Hard-Left betrayal of our children’s futures

BARELY was the ink dry on the decree before the red-in-tooth-and-claw teaching unions screamed blue murder.

Boris Johnson – perfectly reasonably – wants every school fully open in September. By then, children will have spent six months away from classrooms – leaving a black hole in their education.

But the Corbynite unions, engaged in political war against a Tory government they loathe for destroying their election dreams, dismiss the plan as ‘pure fantasy’.

The intransigent militants claim returning to school will be unsafe – preying on parents’ concerns for their sons and daughters.

This scaremongering is reckless nonsense. Statistically, the threat of pupils or staff catching the disease is microscopic.

What is ‘pure fantasy’ is the notion that youngsters can miss lessons for so long without suffering unimaginable damage to their life chances – especially those from the poorest families.

After years bleating about the inequalities between the haves and have-nots, the hard Left – encouraged by unprincipled Labour MPs – is sacrificing a generation’s future on the altar of discredited dogma. Truly, this is shameful. To get pupils back, the Government must display strong leadership, creativity and imagination – traits sorely lacking in Education Secretary Gavin Williamson.

However, the pledge to relax questionable limits on class sizes and distancing is a decent start. But why not be bold and scrap these limits entirely? Or order education trusts to convert council buildings and church halls into classrooms – giving more space for lessons?

The Prime Minister could even take a leaf from the French president’s book and order headteachers to open – no ifs, no buts. Educating our children is a moral duty. In this time of crisis, they are being betrayed. There is not a nanosecond to lose in righting this appalling wrong.