With details of the Conservatives’ attempts to distribute party propaganda in schools emerging at the weekend, Scrapbook has managed to get hold of a copy of the ‘Citizenship & Democracy’ pack, which is embedded below. The full document is even worse than it appeared in the Independent on Sunday, with pages and pages of blatantly party political material.

Here are some of the quotes which didn’t make the SIndy — including a section telling kids that they’re “Thatcher’s children”:

“Regardless of our political affiliation, almost all teenagers of the 80’s are Margaret Thatcher’s children. By applying Conservative principles and values, she was able to achieve a real, lasting legacy for this country.” “The Conservative Party is the party of fairness. Under the last Labour Government, people got paid more to stay out of work, top pay got out of control and bankers’ bonuses ballooned.”

“What is the most important thing the Conservative Party has accomplished whilst in government?” [Asked four times with responses from different MPs] “The modern Conservative Party is on the side of those who want to work hard and get on in life.”

There is plenty more of this stuff in the embed below. Scrapbook’s favourite has to be the section about the rationale for door-to-door “literature deliveries”:

“This is the most common way for candidates to communicate with voters because it is cheap and less labour intensive than door knocking or telephone canvassing.”

But perhaps an even cheaper way is to deliver propaganda to a captive audience of students of whom your materials observe: “Soon you will you have the opportunity to vote for the first time [sic]”.

With an election imprint from 30 Millbank, the materials are undeniably the work of CCHQ. Here is Section 407 of the Education Act 1996, which obligates schools to offer “a balanced presentation of opposing views”:

Given that they are effectively encouraging teachers to breach the law, perhaps Grant Shapps can tell us which schools and colleges have been given copies of these materials?