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Labour’s education policies are breathtaking in their potential to radically transform Britain

BORIS JOHNSON’S dad says the general public is “illiterate.” There has been an expected flurry of indignation at the comments made by Stanley Johnson regarding British literacy. 

“How dare he!” … “Bloody snob!” … “Tosspot parasite!” … “Patronising nasty piece of work!” are some of the comments I’ve read on Facebook about his remarks. All of which I would agree with.

But the awful thing is: he’s right. 

An OECD study of basic skills in 2016 ranked England lowest in the developed world for literacy. 

England has three times more low-skilled people among those aged 16 to 19 than the best-performing countries like Finland, Japan, Korea and the Netherlands. 

One in 10 of all English university graduates have low literacy and numeracy skills. Nine million adults in the UK are functionally illiterate, and one in four British five-year-olds struggles with basic vocabulary. 

This is linked to socio-economic levels and locational disadvantage: three-quarters of white working-class boys fail to achieve the government’s benchmark at the age of 16. 

In Greater Manchester, 34 per cent of children start school with below-average language and reading skills. There is also a link between low levels of literacy and shorter life expectancy, depression and obesity. 

According to the National Literacy Trust (NLT), a boy born in Stockton-on-Tees, which has some of the most serious literacy challenges in the country, has a life expectancy 26.1 years shorter than a boy born in north Oxford.

The education system and outcomes in Britain reflect, support and perpetrate the class system: the majority have always been treated like factory/mine fodder. 

This is why, for me, Jeremy Corbyn’s proposed education policies in the Labour manifesto are so exciting. 

What makes them so dangerous politically is that those on the edge of “polite” society — the precariously/non-employed ... those who were more likely to vote Leave and, more importantly, to vote Conservative, those who are potentially the foot-soldiers of fascism in Britain, will be given real hope for the future. 

I have never been one of those who sneer at the hoi poloi: they, also, are my comrades. 

The only defining difference between them and me (with a father from a horrendous dockyard slum and who also grew up in poverty) is that I had the good fortune to get to a grammar school. 

And then, much later, as an adult with two kids, to a university in Australia — thanks to the radical education policies of then Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam, which gave us free tertiary education and virtually free child care while studying.

The concept of “lifelong learning” being espoused by Labour now is the very last thing the Establishment wants. 

It is just breathtaking in its potential to radically transform Britain — to pull the rug out from the toxic social structure of entrenched privilege for the few and intergenerational impoverishment for the many. It’s not the be all and end all with regard to the class war, but it’s a helluva good start.

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