Lame Academy

The government has announced £5.5m in funding to promote dancing in UK schools.

"Ballet or ballroom, hip-hop or Highland, dance is something we're really good at in this country,” said Culture Secretary Andy Burnham, apparently in all seriousness. “It also combines physical activity, creativity and beauty in a way that appeals to all. So it's right and good that government support for the dance world should be put on a new footing. Footing – dance - geddit? Oh, please yourselves.”

Under the scheme, six advanced dance training centres will open by 2011, with specialist co-ordinators in schools to promote dance as an art form and a school sport.

“In no way have we stolen this idea from faddish TV shows,” said the minister, in response to the inevitable question. “And it is pure coincidence that a couple of weeks ago we announced plans to set up Dragons’ Den-style appraisals of pupils’ business ideas. We are also running a feasibility study, looking at putting an ice rink in every school - and I challenge the cynics to find a precedent for that on television.”

Some observers have suggested that an alternative inspiration may in fact have been the 1969 film, ‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?’ - in which the idle rich amused themselves by watching destitute couples in depression-era America reduced to taking part in punishing dance marathons lasting for weeks, desperately hoping to win an insultingly low sum of money for being the last pair not to collapse from lack of sleep and exhaustion.

When the suggestion was put to him, Mr Burnham said he had never heard of the film but looked forward to watching it as soon as his aides could get hold of a copy.