RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: White Working People Children have actually Been Betrayed

Saturday night at eight o’clock found me not at the movies but at the Cinema Museum, a concealed gem near the Oval cricket ground in South London, situated in a previous workhouse which was briefly home to the young Charlie Chaplin after his mother fell on tough times.

Truth be told, I hardly ever endeavor south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, cautioned Arthur Daley: ‘Great deal of extremely wicked people’ in Sarf Lunnon.

Coincidentally, the occasion 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 vehicle mechanic in Minder.

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

The stories are based on the trials and tribulations of a boy being raised by a single mother – an unconventional domesticity back then, regretfully only too common today. The Fib And Other Stories has been in print since 1975 and discovered its method on to the school curriculum, where it remains today.

I can’t help wondering, however, how frequently these glorious texts are utilized in class these days, in between teachers stuffing their students’ little heads with fashionable far-Left propaganda about ‘white benefit’, manifest destiny and, of course, environment modification.

The kids in the monochrome school photograph which formed the backdrop to George’s reading were certainly white, however no one could have explained them as privileged. Those were the days when ‘austerity’ implied living from hand to mouth, not needing to settle for a basic 50in flat screen TV, instead of a 65in OLED Ultra design, and just having the ability to manage an iPhone 14 rather than the current all-singing, all-dancing AI variation.

Child poverty was real, bread-and-dripping, holes-in-your-shoes stuff, not dining on Deliveroo and hesitantly wearing last season’s Nike trainers.

Until the digital/social media transformation, children gained their knowledge mostly from books, composes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, children experienced genuine challenge, not the poverty of ambition and creativity which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live by means of their cellphones, rather of roaming totally free and experiencing life to the full.

Until the digital/social media transformation, kids acquired their understanding mainly from books. Yes, TV played a big function, as did the films, however nowhere near the supremacy of TikTok and other apps offering instantaneous gratification in byte-sized portions.

And how can squinting at the most recent CGI produced hit on a cellular phone a few inches wide ever compare to the type of old-school, big screen, Technicolor and Cinemascope, best-out-of-Hollywood experience celebrated at the Cinema Museum?

It can’t. Just as the very best pictures are said to be on the radio, even much better images can be discovered in the printed word.

Among the most depressing things I have actually read just recently was the author Anthony Horowitz bemoaning the fact that his 300-page books are far too long to engage the shorter attention periods these days’s children.

Not surprising that child, and indeed adult, literacy levels have plunged amazingly. All this has actually contributed to the shocking revelation that white, working class students – boys in specific – are being left. Even Labour’s Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has been forced to admit they have been ‘betrayed’ by the modern-day schools system.

They suffer from a lack of adult participation and ensuing paucity of aspiration. The white, working class young boy in George Layton’s stories certainly didn’t suffer any parental disregard from his domineering mum. Nor did he lack imagination or aspiration.

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

Literacy is the biggest present we can bestow on any kid. My grannies taught me to read before I went to school, setting me on the early road to a fulfilling career at the wordface instead of the relative drudgery of the work environment.

George Layton is considering taking his one-man program on the road, to small provincial theatres. I have actually got a better concept.

If the Education Secretary wishes 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 narratives.

I honestly think that if they could be persuaded to search for from their mobiles for an hour, they ‘d be enthralled and influenced by the experiences of a young boy not that various to them, regardless of the distance in decades.

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

When they’re not tasering one-legged 92-year-old men or nicking individuals for posting hurty words on the web, the authorities are increasingly taking 2nd jobs to supplement their income.

Some are working as painters and designers, others as scaffolders nand delivery drivers. More intriguingly, second jobs also include a DJ (PC Hammer, anyone?) and a reiki instructor, whatever that is.

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

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

Mind how you go.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Couple in their 70s who purchased a child from a stranger are selfish in the extreme

First the frogs, now the octopuses
The prohibited migrant armada crossing the Channel daily might end up being the least of our problems. We now learn 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 company.

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

We’re likewise told 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 closest Holiday Inn previously long.

And that’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 come from?

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

Take Labour’s ‘aspiration’ to invest a worthless 3 per cent 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 couple of years’ time. And 3 per cent of stuff all is still pack all.

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

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