It is always a bad sign when schools are used to push political and social agendas. In dictatorships, even the sums in the arithmetic lessons are used to spread the official ideology. 

In Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi classrooms, for example, multiplication was taught by asking pupils to calculate the casualties from shooting down four US planes, with three crew members each. 

We have not yet reached that grotesque stage. But many conservative and patriotic parents worry constantly about what their children are being taught in school. They also fret about what is broadcast by the once respected BBC.

Now these two have come together in a BBC website called Bitesize, much used in many UK schools. 

To a background of soothing music, multicultural characters guide users through friendly cartoon landscapes in which they are invited to make political and economic choices. 

As we report today, one significant part of this interactive experience is weighted towards open borders and migration. 

Some of this is subtle, though a video prepared for Northern Irish use all but shouts at viewers about the need for welcoming migrants and the benefits this will bring. 

These opinions are controversial and should not be given the authority which the national broadcaster still enjoys, or the endorsement of teachers and schools. Other opinions exist. 

Many conservative and patriotic parents worry constantly about what their children are being taught in school. They also fret about what is broadcast by the once respected BBC

On the BBC website called Bitesize, much used in many UK schools, multicultural characters guide users through friendly cartoon landscapes in which they are invited to make political and economic choices

It is time they were allowed to compete fairly against the weary nostrums of political correctness. And the BBC should yet again be reminded that it must maintain impartiality if it wants to carry on getting our money through the licence fee. A reckoning is coming, if it does not put its house in order.

Trump’s disgraceful deal with the devil 

It is easy to be cynical about politicians. Far too many of their decisions are driven, at least partly, by low or foolish motives. Too many are in it for themselves. 

Others use the world as a stage on which they can display their vanity. Yet until recently there were generally depths beyond which they would not descend. 

A twinge of conscience, or fear posterity might regard them with contempt, has often pulled them back from the brink of disgraceful behaviour. But what are we to say about President Trump’s diesel deal with the blood-spattered Russian despot Vladimir Putin? 

Can he sink any lower? The release of Russian diesel stocks will barely ease pressure on the USA’s domestic fuel market. 

The real reason for rocketing fuel prices is Mr Trump’s apparently permanent war on Iran, which continues to damage the wealth and the stability of the world. 

The freeing of Russian diesel from sanctions has no other purpose than to influence votes in America’s mid-term elections. 

Then there is the second part of this devil’s hard bargain – the betrayal of Ukraine by withdrawing military and intelligence assistance from President Zelensky. 

This is beyond shocking. It is a disgrace. To paraphrase a far better US President, Franklin Roosevelt, it is an action that will live in infamy.

READ MORE: Schoolchildren ‘brainwashed by left-wing BBC’: Demand for inquiry as education website used by millions encourages pupils to back contentious open borders and Net Zero policies