It is always the children who suffer Shut up and

play yer play yer guitar
Media Matter Nick Thomas
Last week gave us yet another example of the primacy of image over substance that has been so enthusiastically encouraged by our dear government. Those dedicated few who waded through the Prime Minister's article in Wednesday's limes are unlikely to remember it in much detail, notwithstanding the miserable time Estelle Morris had on The World At One, as she tried to maintain that selection in secondary schools was a radical initiative that would, cr, not change anything at all — an impossible balancing act.
But we are unlikely to forget, much as we would like to, the front page picture run by a number of papers, of Mr Blair fondling an electric guitar, a soupy, nostalgic grin wiping away the cares of office, during his address to a bunch of sixth formers. Playing the guitar, he then assured them, was like riding a bicycle; once learnt, never forgotten.
These were no doubt comforting words for his audience, so many of whom will soon be leaving school with bike riding as their only marketable skill, though to focus as Mr Blair did on the gifted minority who are also able to strum the first few chords of "Stairway to Heaven" was perhaps somewhat elitist. But at least he didn't go on to observe that an early mastery of English prose construction, let alone Latin, is similarly ineradicable from the human brain. That would have been far too inappropriate to his surroundings.
The good news, of course, is that there is no shortage of university places in Advanced Velocipede Conduction, or indeed Stratocasting, awaiting these bright young hopeful minds. Alright, I jest. But the annual story about potty, meaningless degrees has now joined those about the inflation in A level standards and the appearance of crop circles as part of the staple September news diet.
And the BA course in Floral Displays is, apparently, for real. Time was when even Eliza Dolittle realised that she would be unable to make a successful career out of that business without being able properly to construct, spell and pronounce her native language. No longer. Forty years of the ratchet effect in Marxist-based educational theory have done away with the status of English, in England, as the essential tool of discourse, academic study, and civilised life.
Well we don't really need it any more, do we? Why make your lips tired trying to read an article by Tony Blair when you can just look at a picture of him, and know that he is still hip and cool after all these years, in touch with the people, the friend of British youth? What his government is trying to do to secondary education is actually rather a good thing, for it is a first step towards undoing the damage of the last four decades, which even a long Conservative administration seemed to be powerless to arrest. In the current climate of the Apology Culture, in which Britain is being required to apologise for slavery, and we could quite plausibly demand compensation from Italy for the Roman invasion, it seems to me far more reasonable that the Labour Party should publicly acknowledge its culpability for Comprehensive Education, which has now blighted the lives of two generations of stateeducated Britons. But we don't need to have all that explained to us. All we need do is see a picture of Tony at a school, reliving his glory days with Ugly Rumours, and know that this is the man we can trust to get it right.
The late Frank Zappa was not everyone's cup of tea, so I don't know how many of my readers will recall his double album, Tinseltown Rebellion. It came with a free EP, on one side of which there were two tracks; "Why Johnny Can't Read", and "Shut Up and Play Yet Guitar". If I can find it I'm sending it to No 10.