Pushing for an early start to family life

THE FRIDAY THING: I don’t know if it is the warmer nights — you know, all those thick blankets and duvets — but it seems love is on the agenda of a good many youngsters already.

In an unusual departure, it seems schools are joining in the festive spirit: pupils are being told in sex education lessons that teenagers should start their families early. And no, I don’t know what mums and dads will make of it either.

Teenagers, it seems, are being told to start thinking about having their families early, when it is easier to have a baby.

Even the playground now has a space for talking and thinking about matters sexual.

The days of boys and girls teasing each other in the playground as “sissy” and “cupcake” are a thing of the past. Children as young as five are being told to cut out sexist language under guidelines being sent to all schools in England.

Sexist language does have a considerable impact, which is another indicator of how the world has moved on, not necessarily for the better, in recent years.

I have no information about the horrors of today’s school detention, though I was very familiar with it when I had the award for the longest stay in the detention room. Happy days for the rebels, and no girls in sight. Nor did we have a behaviour tsar like they do today.



FINAL WORD: The Leveson inquiry was seen by many in journalism as an opportunity to damage if not entirely destroy newspapers and honest and genuine newspaper people into the bargain.

The whole thing was a giant con, intended to suck up to a handful of so-called celebrities who sought the chance to bring to an end 300 years of press freedom in Britain.

What we have now is not press freedom but a sniggering desire by a handful of so-called performers to put themselves above the law of the land and to open the door of self-serving bigots who would seek to end our right to know what is going on.