Peter Hill

WHEN Tony Blair said “education, education, education” was the key to Britain’s future everyone nodded enthusiastically but nothing much seems to have been achieved because five million over-16s can barely add up or read, according to a report by the Learning and Work Institute.

A further 12.6 million have difficulty with simple computer tasks such as sending emails or filling in job applications. It gets worse. A huge number of 16 to 24-year-olds and 55 to 65s are barely at the educational level of five-year-olds or lower. Of the 34 leading countries we rank 15th for numeracy and 17th for literacy.

This is a shocking report. It explains exactly why employers prefer to take on young people from other countries who arrive here well educated and able to speak good English. We meet them every day in shops, coffee bars and other service industries. They are keen, eager to please and ambitious to better themselves.

Despite the Brexit fear campaign Britain’s economy is healthy but these abysmal education reports appear to confirm Remainers’ claims that much of our prosperity is down to immigrants. Our schools desperately need to pull their socks up. Instead of levelling down in the name of equality they need to produce leaders and achievers. q THE police union wants officers to be free to have tattoos on their necks, hands and faces. Nearly a third of young people have them and the Police Federation says the present ban by most forces is impeding recruitment.

I don’t care if tattoos are fashionable, the sight of officers with ink messages on their hands and faces would alarm me. It would remind me of that terrifying film A Clockwork Orange, where the thugs became the police.

Some might think tattoos are an art form but when brandished in visible places they are ugly and aggressive. And don’t bother reminding me that famous people such as David Beckham have them – he looked a damn sight better before. q I’VE feared all along that Britain won’t be allowed to leave the EU. Now the former head of the civil service, Lord O’Donnell, says it’s by no means certain that Brexit will happen and even if it does will take “years and years”. He also believes we will stick with many of the laws and rules introduced over the past 40 years. In other words nothing will change anyway.

Lord O’Donnell’s weasel words express everything that’s bad about bureaucrats: they despise democracy, build self-serving empires and frustrate progress. They are a dead hand on the tiller. But they are in all the key areas where they can block a government determined to change things.

Prime Minister Theresa May insists Brexit means Brexit. She will need a very big handbag to squash the Whitehall mafia. q EVEN if there had been a squad of lifeguards on duty it’s unlikely that at least two of the five lads who drowned on Camber Sands would have been saved – because they could not swim. It takes only moments to drown. I’m sorry for their parents and friends but the boys were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The sea and mountains are not playgrounds – they can turn into dangerous places very quickly. q FORMER French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is campaigning to be re-elected, says the Calais migrant Jungle camp should be moved to Britain. “Those who… want to cross to England should be processed in England by the English,” he said. This despite the rule that asylum seekers should seek refuge in the first country they reach and the special agreement allowing British officials to carry out checks in France which he actually signed in 2003.

Now you see how the EU’s greatest supporters happily bend the rules to suit themselves. France should long ago have broken up the Calais Jungle and distributed the occupants to other parts of their vast, underpopulated country.

Instead they try to shame Britain by allowing 9,000 migrants to build a squalid shanty town and cause mayhem with crossChannel services. We must not give in to blackmail. q TEENAGERS are hiding on the internet and shying away from engaging in real relationships, says leading headmistress Clarissa Farr following a report that anxiety and depression, especially among girls, is increasing. Social media and gaming are highly addictive, solitary and mindsapping, a destructive consequence of the internet age.

So numbing are these activities that doctors have found iPads are more effective than sedatives before operations. It might be convenient to let kids play on computers and tablets but it does far more harm than good. Parents need to be more strict. I wish I had. q THE moment Bake Off’s Paul Hollywood dunked his jaffa cake and Mary Berry said, “We don’t do that in the South,” you knew there would be an almighty row. There’s no more perfect example of the NorthSouth divide. She even lashed out at deep frying. Southern snobs don’t know what they’re missing. Dunked biscuits, chip butties and black pudding are among the finest treats. And if you’ve never tasted tripe you haven’t lived. q I DON’T know if Victoria, the new ITV drama, is historically accurate but the first episode was splendid. Ravishing costumes and settings and smouldering chemistry between Queen Vic and her prime minister Lord M. I’m prepared to be convinced.