Neighbourhood Watch is evolving. Last week, a group of young parents from Oxford created a paramilitary force whose sole objective is to protect a coveted local secondary school from outside infiltration. This aggressive development is the latest strategy to combat the rise of ‘tiger parenting’, in which mums and dads are hell-bent on pursuing achievement through their children, no matter what the ethical costs.

Leader of the Abingdon School Paramilitary wing, Brigadier Mark Denton, has released a stark message on social media, highlighting the brutal repercussions of illegitimate school membership. Holding a Kalashnikov AK47 assault rifle and wearing a school badge emblazoned bandana to cover his lower face, he warned:

“We love our local school more than you impostors love life. The postcode state school lottery cannot be vanquished. Underhand tactics such as using a relative’s address on application or fraudulently renting a nearby property will not be tolerated. We will use the full force of our arsenal to find you, crush you and then deliver your children to schools in special measures.”

Devout parents of those children attending faith schools are similarly adopting a hawkish stance and forming guerrilla militias, led by combative priests, bellicose imams and badass rabbis. An Anglican church in Surrey, has gone so far as to establish a secret police force to validate the religiosity of prospective applicants, uncovering sham baptisms and woefully deficient New Testament knowledge in the process.

“It’s unrighteous subterfuge”, said 86 year-old Mavis Phillips, head of the Faith Patrol force at St Paul’s church in Reigate. “These people have no scruples whatsoever, and I rely on my heavily armed parishioners to help us weed out the heretics. Distressingly, there is always collateral damage: last week our church organist and 2 choir boys were fatally caught up in the crossfire.”