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Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy apologised for Shadow Education Secretary Kate Green’s comments about the COVID-19 crisis. Ms Green has said Labour should “not let a good crisis go to waste”. Speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Ms Nandy said: “I know that Kate is really upset about the way that came across.
“It was not the right way to express it at all. She was talking in the context of ten years of cuts to public services, including schools, that have meant that many children went into this crisis already with huge deprivation, huge inequality, poorer educational outcomes than you’d expect.
“She was making the point that we’ve got to now make sure this COVID crisis doesn’t worsen that divide and doesn’t write some children off.”
She added: “It was absolutely the wrong way to express that and Kate knows that. She feels very passionately about this.
“I’m sure she will apologise if she hasn’t already.”
The shadow cabinet secretary continued: “Let me apologise for the way that that’s come across as well. Nobody thinks there’s anything good about this crisis.”
Confirming she was apologising on behalf of Labour, Ms Nandy said: “Genuinely, very sorry for the way they’ve come across. That was not what was intended at all.”
Ms Green had urged activists to seize on the chaos to give the Tories a kicking on education and lobby for more cash for schools.
Speaking at a Labour Connected event on Sunday, she said: “I think there’s obviously a real immediate pressure to address these funding needs for the crisis.
“But I think we should use the opportunity, don’t let a good crisis go to waste.
“We can really see now what happens when you under-resource schools, when you under-resource families and communities.
“And I think that particularly for those of us in Labour, let’s be talking now about what this has really exposed, about the way in which we’ve undervalued our whole education system.”
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Tory MP Amanda Milling MP, Tory chairwoman, told The Sun: “It’s beyond reprehensible that a member of Sir Keir Starmer’s top team would want to take advantage of a global pandemic.
“Labour’s leader may have changed, but it’s clear that under Sir Keir Labour still don’t stand on the side of the British people.”
It comes as Sir Keir Starmer urged voters who had deserted Labour to take a fresh look during an audience-free speech in Doncaster which replaced what would have been his keynote party conference address.
Labour suffered heavy losses at last year’s election, when Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives won seats in the opposition’s heartlands with a promise to “get Brexit done” and by tapping into discontent with leftist then-leader Jeremy Corbyn.
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