and others in power keeping tabs on those they don't like and priortising that over actually enabling the good of those they're meant to serve is true of many governments, more so in ones that lean so far authoritarian.

I can understand regulating Podcasts, there is regulation of other press activity, this is just another example.

But spying on teachers and banning them from speaking at conferences? Surely that’s worse than podcast regulations.

I agree that spying on teachers (is that actually what's going to happen?) is worthy of the Stasi in East Germany, Soviet Russia and North Korea.

On the podcast regulations, that depends on whether you define podcasts as mainstream media and social media and also, on what is being regulated. Free speech advocates in Canada have already sounded the alarm on this so I'll listen more to what they have to say before I decide which is worse.

It's highly disturbing when you combine that with how many right-think educationalists seem to be catapulted into positions of influence and policy.

Interestingly many of the critics of Tory education policy are in favour of a more holistic education, that the independent sector is free to offer. Cynically it looks like the government is very worried about average children getting a broad education.

Thanks for posting OP. Shocking but not shocked. What are they actually scared of expert analysis, free speech?

We’re surely drifting into an authoritarian state where this type of surveillance will be accepted as the norm.

Put down the Honecker handbook and get on with funding our kid’s education.