‘AbFab’ Star Joanna Lumley Slams British Children’s ‘Slack Morals’

Joanna Lumley

Joanna Lumley, who played Patsy Stone on the hit Brit-com Absolutely Fabulous, has become the talk of all of Twitter due to her comments on “the slack moral codes” for children in her native country. In an interview with the Radio Times, she said, “Nowadays, children find it laughably amusing to shoplift and steal. We smile when they download information from the Internet and lazily present it as their own work. We allow them to bunk off school and bring in sick notes.”

And she criticized the British education system: “We don’t respect education. Not at all. Not like in Africa or China, where it is hugely respected… In Ethiopia, for example, you might find a seven-year-old expected to take 15 goats out into the fields for the whole day with only a chapatti to eat and his whistle. Why are we so afraid to give our children responsibilities like this?”

She added: “I think laptops should be banned from schools. Until you can prove you can add up on your fingers or think independently in your head, you have learned nothing… We have taken our foot off the education pedal and I don’t think it makes anyone happy.”

Lumley has become an outspoken political figure in recent years, famously campaigning to earn Gurkhas — Nepalese soldiers who fought in the British Army for over 150 years — residency rights in the UK. Could we see Lumley in 10 Downing Street one day?