Julian Cole

News Editors on national newspapers know who to go to when they want a quote about education. Their fingers go straight to the 'S' section of their contacts book.

For that is where they find Nick Seaton. This is not to allow for the fact that Mr Seaton could have been filed elsewhere, possibly under 'R' for "right-wing rants, bashing trendy teachers a speciality". Or 'H' for "homosexuals, doesn't like them at all".

Mr Seaton runs the Campaign For Real Education, the York-based pressure group whose causes are not as easy to swallow as those espoused by the Campaign For Real Ale. In this tireless role, Mr Seaton is often quoted in the national press, having prepared for that wider stage with many excursions in these pages.

He has featured in this column before, most recently in January of last year when he had been out and about doing his 'trendy teachers are to blame' act. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Mr Seaton believes trendy teachers are to blame for hurricanes, rising damp and the war in Kosovo, for he does hate them so.

In October 1996, Mr Seaton made a typical Evening Press appearance as an advocate of caning, making the caring aside: "I don't see what is wrong with giving small children a rap across the knuckles with a ruler if they step out of line."

I am against such cruel and pointless punishment, though I might be prepared to make exceptions for educational pundits who sing the praises of beating small children in the name of discipline.

Back in 1988, Mr Seaton was in a lather about what he saw as the "promotion of homosexuality through schools by extreme left-wing groups", an opinion occasioned by a "bizarre and shocking" course on the politics of sex and gender being taught at a York college.

A year later he was still batting for intolerance when he attacked Archbishop Holgate's School for including a lesson in anti-racism. And then last Sunday, his sense of indignation fit and flexed, Mr Seaton popped up on the front page of one of the heavy-weight newspapers in a report headlined: "Underage girls to get Pill at school".

The report concerned Government plans to combat unwanted pregnancies by giving free contraception to teenage girls without their parents' consent.

This is obviously a good topic, especially as the report suggested that the contraceptives, including the morning after pill, would be available from school nurses to all teenage girls who ask for them, including those under the age of consent.

The Campaign For Real Education, aka Mr Seaton, responded that such moves would "make the girls the victims of sexual predators rather than encouraging them to abstain from sex until they leave school".

While it is true that abstinence would be a smart move, giving teenage girls the "not now" lecture will have one inescapable result: more unwanted teenage pregnancies.

We might not like the idea of handing out contraceptives to schoolgirls, but if such a scheme works then it is worth considering. As to this business of sexual predators, Mr Seaton presumably refers to teenage boys.

I can remember being a teenage boy and I wasn't much of a sexual predator, despite my best efforts. Sadly, I was more of a sexual radiator, over-heated and stuck in the corner.

I'm starting to feel sorry for Prince Charles. He can't go out these days without a photographer snapping the top of his head.

This results in unflattering pictures with accompanying editorial quips about his Millennium dome or the hair no longer being apparent. How unfair. Don't these newspapers appreciate male sensibilities?

The only explanation must be that Fleet Street snappers are such paragons of male beauty they feel offended by the Prince's emerging pate.

13/05/99

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.