Baroness uses ‘Play School’ pull to coax politicians into action

FLOELLA BENJAMIN, the politician and broadcaster, has said she leverages the emotional bond politicians have for her as a former presenter on the children’s TV show Play School in order to get things done in parliament.

Baroness Benjamin, 72, said she counts Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt among her “Play School babies” – the phrase she uses for adults who grew up watching her present the BBC show.

In her upcoming biography, she said “so many ministers now are my Play School babies” that she “can usually get a meeting” when she wants.

She also said her first words to the Levelling Up Secretary were: “I’m so pleased to know that you’re one of my Play School babies! Now, this is what I want you to do.”

Baroness Benjamin told The Observer: “A lot of people, even well-known people that I meet, burst out crying, saying, ‘You’re my everything, you don’t know what you meant to me as a child’.”