(Smat gets political)

Politicians, right, they just go off and do whatever (and whoever) they like, while lying to the voting public. We know this, we're (presumably) happy with it as no-one gets up off their bum and starts their own political party*, we just trot along confidently assuming that the blanking blanks are blanking lying to us on a permanent basis. And they're pretty good at it really, otherwise Private Eye would have closed down years ago.
So, they must have learned these skills somewhere. Probably at school where we all** learned how to skive off double Home Economics and avoid the prefects while having a fag behind the bikesheds. And how to get served in a pub when you were most definitely not 18***.
So far, so good.
Eldest Baby Smat came back from school camp on Friday night and announced that she'd spent one evening in the pub playing cards. Wow, I thought, the sneaky deviousness of managing that is going to take her far in life, not even I'd've been able to get away with that at 12. Until she let it slip that the staff had taken them there, and her tutor had provided the cards. Do these teachers not realise the damage they're causing to the future governance of the country? How can they learn the skills they'll need in later life, when it's all just handed to them on a plate? Honestly.

* forget about George Galloway, he's a nutter
** that's a generic "all" and doesn't include me. At all. In the slightest.
*** I had several "18th birthdays" along the way. *ahem*