Rishi Sunak blasts Keir Starmer for siding with strikers

Rishi Sunak blasts Keir Starmer and accuses Labour leader of siding with strikers as parents warn teachers not to make children pawns in pay fight

• More than 20 Labour MPs joined picket lines yesterday, such as John McDonnell
• Rishi Sunak attacked the opposition at PMQs for voting against anti-strike laws 

Sir Keir Starmer was accused yesterday of siding with ‘extremist protesters and union bosses’.

More than 20 Labour MPs joined picket lines, including former shadow frontbenchers John McDonnell, Richard Burgon and Ian Lavery.

And Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, sent a message of support to striking teachers, saying the ‘way in which you’ve been treated is nothing short of a disgrace’.

Rishi Sunak attacked Labour at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday for voting against the Government’s anti-strike laws.

He said of Sir Keir: ‘He can’t stand up to his union bosses, he can’t stand up for Britain’s school children today, and he can’t stand up for the women in his party.’ 

Sir Keir Starmer was accused yesterday of siding with ‘extremist protesters and union bosses’

Protest: Roselle Rundell with ten-year-old son Billy, 10, from Forrest Hill on February 1

Family affair: Teacher Lisa Duggan and daughter Zara, six

Mr Sunak added: ‘While he sides with extremist protesters and union bosses, we stand up for hard-working Britons and school children.’

But the Labour leader – who failed to bring up the crippling industrial action himself during PMQs – said it was ‘rank pathetic’ to blame his party for failing to sort out the strikes.

It came as parents urged teachers not to let children be ‘pawns in the middle’ of their pay dispute as the first of four national teachers’ strikes took place yesterday. 

As more than 100,000 members of the National Education Union walked out, mothers and fathers had to arrange childcare or take unplanned leave.

There were concerns about the impact of the strike on children who have already had their education disrupted by lockdowns.

Dan Little, a father of school-age daughters who runs an engineering firm, said: ‘The vast majority of the issue is government-related [but] I just don’t agree with striking, particularly in the public sector. Nor do I think that the children should ever be pawns in the middle.’

Mr Little, 45, of Upminster, Essex, added: ‘Let’s just hope the Government and unions agree something sensible ASAP.’

Another parent wrote online: ‘Children have been deeply scarred by [lockdown] school closures and the last thing they need is adults walking out on them again. It is morally wrong.’ 

On website Mumsnet, one parent in support of the strike still voiced concern about the impact on mums and dads who need to take time off work.

She said: ‘Let’s not pretend it doesn’t put parents’ own jobs at risk if they need to chop and change plans to accommodate schools.’ 

She spoke in a debate about childcare arrangements where some parents told of their anger after re-arranging plans only to be told at the last minute that lessons would be going ahead after all.

One father, named only as Nick, told the BBC he had taken half a day’s unpaid leave. Nick, who lives in Bristol, said that while his eldest daughter was able to go to school, his youngest daughter Addie needed ‘to stay home with us’.

One of the youngest children was five-year-old Eden, brought along by her cookery teacher mother Allie Phillips, 41

Eben Rogers (right) and Jack Rogers, six, join the strikers outside the Glass Mill Leisure Centre in Lewisham

Headteachers defended short-notice decisions on whether to close schools, citing uncertainty about how many staff would be walking out. 

Some sites were only open to children of critical care workers. The director of a soft play centre in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, said it was twice as busy as normal as parents and grandparents looked after children who would normally be in school.

Ian Parkinson, of Play 2 Day, said that while he suspected the strike was ‘the reason it’s busy’, he worried the walkout meant ‘children are going to lose out again’. 

Many teachers defended the walkout, saying it was about wider issues than pay – including workload, school budgets and a need to prevent staff from leaving the profession.

Not all were in favour, however. Jacob Smith, a primary school teacher who went to work as normal in Luton, said: ‘I do understand the reasoning, but I don’t agree it’s the right way to go about it.’ 

Many teachers brought their own children along to marches and picket lines yesterday as they insisted the strike was about providing a better standard of education. Some of the youngsters held placards in support of their parents and grandparents.

Food technology teacher Roselle Rundell, 42, from Forest Hill, London, brought her ten-year-old son, Billy and six-year-old daughter, Penny, with her to a protest in the capital. The children made signs in support of the teachers and Billy said it was ‘good’ the teachers were striking.

Other parents let their children wave pro-union flags such as Lisa Duggan with her daughter Zara, six, outside Pimlico Academy in the capital. 

Karl O’Keeffe, 42, who brought his two young children Dylan and Finn, said: ‘Schools are chronically underfunded, we don’t want to be here but this is for our children, we’re putting them first.

Classrooms don’t have any of the materials they need’ Mr O’Keeffe, who teaches in London, asked seven-year-old Dylan why they had to come. 

Dylan replied: ‘We don’t have enough whiteboard pens in our classrooms.’ One of the youngest children was five-year-old Eden, brought along by her cookery teacher mother Allie Phillips, 41, as her school was closed. Miss Phillips said: ‘We’re striking for better pay.

‘We need better facilities, we need to be able to attract graduates to the profession [but] the pay is so low that we can’t.’

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