The recent ‘school wars’ farrago was an act of madness – or, more accurately, Madness. ‘All the kids have gone away/Gone to fight with next door’s school/Every term that is the rule’. So the Camden ska band sang on ‘Baggy Trousers’, their 1980 classic about their school days. Schoolchildren organising to duff up their contemporaries is not new; social media has made it easier for pupils to connect, parents to panic.  

War on Iran was not ‘unprovoked’

When Mandelson could bring down Starmer

Did Hannah Spencer’s outfit distract from her maiden speech?

For the uninitiated, a TikTok trend thought to have begun in Hackney last month has seen posts pop up across the country – from Nottingham to Watford – encouraging children to meet for clashes between different schools organised into ‘red’ and ‘blue’ teams. Locations are provided; the Hackney branch of McDonald’s, for example, was deemed a suitable Colosseum. Different points are offered for different hits – ten points for a hit, 20 for filming it – and some posts call for weapons, from combs and protractors up to knives.  

As the trend spread, parents became terrified. The Met Police posted hundreds of officers to schools. Parents were told to check their children’s phones. Teachers at St Dunstan’s College in........

© The Spectator