Bad PR award of the day goes to Republic, which has complained that a cooking competition for school children to celebrate the Queen’s jubilee is illegal.

The Duchess of Cornwall launched the competition, to encourage children to devise a new dish in the vein of coronation chicken.  However, anti-monarchy group Republic has complained that involving children in celebrations of the monarchy without teaching them about republicanism is in breach of the Education Act.

This of course has the effect of making Republic come across as po-faced and rather tedious – which, considering it ostensibly stands for modernising, is not really where it wants to position itself.

To paraphrase the Department of Education, the law is there to make sure children are not indoctrinated by biased political views – not to stop them joining in with a party.