RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: White Working People Children have Been Betrayed

Saturday night at 8 o'clock found me not at the motion pictures however at the Cinema Museum, a covert gem near the Oval cricket ground in South London, located in a previous workhouse which was quickly home to the young Charlie Chaplin after his mother fell on tough times.

Truth be told, I rarely venture south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, warned Arthur Daley: 'Great deal of very wicked individuals' in Sarf Lunnon.

Coincidentally, the occasion was a one-man show by my old mate George Layton, actor, director, scriptwriter, author, whose finest hour - at least to my mind - was playing Des, the dodgy automobile mechanic in Minder.

George was reading from his collection of narratives embeded in the 1950s, when he was maturing in post-war Bradford. They're beautifully written, warm, amusing, expressive, a slice of history, a working-class variation of Richmal Crompton's Just William experiences.

The are based upon the trials and tribulations of a boy being raised by a single mother - a non-traditional family life at that time, regretfully only too typical today. The Fib And Other Stories has remained in print given that 1975 and found its method on to the school curriculum, where it stays today.

I can't assist questioning, however, how often these marvelous texts are utilized in class nowadays, in between teachers packing their pupils' little heads with stylish far-Left propaganda about 'white privilege', colonialism and, obviously, climate change.

The kids in the monochrome school photograph which formed the background to George's reading were definitely white, however no one might have described them as privileged. Those were the days when 'austerity' implied living from hand to mouth, not having to go for a fundamental 50in flat screen TV, instead of a 65in OLED Ultra design, and just having the ability to afford an iPhone 14 rather than the newest all-singing, all-dancing AI version.

Child hardship was genuine, bread-and-dripping, holes-in-your-shoes things, not dining on Deliveroo and unwillingly wearing last season's Nike fitness instructors.

Until the digital/social media revolution, kids got their knowledge primarily from books, composes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, children experienced real hardship, not the hardship of ambition and creativity which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live via their mobile phones, instead of wandering totally free and experiencing life to the full.

Until the digital/social media revolution, kids got their understanding primarily from books. Yes, TV played a huge role, as did the movies, but no place near the supremacy of TikTok and other apps providing pleasure principle in byte-sized portions.

And how can squinting at the latest CGI created hit on a cellphone a few inches broad ever compare with the type of old-school, cinema, Technicolor and Cinemascope, best-out-of-Hollywood experience celebrated at the Cinema Museum?

It can't. Just as the finest pictures are stated to be on the radio, even much better pictures can be found in the printed word.

One of the most dismal things I've checked out recently was the author Anthony Horowitz complaining the reality that his 300-page books are far too long to engage the shorter attention spans these days's kids.

Not surprising that kid, and certainly adult, literacy levels have actually plummeted amazingly. All this has added to the stunning revelation that white, working class pupils - boys in specific - are being left. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has been required to confess they have been 'betrayed' by the modern-day schools system.

They experience a lack of adult involvement and following paucity of goal. The white, working class kid in George Layton's stories definitely didn't suffer any adult overlook from his domineering mum. Nor did he do not have creativity or aspiration.

Education was the method out of poverty. It produced significant wordsmiths like George, in post-war Bradford - and our own dear Keith Waterhouse, late of this parish, who matured in hardship in close-by pre-war Leeds.

Literacy is the greatest gift we can bestow on any child. My grandmas taught me to check out before I went to school, setting me on the early roadway to a satisfying career at the wordface rather than the relative drudgery of the workplace.

George Layton is thinking about taking his one-man show on the roadway, to small provincial theatres. I've got a much better idea.

If the Education Secretary wants to reverse the betrayal of white, working class kids she could begin by picking up the phone and welcoming George to tour schools, checking out from his short stories.

I honestly think that if they might be encouraged to search for from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be enthralled and influenced by the experiences of a young kid not that different to them, regardless of the range in years.

You never understand, there might even be another Charlie Chaplin among them.

When they're not tasering one-legged 92-year-old guys or nicking people for posting hurty words on the internet, the police are increasingly taking 2nd tasks to supplement their income.

Some are working as painters and designers, others as scaffolders nand delivery chauffeurs. More intriguingly, sidelines likewise include a DJ (PC Hammer, anybody?) and a reiki trainer, whatever that is.

My favourites are beekeeper and kickboxing coach, although the copper running a tea shop needs to take the biscuit.

It's also reported that some officers are working as grocery store checkout assistants. I don't expect there's any risk of them nicking a few shoplifters.

Mind how you go.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Couple in their 70s who bought a child from a complete stranger are self-centered in the severe

First the frogs, now the octopuses
The prohibited migrant armada crossing the Channel daily may turn out to be the least of our problems. We now discover that a fleet of foreign octopuses from the Med is feasting on crab stocks off the coast of Devon and Cornwall and threatening to put local anglers out of service.

It's bad enough French trawlers hoovering up our fish without migrant molluscs helping themselves to what's left.

We're also told that parakeets from India and Pakistan are an 'unstoppable invasive species' having actually left into the wild and are colonising cities as far afield as Plymouth and Aberdeen. No doubt we'll be putting them up in the nearby Holiday Inn soon.

Which's before I get to the buzzard that's been dive-bombing children in a school playground in Romford, Essex. Where the hell did that originated from?

We have actually got enough problem with home-grown Stuka-style pigeons without importing kamikaze buzzards.

Take Labour's 'aspiration' to spend a worthless three per cent of GDP on defence by the year 2525 with a shovel-load of Maldon's finest. The method Rachel From Complaints is taxing the economy to death, there will not be any GDP left in a few years' time. And three per cent of things all is still stuff all.