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Our new columnist Simon Vessey aka The Exasperated Socialist tackles head on the curious tale of two trojan horses. ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.’

The Trojan Horse Affair’s Hamza Syed and Brian Reed have spoken of their frustrations at the British media’s reaction to their popular expose. Unlike previous Guardian and BBC reporting they proved politicians knew that they were dealing with a hoax in 2014 before ordering investigations and far-reaching changes to education and counter terrorism policies amidst a frenzy of islamophobia which continues to profoundly impact Muslim communities to this day. The response, summarised here, has been silence punctuated by spiteful dismissal, with Hamza Syed smeared for good measure. Most journalists have done little more than retweet articles like Sonia Sodha’s sloppy and dishonest hit piece for the Guardian Media Group. Few critics appear to have even listened to the podcast they are dismissing.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://mediadiversified.org/2022/03/08/the-real-trojan-affair/