THE government is to bring back the term ‘riff-raff’, which will be used to describe the sort of children not welcome at new grammar schools.
Education secretary Justine Greening believes that parents should have more choice both in education and in describing the strata of society they do not want their children to associate with.
She said: “As a society we have tried abandoning the term ‘riff-raff’ and we have seen that the experiment simply doesn’t work.
“There are two types of schoolchildren – your own, with quaint, neo-Victorian names like Edgar and Maisie, who wear smart caps which they doff to passing tradesmen, and the riff-raff who chew gum, wear their ties askew and play music from their phones on the bus.
“This new system will separate the former from the latter once and for all and bring entrenched inequality back into education where it is so sorely needed.”
Greening confirmed that grammar schools will include a quota of ‘riff-raff’ who will fail to demonstrate that intelligence is unimportant compared to manners, breeding and wealth.