My school children have impeccable values compared to Boris Johnson – so long, role models

My children’s state primary school expects its pupils to abide by what it calls SMART values. As a parent, they represent a good framework for how you’d hope the kids would behave. They’re also simple enough to be understood by the youngest ones but still relevant to those now preparing to depart for secondary education at the age of 11.

S stands for sensitive (to others), M for motivated, A is attentive, R is responsible and T? T is for truthful.

As I saw those SMART values plastered all over the school walls on my most recent visit, it raised a question: How on earth can we expect our kids to abide by them when we have Boris Johnson preparing to assume the nation’s top job through mostly doing… well… the opposite?

Yes, yes, I know, politics, dirty business and all that. You don’t get to so much as serve as an MP if you’re not prepared to eat rusty nails for breakfast and sometimes spit them back at your opponents.

But this is a man who has indulged in such transparently reprehensible conduct that it becomes legitimate to ask what his ascension says to a child about how one should comport themselves if they want to succeed in modern Britain.

How can we expect them to abide by those sensible SMART values when our national leader sets such a RUINous example?

That acronym incorporates R for Racism, through the language Johnson has used in his columns (piccaninnies with water melon smiles, burkha-wearing women described as letter boxes or bank robbers).

The U stands for Untruthfulness, something at which Johnson excels, most recently through blaming the EU for the packaging required to send Isle of Mann kippers to Britain by, erm, Britain.

Alternatively, just read his Telegraph column likening delivering Brexit in 100 days to the moon landing, which only took a ten-year effort by the country with the world’s biggest economy.

His whole career has been a study in untruthfulness. He got sacked from his first job at The Times through telling porkies in print.

Then there’s the Inattentiveness that gave the Iranians all the excuse they needed for their unjust jailing of British mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and his all-round general Nastiness (just look at his history).

So, kids, forget being a decent person. Forget things like rules and respectfulness. Go out and behave like an unprincipled scumbag, because that’s what Johnson becoming our national leader says you should do. And that’s what his supporters are basically saying you should do, both in the press and in public life. OK, there’s not so many of them in the latter, outside the mass ranks of Tory MPs who somehow think he’ll save their skins because they reckon the public is stupid enough to buy into the BoZo myth. But there are plenty in the former.

Remember when all those kids went on the rampage after the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan? The riots turned into an orgy of looting. Queues of people lined up to bemoan the wanton consumerism of some of those who took part. Pictures of smashed up JD Sports, from which they stole fancy trainers, became some of the defining images.

Criticising them today would be an exercise in hypocrisy. Sorry kids, you’re going to jail because you didn’t go to Eton and you aren’t a Tory MP so I’m afraid that means the rules absolutely do apply to you. You’re not allowed to wander around breaking stuff.

Schools are also supposed to teach “British values”. What does it say to a Muslim in Birmingham who’s had to put up with racism on the way home when he has his mum compared to a postbox by the PM? How is he supposed to react when he’s told he must be tolerant and respectful?

But, Miss, look at Boris!

Fortunately, most kids don’t believe in RUIN. We’d be in a real mess if they did.

The vast majority of them follow some variant of the SMART values because most of their parents try to impart them. They also do their best to live up to the British values that used to mean something before people like Johnson started systematically trashing them.

I suppose one consolation from all this is that kids will at least have an answer in future when some pompous columnist on a right-wing newspaper decides to wag their fingers at “kids today” for playing too many video games and not going outside enough. Or for using the phrase “snowflake”.

Kids then will ask, "So, did you back Boris? Hang on, let me Google it… Yes, you did. Well shut the hell up, you RUINous old troll." A conversation many people can look forward to.