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ANNA JONES: Now the Cabinet confrontation between Theresa May and Michael Gove stepped up a notch last night.   The Education Secretary was forced to apologise and the Home Secretary’s closest advisor resigned.  It’s all over a row about extremism in schools but with leadership talk dominating the papers could it ultimately spell trouble for David Cameron.  In just a moment I’ll speak to the Conservative commentator Tim Montgomerie who knows Michael Gove and Theresa May but first joining us from Kent is the Shadow Education Secretary, Tristram Hunt.  Tristram Hunt good morning to you, we’ve had an apology then from Michael Gove, the resignation of Theresa May’s advisor and we’ll hear more on Ofsted’s investigations into these schools this week, can we for now draw a line under this?

TRISTRAM HUNT: Well I think the real apology we need to hear from Michael Gove is to the pupils and parents in Birmingham because we know that his department was warned in 2010 of serious allegations about potential radicalisation and takeover in some Birmingham schools and he failed to act for four years and that’s a result of gross negligence in terms of his running of the department so we need to know what he knew, when he knew it and why they failed to act.  Secondly, we need a local system of accountability and oversight in our schools.  You cannot run thousands and thousands of schools from behind a desk in Whitehall so the Labour party are putting forward proposals for a local Director of School Standards to make sure that we challenge underperformance in schools and look after safeguarding and safety at a local level. 

AJ: Do you think we have a problem with extremism in our schools? 

TRISTRAM HUNT: It is clearly seen in some of the leaked Ofsted reports real worries about fears over marginalisation, cultural isolation, over concentration in some schools on Islamic teaching and that’s why I welcome a letter this morning from my parliamentary colleagues in Birmingham together with the Bishop of Birmingham to think about how we have faith and he role it plays in schools.  We need great civic education in our schools, we need these young people to grow up to be successful citizens of a great city, a modern pluralist multi-cultural city like Birmingham and we have to be hard where we see restriction of the curriculum, gender segregation, attempts at radical takeover of governing bodies.  We do have to be tough on that but we have to be tough on it so that we produce a great education outcome.

AJ: Yes, but I just want to get to the bottom of how serious a problem you think that there is, is there a potential threat to national security in your view?

TRISTRAM HUNT: I think some of the threats have been overblown but my concern is about the education outcomes and I think what is know is that where young people are exposed to a broad a range of ideas as possible, as broad a range of teaching, different cultures, different theories, they are going to have a better education and the worry is that you have a narrowing of the curriculum, the worry is that you have a narrowing of cultural conformity which is not going to serve their interests best.  We want young Muslims in Birmingham to celebrate their identity, to celebrate their religion, to be proud of their faith but we also want them to have a really successful civic education which gives them the training and the skills and the education to succeed in a multi-cultural Britain. 

AJ: Just briefly, you say you feel some of the threats could have been overblown, Salma Yaqoob who was formerly a Birmingham City Councillor and also Leader of the Respect Party has warned about hysteria potentially around some of these allegations.  Is there a worry that we’re stoking some anti-Islamic feeling when discussing these issues? 

TRISTRAM HUNT: We need a balancing act here.  On the one hand we cannot turn away from serious allegations of conservative Islamists trying to take over the governing body of schools, it would not be right to walk away from that and we have to have difficult conversations and challenging conversations about that.  At the same time we should be absolutely supportive of those Muslim parents and Muslim children wanting to celebrate their religious identity, have that as part of who they are but also make sure that in a state schooling system we have a civic education which trains them and educates them to succeed in a multi-cultural society.

AJ: Tristram Hunt, Shadow Education Secretary, thank you.