TOP OF THE CLASS: September has seen world beating school attendance. Not At Home Secretary Priti Patel boasts that is the highest it’s been for six months.
This is evidence, she claims, that the government is both bossing the EU around and conquering covid. And this time it is all legal and above board.
No figures have been massaged. The only slight untruth is omitting the fact that schools have been effectively closed since March.
“The statistics tell a story,” claimed number crunching wonk Norm Aldis Tribution. “It can only be due to leaving the EU and taking back control of creative accountancy. This is a real success story!”
In a bid to hear more empty slogans, we Zoomed Priti Patel herself.
“It is essential that children go back to school,” she said, her eyes dead behind the prop glasses from Specsavers in Barnard Castle. “We are ramping up covid and beating the children. Or is it the other way round? And does it matter? The lazy delinquents need a short, sharp shock to bring them into line, and so do their pupils.”
We asked Patel to clarify the ‘rule of six’, given that class sizes are typically the size of a small grouse shooting party.
“Children don’t count!” she said, before she could stop herself. “I mean, they don’t really get maths, because it’s boring. They don’t get covid either, according to The Science, and if a few did manage, sadly, to pop their clogs, then that’s good because we spend too much on education anyway.”
What’s the official advice now?
“Wash your virus, save the hands, kill the NHS,” she said. “Or something. I really can’t be arsed. Use your common sense. Whatever. But it is important that you get back to work if it kills you!”
Which it probably will.
If the schools are closed down again by the time No Deal Brexit kicks in, at least there will be no shortage of starved children to send up chimneys.