It is not often that we praise the government for ignoring the protestations of community representatives. But the Department for Education is quite right to have insisted that evolution becomes a compulsory primary school subject, despite the objections of the National Association of Jewish Orthodox Schools.

The JC yields to no one in its support for faith schools. But the idea that they should be able to exempt themselves from the 21st century and ignore basic science does a disservice to the very idea of education. The government is entirely correct to have dismissed the NAJOS’s protests out of hand.