Schools may become prisons.

I notice that a minister called Kevin Brennan has suggested that schoolchildren should be prevented from leaving school during lunch hours lest they buy food thought to be unhealthy.

Critics have argued that such a ban would be unenforceable. I suspect that that would be true in the case of most schools, but that does not mean that imposing the ban would just be harmless folly.

It would damage relationships between teachers and pupils by giving the latter yet another excuse to resent the authority of the former, so that it would be even harder to persuade children to study hard, which is what I thought they were supposed to be doing at school.

Children who managed to smuggle into school those derided snacks high in fat and salt would enjoy them all the more because the enjoyment would be illicit, and combined with a chance to laugh at the ineffectual efforts of those teachers foolish enough to try to enforce the ban.

Who's Who tells me that Brennan taught (Economics and Business Studies) in a school for nine years; unless he is exceptionally unobservant he should know what children are like !