It's the paper's take on plans to spend more on peer mentoring schemes in schools, announced by Children's Secretary Ed Balls during Anti-Bullying Week.
Peer mentoring - where older children are given responsibility for new or younger pupils - helps protect children from the taunts and abuse that can make them desperately unhappy. It encourages pupils to think about their behaviour towards others as well as giving them new skills and confidence and it's been a great success in many schools.
But the Mirror doesn't think much of the idea. "We have our doubts about the well-meaning yet flawed plan to appoint 'Big Brothers' to mediate in conflicts," says the Mirror. "Bullying is a serious issue and requires firm, sensitive intervention by adults, not children." And there's more proof the Mirror doesn't get it as it persists in its attempt to give peer mentors bodyguard status. "There are fears mentors could get involved in fights," reports the paper. It doesn't say where these fears come from though.
P Meanwhile Balls won't be pleased with The Times' columnist Hugo Rifkind, who has unearthed a story of the minister "berating a waitress on a GNER train in a manner that one might describe as 'bullying'."
Apparently the dining car had run out of food. Balls' spokesman said the tale was nonsense but The Times' source is adamant: "He was very, very angry. Spluttering. Outraged. The waitress offered to find some biscuits and cheese. Balls said: 'Don't you know who I am?' She said: 'No'."
- Christmas is coming. Will this be the year The Daily Express doesn't carry a story about sex offenders getting slap-up turkey dinners in jail? Don't put money on it. Just like carols, it's a festive tradition.
Another festive tradition in newspaper land is moaning about other festive traditions being banned. Evan James Primary School in Pontypridd, south Wales, has been branded a "Scrooge school" by The Mail on Sunday among others for preventing children from swapping Christmas cards.
"The reasons for not having cards are endless," says deputy head Nicholas Daniels, quoted in The Western Mail. Doling out cards takes up staff time, adds to litter and risks some children being left out, he explains.
Neighbouring Parc Lewis School has asked that children don't give shop-bought cards to save trees. Instead it's asking parents to give to Oxfam to help those less fortunate. Not so Scrooge-like after all.
SOUNDBITE
"Producers of reality TV seem to live in a parallel universe, where the exploitation of newborn babies is an acceptable form of entertainment" - Mary MacLeod, chief executive of the Family & Parenting Institute.
