Vandals target Bradley’s office

A NOTTINGHAMSHIRE MP has hit out at abuse “scrawled” on his windows after his constituency office was targeted by vandals.

Ben Bradley, Conservative MP for Mansfield, sparked a social media storm at the weekend with his

Tweets about the free school meals debate.

He was accused by the Labour Party of the “stigmatisation of working class families” after discussing an area in the town where free school meals “wouldn’t reach”.

In a now-deleted Tweet, he mentioned an area where one child lives “in a crack den” and another in a “brothel”, before suggesting free school meal vouchers “effectively” could have been spent there in the summer. He has since said the context surrounding the Tweets “wasn’t clear”.

Now, his Church Street office has been targeted by vandals ( pictured).

Graffiti on the window call him a “Tory b*****d” and a “****k”.

In response, he said: “To the fine upstanding citizen who has vandalised my office this weekend, scrawling abuse on my windows, [it’s] a bit rich of anyone to complain about my actions whilst simultaneously committing criminal damage.

“Whatever you think of me, it’s inevitably my staff who find and have to deal with this.

“They deserve to feel safe at work and not be the subject of abuse.

“Whatever some may want to believe, nobody goes into politics wanting to do harm.

“That’s why I campaign relentlessly in support of working class kids and improving their life chances.”

The attack follows Mr Bradley’s outspoken support for the Government’s decision not to extend free school meals vouchers into school holidays until Easter.

The campaign was led by Manchester United and England striker Marcus Rashford and put forward as a Parliamentary motion by Labour last week. It was defeated by 322 votes to 261.

Mr Bradley said: “Nobody has voted not to help kids this week. Nobody has reduced or cut support for kids through this pandemic.

“If you want facts – they are quite important – we’ve increased Universal Credit, extended eligibility for

FSM (free school meals) and provided them over the summer, increased school budgets, given £63 million to councils to identify and target families who are in need, and handed out grants to thousands of charities to help in the same way.

“I appreciate that communication of those facts has been poor this week, but that does not make them any less true. I freely admit that. I’ve personally said something stupid this week. It was an error and I’ve removed and explained it. It doesn’t actually make me evil.”

Nottinghamshire Police have confirmed officers are investigating the vandalism.

Inspector Nick Butler, district commander for Mansfield, said: “Anyone with information about these incidents is asked to call 101 quoting incident number 134 of October 26.”