YOU CAN WAIT WEEKS FOR A GOOD STORY...

...and then three come along all at once.

Journalists were spoilt for choice by a speech from the Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell yesterday. He decided to say so many controversial things all at once that many of us were left stunned, caught in the headlights of his unstoppable double-decker.

It was not enough to say that kids may have to be taught "British values" in school to counter the threat from suicide bombers. Universities are teaching impressionable young Muslim students an extremist version of Islam which "condones" terrorism, he added.
That would have been plenty to keep most hungry hacks fed.
But the minister decided to have a swipe at the politically correct notion that universities have to meet the every need of religious groups by providing prayer rooms and timetabling lectures to avoid their hours of worship. Such demands are "unreasonable", he said, and student religious groups should pull themselves together.

Treading on egg shells? He was ploughing a bus through the chicken farm.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-5823278,00.html

But well done, Bill, I say, for being bold enough to take on such a collection of incredibly difficult issues. He's certainly provoked a debate - and sensibly has not pretended to have all the answers.

Read the full speech here: http://www.dfes.gov.uk/speeches/index.cfm