On the heels of the Labour Party announcement that all schoolchildren will have to study English and Maths until they are eighteen, even if it means leaving work to continue their education, the Conservative leader has responded that the opposition initiative does not go far enough.
‘We know that numeracy and literacy levels have fallen since the Labour government of 1997 and it is this lack of academic rigour that contributed to the credit crunch eight years later in 2007. We in the Conservative Party want to redress that problem and quite frankly Ed Milliband and his party don’t go far enough. We know from our own research that 40% of under 18s can’t do basic math and the other 65% aren’t that good either,’ he said, pulling his socks off to demonstrate how numerate he could be.
‘But critically,’ he added, ‘Labour seem to have forgotten that this country became great through hard work and enforced child labour in the cotton mills. We want to see the country revert to traditional values, and needlework is a declining skill that needs to be addressed.’
When questioned about the enforced education until the age of 60 Mr Cameron was unrepentant. ‘Quite frankly, it’s a cracking way to keep the unemployment numbers down, not just for the lazy, worthless teenagers who don’t vote anyway, but also for the lazy, worthless adults who vote Lib Dem or Labour. Conservative voters won’t be expected to undertake any further training as they will have already demonstrated that they know what they are doing,’ he added.