RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: White Working People Children have Been Betrayed > 자유게시판

Saturday night at 8 o'clock discovered me not at the movies however at the Cinema Museum, a hidden 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 seldom venture south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, cautioned Arthur Daley: 'Lot of really wicked people' 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 cars and truck mechanic in Minder.

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

The storylines are based upon the trials and tribulations of a kid being raised by a single mother - a non-traditional domesticity at that time, sadly just too typical today. The Fib And Other Stories has been in print considering that 1975 and discovered its way on to the school curriculum, where it remains today.

I can't assist wondering, however, how typically these glorious texts are utilized in class nowadays, in between instructors stuffing their students' little heads with stylish far-Left propaganda about 'white advantage', colonialism and, obviously, environment change.

The kids in the monochrome school picture which formed the backdrop to George's reading were definitely white, but no one could have described them as privileged. Those were the days when 'austerity' meant living from hand to mouth, not having to opt for a fundamental 50in flat screen TV, instead of a 65in OLED Ultra design, and just being able to pay for an iPhone 14 rather than the current all-singing, all-dancing AI version.

Child poverty was real, bread-and-dripping, holes-in-your-shoes stuff, not dining on Deliveroo and hesitantly using last season's Nike fitness instructors.

Until the digital/social media revolution, kids acquired their understanding mostly from books, composes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, children experienced authentic difficulty, not the hardship of aspiration and imagination which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live by means of their cellphones, instead of strolling complimentary and experiencing life to the full.

Until the digital/social media revolution, children acquired their knowledge mostly from books. Yes, TV played a huge function, as did the films, however no place near the supremacy of TikTok and other apps offering immediate satisfaction in byte-sized pieces.

And how can squinting at the most current CGI generated blockbuster on a cellular phone a couple of inches broad ever compare to the sort of old-school, huge screen, Technicolor and Cinemascope, best-out-of-Hollywood experience commemorated at the Cinema Museum?

It can't. Just as the very best images are stated to be on the radio, even much better photos can be discovered in the printed word.

One of the most depressing things I've read just recently was the author Anthony Horowitz regreting the reality that his 300-page books are far too long to engage the much shorter attention spans of today's children.

No surprise kid, and undoubtedly adult, literacy levels have actually plummeted amazingly. All this has actually contributed to the stunning revelation that white, working class students - kids in specific - are being left. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has been required to admit they have been 'betrayed' by the contemporary schools system.

They experience an absence of parental participation and ensuing paucity of goal. The white, working class boy in George Layton's stories definitely didn't suffer any adult neglect from his domineering mum. Nor did he lack creativity or aspiration.

Education was the way out of hardship. It produced significant wordsmiths like George, in post-war Bradford - and our own Waterhouse, late of this parish, who grew up in hardship in close-by pre-war Leeds.

Literacy is the best gift we can bestow on any kid. My grandmothers taught me to read before I went to school, setting me on the early road to a satisfying career at the wordface instead of the relative drudgery of the workplace.

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

If the Education Secretary wants to reverse the betrayal of white, working class kids she might begin by getting the phone and inviting George to visit schools, reading from his brief stories.

I truthfully believe that if they could be persuaded to search for from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be enthralled and inspired by the adventures of a young boy not that different to them, in spite of the range in years.

You never ever know, there might even be another Charlie Chaplin amongst them.

When they're not tasering one-legged 92-year-old males or nicking people for publishing hurty words on the web, the police are progressively taking 2nd tasks to supplement their earnings.

Some are working as painters and decorators, others as scaffolders nand shipment drivers. More intriguingly, sidelines likewise include a DJ (PC Hammer, anyone?) and a reiki trainer, whatever that is.

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

It's also reported that some officers are working as supermarket checkout assistants. I don't suppose there's any risk of them nicking a few thiefs.

Mind how you go.

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

First the frogs, now the octopuses
The illegal 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 informed that parakeets from India and Pakistan are an 'unstoppable invasive species' having actually escaped 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.

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

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

Take Labour's 'aspiration' to invest 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 won't be any GDP left in a couple of years' time. And 3 percent of things all is still stuff all.

AN NHS cosmetic surgeon who compared Islamist terrorists to the Nazis has been struck off. If he 'd stated the exact same about those people who wish to leave the European yuman rites convention, Surkeir would have made him Attorney General.

Having recently claimed that the original ancient Britons were black, the woke revisionists now allege the Vikings were Muslims. Don't these people ever take a day of rest?