Fury as ‘hypocritical’ Labour MPs force Toby Young to resign
LABOUR MPs have been accused of hypocrisy after hounding Toby Young out of his job for making offensive comments, despite tolerating similar behaviour in their own party.
Mr Young resigned from the board of the Office for Students (OfS) yesterday following a furore over i nappropriate remarks he made several years ago.
It came as Jo Johnson lost his job as universities minister after his botched appointment of Mr Young. He was moved to transport minister just a day after he publicly backed the beleaguered OfS board member.
The Young row erupted after sexist jokes on Twitter about female celebrities’ breasts came to light, as well as controversial statements about working-class and disabled students.
Mr Young, a Spectator columnist and founder of the West London Free School, had apologised for the ‘silly’ and ‘ sophomoric’ comments – and promised they would not be repeated.
But numerous Left-wing MPs, activists and trade union leaders said it set a bad example for the country and called for him to be sacked. Leading the campaign was shadow education secretary Angela Rayner, who urged Theresa May in a letter last week to fire him over what she called ‘bigotry’ and ‘misogyny’.
But critics say she is a hypocrite because only three months ago she defended Labour MP Jared O’Mara over his sexist and homophobic comments.
Announcing his resignation, Mr Young said: ‘My appointment has become a distraction from [the OfS’s] vital work of broadening access to higher education and defending academic freedom.
‘Education is my passion and I want now to be able to get on with the work I have been doing to promote and support the free schools movement.’
The episode resembles the row over Mr O’Mara, who was eventually suspended from Labour over an online joke about having an orgy with the band Girls Aloud and using the term ‘poofter’.
Mrs Rayner said at the time that she was ‘happy’ to sit alongside him, and added: ‘Jared has said he held those views 15 years ago, but he changed those views.’
Mrs Rayner and other Labour MPs were also silent when Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell refused to apologise for calling Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey a ‘stain on humanity’ and talking about her being ‘lynched’.
In 2015, Jeremy Corbyn promoted Labour peer Lord Watson to education spokesman, despite him having served eight months in prison for starting a fire in a hotel in 2004.
Yesterday, Tom Slater, co - ordinator of the Spiked Free Speech University Rankings, said: ‘ The hounding out of Toby Young is a victory for the joyless, censorious Twitter mob. That small groups of incensed commentators and Labour MPs can force someone out of public life because he has a fondness for un-PC jokes is deeply worrying.
‘The very same people who not too long ago were preaching forgiveness for Jared O’Mara…are now celebrating Young’s resignation.’
Radio presenter Julia HartleyBrewer agreed and said anyone who thought Mr Young was ‘ unfit’ because of his tweets was an ‘idiot’ if they also supported controversial figures in Labour.
But Dr Mary Bousted, j oint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: ‘Toby Young has at last recognised what was so obvious to so many – he is not fit to hold a position in government.’