The Week That Was

Emmanuel College, Gateshead – backed by £2m from Sir Peter Vardy, the Christian owner of the Reg Vardy car dealership empire – had been condemned by leading scientists for teaching its students “ludicrous falsehoods”.

Now The Yorkshire Post revealed in an exclusive story that Education Leeds was in talks with Peter Vardy’s charitable trust about opening a secondary school in south Leeds.

The £10m city academy would receive £2m from Vardy, with the rest funded by the taxpayer.

Local Christians working with the Vardy Foundation said they expected it would follow the policy of Emmanuel College in presenting a literal reading of the Old Testament as an alternative to national curriculum science.

Creationists reject Darwin’s theory of evolution, accepted by most scientists, and believe God created the universe in the last few thousand years as outlined in Genesis.

Pit dinner ladies fighting for retrospective pay equality travelled to Westminster to urge miners’ leader Arthur Scargill and the government to give them compensation of up to £40,000 each.

In a moss lobby, the former colliery canteen workers and cleaners voiced their anger as arguments continued between the NUM president and Yorkshire Labour MPs Kevin Barron and Kevin Hughes over the women’s eligibility for payment.

Almost 300 former colliery workers – 170 from Yorkshire – were protesting at their exclusion from the previous year’s ‘equal value’ pay settlement.

The £14m deal gave up to £40,000 each to around 1,300 female workers who had been paid less than equivalent male employees.

But another 2,000 women 
claimed they also deserved the payment.

In the run-up to the Conservatives’ Spring conference in Harrogate, party leader Iain Duncan Smith said he would carry on “hammering” New Labour over Britain’s collapsing public services and violent crime.

He also said he was “drawing a firm line” under Lady Thatcher’s call, a few days previously, for Britain to pull out of the European Union.

In a landmark ruling, a woman paralysed from the neck down won the legal right to die by having treatment withdrawn.

The judge, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss urged ‘Miss B’ to reconsider her decision. But, after watching proceedings from hospital via video link, the patient said: “I am very pleased with the outcome.”

The ruling meant that doctors would have to switch off the ventilator that was keeping her alive whenever she chose.

Dame Elizabeth said the former social care professional had “the necessary mental capacity” to make the decision to reject treatment.

Miss B was left paralysed in 2001 after a blood vessel in her neck burst, meaning she was able to breathe only with the aid of a ventilator. Doctors said there was only a one per cent chance of recovery from the paralysis which, she said, had left her with “an unbearable quality of life”. A month later Miss B died peacefully in her sleep.

Prince Andrew came face to 
face with colossal sharks in Hull 
this week, as he officially opened 
The Deep, Europe’s deepest aquarium.

He declared the £46m ocean discovery centre at Sammy’s Point “outstanding” and added: “I would like to congratulate everyone involved in The Deep for their vision and endeavour.”