Twigg wants all schools to have same freedoms as academies – Media roundup: June 17th, 2013

Labour will on Monday attempt to wrest the initiative on education away from the Conservatives with an offer for all schools to have the freedoms enjoyed by academies alongside a new effort to tackle inequality in admissions to the best state schools. The shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg is to challenge “Michael Gove’s [education secretary] incoherent approach that grants some schools access to freedoms that help raise standards while denying them to others.” In a speech on Monday, Twigg will propose that a Labour government embraces several policies applied to academies, and extends them throughout the state sector. They would include the ability to opt out of following the national curriculum; to utilise a greater degree of financial freedom; and to make it easier for schools to vary the length of their working day. – Guardian

Foreign politicians and officials who took part in two G20 summit meetings in London in 2009 had their computers monitored and their phone calls intercepted on the instructions of their British government hosts, according to documents seen by the Guardian. Some delegates were tricked into using internet cafes which had been set up by British intelligence agencies to read their email traffic. The revelation comes as Britain prepares to host another summit on Monday – for the G8 nations, all of whom attended the 2009 meetings which were the object of the systematic spying. It is likely to lead to some tension among visiting delegates who will want the prime minister to explain whether they were targets in 2009 and whether the exercise is to be repeated this week. The disclosure raises new questions about the boundaries of surveillance by GCHQ and its American sister organisation, the National Security Agency, whose access to phone records and internet data has been defended as necessary in the fight against terrorism and serious crime. The G20 spying appears to have been organised for the more mundane purpose of securing an advantage in meetings. Named targets include long-standing allies such as South Africa and Turkey. – Guardian