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  Monday 2nd May 2005  Politics   Powered by Yeast Logic
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Labour candidate in education manifesto débâcle

Voters 'slapped in face' by controversial schooling decision
by College Green

An under-fire Labour candidate in a marginal constituency has defended the controversial choice she and her husband made with regards to their children's education.

It has been revealed that Muriel Wigginbottom — the prospective parliamentary member for Muckswipe North — recently dispatched both her children to the local comprehensive despite there being an excellent choice of selective, grammar, and private schools within easy travelling distance of the family home. Labour sources confirm that enrolment of Wigginbottom's children at any of them would be an unequivocal demonstration of traditional socialist values.

However, there is no specific mention of Wigginbottom's intention in her campaign literature — something which is bound to anger grass-roots activists and voters alike. Indeed, her actions are seen to have made a mockery of de facto Labour Party policy which sees MPs' precious offspring packed off to proper schools far away from the ghastly towns and districts which their parents represent.

Although she originally tried to weather the storm with a resolute silence, Wigginbottom last week attempted to put out a coherent defence of her choice. "St Bog Standard Comp is really quite good and I would prefer my children to have a short journey to school and be part of the local community," she offered with a shrug.

Education pundits immediately slammed the statement as "risible" and condemned the whole sorry affair as a "slap in the face to thousands of hard-working, middle-class parents who have been prepared to back New Labour over the past decade on the basis that no-one was really supposed to take seriously the idea of using state schools".

We attempted to speak to someone at St Bog Standard Comp this morning, but the school secretary told us to a backdrop of gunfire: "We're a bit tied up at the moment with a turf war between classes 3A and 5C over control of the lucrative stolen mobile phone market. Can you call back during the summer holidays?"

Previously

 Go on then, hard man