MP’s good luck message ‘error’

A CONSERVATIVE MP has been ridiculed on social media after posting a good luck message to the Welsh women’s football team in the Euros – despite them failing to qualify, writes Conor Gogarty.

Virginia Crosbie, who has represented Ynys Mon since 2019, wrote on to Facebook on Wednesday: “The 2022 UEFA Women’s Euro championship is due to kick off this week at Wembley Stadium. I would like to wish all the Welsh squad, their coach Jayne Ludlow MBE and all the team the best of luck in the championship. I am a keen advocate of all sports, I play in the parliamentary cross party tennis team, and I personally sponsor several teams across Ynys Mon in football, rugby and even local world transplant games athletes.”

Later that evening the statement was mocked on Twitter by the Blogdroed football page, which wrote: “Great post from our MP on Facebook – apart from the fact that *checks notes* the Euros opened in Old

Trafford tonight, *checks notes* Gemma Grainger replaced Jayne Ludlow as Wales coach in 2021 and *checks notes* Wales haven’t actually qualified she’s... errr... spot on!”

When we asked Ms Crosbie for a response, she blamed a staff training exercise for the blunder.

The Anglesey MP, who grew up in the Essex village of Tiptree, told the Echo it was “just a training exercise with my staff” which was “posted by mistake”. She requested we publish this response in full, referring to an error in a Liberal Democrat press release which we had published.

She said: “This is just a training exercise with my staff from months ago that was posted by mistake for a few minutes. Quite frankly haven’t you got anything better to write about? Considering that your publication doesn’t know that parliamentary private secretaries are unpaid and therefore not due any compensation for resigning from the government rather puts this into perspective doesn’t it?”