In a continuing move to suck the brains out of British schoolchildren, the curriculum board has decided to make teaching about Winston Churchill no longer mandatory to leave more school time for more "relevant subjects".

Britain's cigar-chomping World War Two PM - famed for his two-finger victory salute - was removed from a list of figures secondary school children must learn about.

Instead they will be taught about "relevant" issues such as global warming and drug dangers. Churchill's grandson, Tory MP Nicholas Soames, branded the move "total madness."

The decision to axe Churchill is part of a major shake-up aimed at dragging the national curriculum into the 21st century, it was claimed last night.

But the plan - hatched by advisers - angered schools secretary Ed Balls, who vowed to probe ALL the changes to the curriculum.

The proposals will see traditional timetables torn up, with pupils focusing on modern "relevant" topics such as drug and booze abuse, climate change and GM foods.

Churchill - voted the greatest ever Briton - goes off the required lessons list, along with Hitler, Gandhi, Stalin and Martin Luther King.

There will also be no need to mention the Wars of the Roses, Elizabeth I or Henry VIII.