Tristram Hunt’s diary: Why has Gove allowed a school that makes women wear the hijab?

ONE OF THE MINOR sociological treats of being appointed shadow education secretary is a frontbench view of David Cameron’s crimson tide — that half hour journey, every Question Time, during which the Prime Minister’s face turns from beatific calm to unedifying fury. It starts at 12.04 with the merest ripple of annoyance in his shiny, placid countenance. At 12.07, the ripple has become a swell of irritation, still far out to sea, at anyone daring to question the wisdom of government policy. By 12.10, it is a wave of indignation and wounded amour propre at the wilful duplicity of his opponents. And by 12.14, the crimson tide is crashing over the rocks of the dispatch box, back and forth for the next quarter of an hour. Close up, it is a marvel to behold.

OCTOBER is Black History Month, when schools celebrate the lives and achievements of the black African diaspora. In recent years, the event has been turned into an unedifying beauty contest between the relative merits of the Crimean War nurses Florence Nightingale and Jamaican-born Mary Seacole. During the recent controversy over the history curriculum, Nick Clegg demanded the reinsertion of Seacole into the syllabus. All well and good. But I do fear this paints the Lady of the Lamp as the reactionary historical figure to Seacole the progressive. In fact, Nightingale was a noted Liberal in her politics. In addition to her remarkable advances in improving the quality of medical care in Britain, she worked hard on the alleviation of sanitary problems in Bombay and supported the ambitions of the Indian National Congress. Seacole, by contrast, might best be described as a pro-Imperial Tory.

BUT THE REAL EVENT of October is the British Ceramics Biennial, when everyone who knows their fettling from their dipping heads to the Potteries for Europe’s finest display of ceramic art and artefacts.