#trending: Resignation letters over affairs from PAP and WP politicians get graded on Instagram; Nicole Seah scores ‘A+’
SINGAPORE — Resignation letters of Singapore politicians have been marked and given grades by satirical news Instagram account The Mockingbird, leaving netizens in stitches.

Former Speaker of Parliament Mr Tan Chuan-Jin's resignation letter graded by Instagram page, The Mockingbird.
- A satirical news account graded resignation letters of politicians from the People's Action Party (PAP) and Workers' Party (WP)
- Netizens found the graded letters highly amusing, with some reminiscing about their past school experiences
- Others critiqued the grading methods of the marker
SINGAPORE — Resignation letters of Singapore politicians who quit their parties this week have been marked and graded by satirical news account The Mockingbird, amusing netizens and reminding them of secondary school days.
On Monday (July 17), Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin and Member of Parliament (MP) Cheng Li Hui tendered their resignations as MPs and members of the PAP to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
On Wednesday, Aljunied Group Representation Constituency (GRC) MP Leon Perera and senior WP member Nicole Seah resigned from their positions within the party.
Their resignation letters have since been circulating on social media, with many scrutinising their content and giving their take on them.
Taking it to the next level, Instagram account The Mockingbird — which calls itself "Singapore's most reliable satire news source" — "marked" and graded the resignation letters and posted them on Wednesday.
Its Instagram post has garnered at least 18,000 likes and 130 comments as of Thursday (July 20).
Mr Tan’s letter was given an A- for his “good attempt”.
In the letter, the marker wrote “understatement”, referring to a mistake Mr Tan made in Parliament in which he had used “rude” and “unparliamentary” language.
“Please cite your sources in the future,” the marker wrote at the bottom.


For Ms Cheng, the marker noted how her letter was “shorter than a tweet” and that it fell “under the minimum word count”.
The marker even suggested for her to “try using ChatGPT”, the artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI.
Her letter was given a glaring F grade, accompanied by the instruction: “See me!”

Mr Perera’s letter was given a B-, with a comment written at the bottom: “Your writing shows little accountability and barely addresses issues. You need a better grasp of the material. Please revisit (the) curriculum.”
One comment in his letter read “don’t hope”, referencing Mr Perera’s hope in devoting his time to his family.

Among all the resignation letters, Ms Seah’s received the highest grade with A+.
The marker praised her letter and said: “You have demonstrated accountability and understanding of the source material. Good job!”

The marked letters elicited mainly positive reactions from netizens, many of whom found them highly amusing.
“If this is satire, it’s top quality,” one TikTok user said.
“‘See, me’ killed me,” said another user, referring to the instruction written at the bottom of Ms Cheng’s letter to see the marker.
Netizens also poked fun at the letters and the ways they themselves were graded by their teachers.
“Secondary school trauma runs deep,” said an Instagram user, whose comment attracted more than 200 likes.
“(I) felt the ‘1.5 spacing comment’ in my bones”, another user commented, referring to the comment left by the marker regarding Mr Perera’s line spacing at the top of his letter.
Others also critiqued the ways in which the letters had been marked.
One TikTok user said: “I don’t think your English is good enough because “Re:” in a letter is correct. Clearly you haven’t written letters and (wrote) only emails.”
“Actually, the handwritten name is an established letter writing convention to show sincerity,” an Instagram user wrote, referring to how the marker had pointed out that Mr Lee’s name was written out instead of typed in Mr Tan’s letter.