RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: White Working People Children have actually Been Betrayed

Saturday night at eight o’clock discovered me not at the motion pictures but at the Cinema Museum, a hidden gem near the ground in South London, situated in a former workhouse which was quickly home to the young Charlie Chaplin after his mom fell on difficult times.

Truth be informed, I seldom endeavor south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, warned Arthur Daley: ‘Lot of extremely wicked people’ in Sarf Lunnon.

Coincidentally, the event was a one-man show by my old mate George Layton, star, director, scriptwriter, author, whose finest hour – a minimum of to my mind – was playing Des, the dodgy cars and truck mechanic in Minder.

George read from his collection of narratives embeded in the 1950s, when he was growing up in post-war Bradford. They’re perfectly composed, warm, amusing, expressive, a piece of history, a working-class variation of Richmal Crompton’s Just William experiences.

The storylines are based upon the trials and tribulations of a boy being brought up by a single mom – a non-traditional household life at that time, regretfully just too common today. The Fib And Other Stories has been in print because 1975 and found its method on to the school curriculum, where it stays today.

I can’t assist questioning, however, how often these wonderful texts are utilized in class these days, in between instructors stuffing their pupils’ little heads with stylish far-Left propaganda about ‘white privilege’, colonialism and, of course, environment modification.

The kids in the monochrome school photograph which formed the background to George’s reading were certainly white, however nobody could have explained them as fortunate. Those were the days when ‘austerity’ suggested living from hand to mouth, not having to settle for a basic 50in flat screen TV, instead of a 65in OLED Ultra model, and only being able to afford an iPhone 14 instead of the most current all-singing, all-dancing AI variation.

Child hardship was real, bread-and-dripping, holes-in-your-shoes stuff, not dining on Deliveroo and reluctantly wearing last season’s Nike fitness instructors.

Until the digital/social media transformation, kids gained their knowledge mainly from books, composes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, kids experienced real hardship, not the hardship of ambition and creativity which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live through their cellphones, rather of wandering complimentary and experiencing life to the full.

Until the digital/social media transformation, kids acquired their knowledge mostly from books. Yes, TV played a big function, as did the motion pictures, but nowhere near the dominance of TikTok and other apps providing instant gratification in byte-sized pieces.

And how can squinting at the newest CGI produced hit on a cellphone a couple of inches broad ever compare to the sort of old-school, huge screen, Technicolor and Cinemascope, best-out-of-Hollywood experience celebrated at the Cinema Museum?

It can’t. Just as the best photos are stated to be on the radio, even much better photos can be found in the printed word.

One of the most depressing things I have actually checked out recently was the author Anthony Horowitz regreting the truth that his 300-page books are far too long to engage the shorter attention spans of today’s kids.

No marvel child, and certainly adult, literacy levels have plunged amazingly. All this has actually added to the shocking discovery that white, working class students – boys in particular – are being left behind. Even Labour’s Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has been forced to confess they have actually been ‘betrayed’ by the contemporary schools system.

They suffer from an absence of parental involvement and following scarceness of goal. The white, working class kid in George Layton’s stories definitely didn’t suffer any parental overlook from his prideful mum. Nor did he lack creativity or goal.

Education was the way out of hardship. It produced eloquent wordsmiths like George, in post-war Bradford – and our own dear Keith Waterhouse, late of this parish, who grew up in poverty in nearby pre-war Leeds.

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

George Layton is thinking about taking his one-man show on the road, to little provincial theatres. I have actually got a better idea.

If the Education Secretary wishes to reverse the betrayal of white, working class kids she could begin by getting the phone and welcoming George to visit schools, reading from his narratives.

I truthfully think that if they might be convinced to search for from their mobiles for an hour, they ‘d be enthralled and motivated by the adventures of a young kid not that various to them, in spite of the range in years.

You never understand, there may even be another Charlie Chaplin amongst them.

When they’re not tasering one-legged 92-year-old males or nicking people for posting hurty words on the internet, the cops are significantly taking second tasks to supplement their earnings.

Some are working as painters and decorators, others as scaffolders nand shipment drivers. More intriguingly, sidelines also 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 has to take the biscuit.

It’s likewise reported that some officers are working as grocery store checkout assistants. I do not suppose there’s any threat of them nicking a couple of shoplifters.

Mind how you go.

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

First the frogs, now the octopuses
The illegal migrant armada crossing the Channel daily may turn out to be the least of our issues. We now discover that a fleet of foreign octopuses from the Med is devouring crab stocks off the coast of Devon and Cornwall and threatening to put regional fishermen out of service.

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

We’re likewise informed that parakeets from India and Pakistan are an ‘unstoppable intrusive types’ having actually gotten away into the wild and are colonising cities as far afield as Plymouth and Aberdeen. No doubt we’ll be putting them up in the nearest Holiday Inn soon.

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

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

Take Labour’s ‘aspiration’ to spend a worthless 3 percent of GDP on defence by the year 2525 with a shovel-load of Maldon’s finest. The way 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 pack all.

AN NHS cosmetic surgeon who compared Islamist terrorists to the Nazis has actually been struck off. If he ‘d said the same about those people who want to leave the European yuman rites convention, Surkeir would have made him Chief law officer.

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