Finished up my box sets of “Yes Minister” and “Yes Prime Minister”, today.
First laff point was when Sir Humphrey held forth on the age of mandatory school attendance being increased to 16. (I looked it up. The UK increased the age for compulsory education to 15 in 1947, and 16 in 1972) He claimed the intent was to keep more teenagers out of the job market, and thus suppress the unemployment rate. For those who missed it “Plan Steve” advocates reducing the age for compulsory education to put more children into the job market, to replace all the immigrants that are being deported.
A couple clips that sound astoundingly current: elimination of the national education department, return all school running authority to local government, and complete “school choice” for everyone. Of course this neglects issues like getting the kids to their school of choice, in the absence of parents who have the time and means to haul their spawn around every day. The concept of a national board to review school systems performance is a non-starter in the US. We have seen the demagoguery around “common core”, so, if a school system chooses to educate spawn in nothing but football and religious dogma, there would be nothing that could be done about it at the national level.
Overall, an impressive presentation of the current debate, in a program produced forty years ago. The people in the living room set are the PM, his wife, and his political advisor.
Steve