Labour leader’s ‘wibble-wobble’
BORIS Johnson attacked the Labour leader for refusing to encourage parents to send their children back to school.
The Prime Minister criticised Sir Keir Starmer for having a “wibble-wobble” over whether it was safe to reopen classrooms.
Labour said it wants schools to reopen “as soon as possible” but will not say they are safe.
At Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Johnson warned Sir Keir that deprived youngsters are suffering most and the best way to minimise that “would be to encourage all kids who can go back to school to go back to school now, because their schools are safe. “Last week, I asked him whether he would say publicly that schools were safe to go back to. He hummed and hawed. Now is his time to say clearly that schools are safe to go back to.”
Mr Johnson said it was “particularly” Labour-run authorities that are refusing to open schools.
Pressure
Sir Keir refused three times to endorse that pupils can return.
Mr Johnson said: “The kids that can go to school should go to school and wouldn’t it be a fine thing if we heard from all sides of the House that schools are safe to go to, rather than the wibble-wobble that we’ve heard from the Opposition.”
Years One, Six, 10 and 12 in England are allowed to return.
But teaching unions have marshalled opposition.
Robert Halfon, Tory chair of the education select committee, asked Mary Bousted, joint boss of the National Education Union: “Why is it that children and parents can have access to Primark over the next few months, but many of them won’t have access to schools according to your risk assessments?”
She told MPs that “if you’re going to continue with social distancing, it puts the pressure on the school site”.