As Phillipson cracks down on running in the corridor, it’s no wonder pupils are unhappy

Education debates are catnip to Labour: half the new MPs are teachers and the other half are just out of school, in ill-fitting suits, stumbling over questions cribbed from the internet.

“If you’re bobbing, be prepared to be called,” said the Deputy Speaker after a new boy garbled his presentation on the role of fate in Return of the Native. He sat down red-faced. Tears looked close.

The new Secretary of State in charge of T-levels, BTECs and “no running in the corridor” is Bridget Phillipson, whose rhetoric suggests a deep love of romantic poetry. Universities must be “engines of growth”. The latest review is a “platform for improving core findings”. And she referred to pupils as “learners”, which is one exotic metaphor away from “service users”.

“British 15-year-olds are the unhappiest in Europe,” revealed Lib Dem MP Alison Bennett. No wonder! The Government suffocates education in the language of HR, and is determined to make life even less colourful by clobbering independent schools and banning the stuff that makes adolescence bearable, such as a cheeky cigarette. No doubt a raid on unlicensed tuck shops is next.

“I am a former teacher,” said Labour’s Chris Vine, as if applause were in order, “my wife is a teacher and most of my friends are teachers” – and their happy message is that teachers’ “mental health… is at rock bottom”. Hardly a surprise: his private life sounds like one long staff meeting.

How to raise classroom morale? Well, it’s reported that unions are asking the Government to cease testing on times tables and grammar – a lot of work for little gain – and if we could only strip back French, science, art, Latin and rounders, our depressed educators needn’t do any teaching at all. The ideal curriculum would consist of showing the little tykes a VHS of The Crucible on repeat.

Meanwhile, elementary zoology can be grasped by tuning into the Commons. A female Labour MP, wearing leopard skin, stared greedily at the back of another draped from head-to-toe in zebra print. I fantasised an Attenborough narration: “And here, on the green benches of the Serengeti, the socialist stalks its kill…”

A couple of Labour MPs asked about the private school VAT increase; Rachael Maskell (fast becoming the real leader of the opposition), noted its impact upon schools that help kids with the very anxieties that MPs were discussing. The Tories picked up on this, too, but seemed more interested in whether or not universities are run by the Chinese. Conservative MPs, whose own memories of education are poisoned by Boris stealing their gobstoppers, were thin on the ground. They’re focused on the leadership election, which continued with a hustings in Committee Room 14.

The candidates waited outside to be called in – as if to the headmaster’s office! – and largely ignored each other. Only Tom Tugendhat showed life, cheerfully asking how families are (wouldn’t know: not spoken to them in years).

Reportedly the target of an underhanded campaign to force him from the race, Tommy T had the liberated air of a kamikaze pilot who has been told that he’s flying tomorrow and needn’t pack a suitcase.