Well, doesn't this just take the cake?

NO MORE sweets in school raffle prizes; no more distribution of birthday cakes; no more end-of-term chocolates round the class. A politically correct Orwellian darkness is truly setting in across Scotland. Such are the new restrictions imposed at Arduthie Primary School in Stonehaven, you can forget about schooldays being the happiest days of our lives. In the New Order, sweets and treats are banned from happiness.

What a grim world we seem intent on creating for fear of being snooped on by a busybody texting to a "no win, no fee" claims lawyer. But if this is really to be the ghastly Brave New World, why has the school headmistress not gone further? There's nothing more dissatisfying than a revolution only half complete. No more apples for the teacher from now on. Instead, an organic carrot may be proffered. And why have raffle prizes at all of the conventional sort? Such fripperies should be replaced with "prizes" of extra anti-obesity lessons or advanced tutorials on the dangers of alcohol.

As for birthday cakes, clearly a firm line must be taken: no more individual birthday cakes, for fear of upsetting a child whose birthday falls outside the school term. Instead, there should be an Earth Day Cake, made of biodegradable waste and with candles replaced by smouldering piles of biomass. With a firm hand, these will surely come to rank among our favourite things. Not.