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It should be remembered that in the United Kingdom, university constituencies (especially in England) were strongly inclined towards the Conservative Party. This is why the post-WWII Labour Party abolished them with the passing of the Representation of the People Act 1948, coming into effect after the 1950 General Election was called. Unsurpsingly, university constituencies would be strongly left-wing, endorsing all sorts of heresies and drivel, should they be resurrected today.

The 17th century English radical Puritan William Dell was a strong opponent of the university system (Oxford and Cambridge were Royalist strongholds), albeit from a standpoint that might be considered ‘left-wing’ if current lines of political demarcation could be applied to that historical period.

‘‘He argued for major institutional change. He attacked academic education frontally.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dell#cite_note-24He proposed a secular and decentralized university system;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dell#cite_note-25with local village schools, and grammar schools in larger places.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dell#cite_note-26He was strongly against the Aristotelian tradition persisting in the universities, and discounted all classical learning;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dell#cite_note-27and expressed broad anti-intellectual attitudes. He believed in more practical studies;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dell#cite_note-30more particularly, he was concerned that training for the ministry should be much more widely spread, geographically and socially, and less dependent on traditional academic studies.’’

Mr Piggott, would you support substantially reducing the minimum school leaving age? Personally, if we are to have some form of ‘state education’, I strongly believe the vast majority of children should be leaving school no later than the age of 14. Apart from learning basic arithmetic, elemental English and a smattering of a few facts in other subjects, I basically think formal schooling is a waste of time. Of course, the aforementioned subjects just mentioned aren’t too complicated to be taught outside of a formal school environment.

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