Primary school children shouldn’t worry about jobs

Sam Gyimah, education minister and MP for East Surrey, is obviously a talented, intelligent politician with a promising future. However, he seems intent on jeopardising his prospects by appearing something of a Grinch. He tells us now, for example, that primary schoolchildren should be told about the importance of getting a job and the world of work.

These poor children, not yet aware that Santa doesn’t really exist, or who are otherwise still recovering from the shock that Father Christmas, his elves, plus Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph are mere constructs. Why should little girls and boys be confronted with the grim realities of the living wage, professional qualifications and employment appeal tribunals?

Nor is this his first essay in Grinchiness. Not long ago he played his part in talking out a Private Member’s Bill to introduce first aid teaching into schools, which some pupils would have found made a welcome break from the Goveian grind of rote-learning of British monarchs, and which would save a few lives as well. Mr Gyimah spent 17 minutes of his life filibustering a mildly useful piece of legislation. Quite a miserablist.

The minister should be prepared for a backlash in Caterham and the other delightful communities that make up his constituency, and indeed in the wider country. For today’s seven-year-olds are tomorrow’s voters, and precisely the people that Mr Gyimah will be looking to for their support and to further his own career. He might also reflect on the fate of a previous Conservative education minister who chose to pick on the very young – Margaret Thatcher, who abolished free school milk in primary schools and was known forever after as “Thatcher the Milk Snatcher”. Then again, of course, we all know where she ended up. One to watch, in every sense, that Sam Gyimah.