Our conspicuous Wanker this week is John Lambert, Head Teacher of Rawmarsh Community School in Rotherham, who sprang into what must presumably be an unwelcome spotlight recently when he tried to force his pupils to eat healthy school dinners by preventing them from leaving the premises at lunch-time.
Now we've nothing against healthy eating, and we've nothing against the school's and the government's desire to promote it. By all accounts the food in the Rawmarsh school canteen is pretty good, although "ratatouille pancakes" aren't likely to appeal instantly to most teenagers of our acquaintance - they don't appeal to The GOS much.
With a captive clientele the school cooks have seen their custom almost double, but a hard core of pupils still aren't having any, and a group of mums have hit the headlines by taking orders for fish and chips, sandwiches, salads and baked potatoes, buying them at local shops and passing the food through the school railings. The local shops must be relieved. Apparently they have been losing thousands of pounds-worth of business, but then a healthy local economy is not John Lambert's concern, is it?
The mums' argument may be nutritionally unsound, though it's odd, isn't it, that ordinary people like them and us are so stupid about ordinary things like food that we have to be ordered about by self-styled experts? But it is democratically compelling. They say that parents have the right to decide what their children eat, that faced with food they find unpalatable children will frequently plump for unhealthy options like crisps instead, and to quote Marie Hamshaw "You can't make carbon-copy kids who all love tomatoes".
John Lambert has been implacable, however. He knows he's right, he has Jamie Oliver and the PC lobby behind him, and he refuses to compromise. Like Tony Bliar, he's going to do what he wants to do whether we like it or not, because he knows it's for our own good. He's probably regretting all the media attention, though - schools usually avoid it like the plague. But then he should have thought of that, shouldn't he, before he introduced the rule forbidding pupils to leave the premises unless accompanied by their parents?
Most secondary schools allow older children out, usually on presentation of a parental note. In days gone by very many children (including The GOS) went home to lunch, and they weren't collected by their mothers because their mothers were at home cooking. By denying parents the right to let their children leave the school, Lambert is not only setting himself above them but may also be acting unlawfully: the school day has always been divided into a morning session and an afternoon session, each with its own column to be ticked in the class register. While the children are on the premises there's no question that Lambert is responsible for their safety, behaviour and well-being, but when push comes to shove he's running a school, not a prison, and he may not have the legal right to keep them there if parents want them to leave.
To quote Marie Hamshaw again: "This country is turning into Big Brother. And it's not like we need a nanny state. We nanny our kids quite enough on our own".
Clearly John Lambert has a duty to ensure that his school provides children with healthy food at lunch-time, and he seems to be doing that. But sadly, he earns his "Wanker of the Week" Award for not realising that he has neither a duty nor the right to make them eat it.
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