The Trojan Horse Affair · Serial Productions & The New York Times

Part 4: The Meeting and the Mole

February 3, 2022·45 min·4 clips

The Trojan Horse letter's step four matches a real Birmingham City Council audit investigation into headteacher Rizvan Adar.

The trail begins with rereading. Brian and Hamsa go back to the Trojan Horse letter, now with new clues in hand, and listen for wording that hits differently the second time. Birmingham City Council's audit report is the piece that changes the mood. It looked at whether headteacher Rizvan Adar had faked resignation letters from four teaching assistants at Adderley Primary, and it came before the Trojan Horse letter. That gives the hosts a fresh way to test what the letter may have borrowed or absorbed. Then the episode lets a small shock land. One rereading seems to click, and the reaction stays in the tape instead of getting polished away. From there, the focus narrows. To work out what Michael Gove knew, and when, the reporters zero in on a meeting they think may have changed the letter's path. They call it the Borgove, a dry name for a serious meeting between Sir Albert Boer and Education Secretary Michael Gove. On February 12, 2014, Gove summoned Boer to London to talk about the letter and the possible plot in Birmingham schools. Before that, the letter was private, the atmosphere was calmer, and the allegations had not become a media storm. Afterward, the ground seems to shift. The episode does not treat that as proof. It treats it as the spot where timing, documents, and political attention start to press against each other. Boer's difficult interview and the hosts' uncertainty stay in the frame, which makes the paper trail feel tense and a little unstable.

As heard by us

An audit report and one London meeting start to look like the hinge of the scandal.

The episode keeps the Trojan Horse story grounded in two paper trails that start to press against each other: the Birmingham City Council audit report on whether headteacher Rizvan Adar had faked resignation letters from four teaching assistants at Adderley Primary, and the…

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Why you'd press play

Play this for the meeting that seems to change the whole case.

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