CUMBRIAN MP’S NHS GAFFE

By Hans Ard

WEST Cumbria Labour darling Josh MacAlister MP has had a slap on the wrist from official fact-checkers.

The Whitehaven and Workington member – who positively oozes moral superiority – burbled recently how shameful it was that more than “7.5 million people” were waiting for NHS treatment.

The trouble is, the actual figure is 6.4 million. The organisation Full Fact got in touch with the former school teacher to correct his sums.

The original post on his Facebook page has subsequently been rubbed out.

It’s not the only thing to vanish.

Just last month MacAlister was all over national TV and radio pushing for more regulation to protect children from social media.

But a proposal to ban Smartphones in schools has been quietly dropped from his Safer Phones Bill, according to Sky News.

Let’s face it, the last thing teachers want to be doing during the school day is playing Phone Finder General.

And the decision to drop an outright ban may or may not be adjacent to the fact that the day after Josh’s extensive media round, spinners at the Department for Education speedily issued a clarifying statement to the media and schools pointing out that headteachers already had powers to ban mobile phones (without the need for writing it into law).

“An outright ban of phones in schools isn’t necessary,” sniffed a DfE spokesperson.

It looks like another slap down for the MP who rarely turns down chances to appear in the media and was recently quoted in a newspaper accusing the Conservatives of “governing by press release”.

The guy clearly doesn’t do irony.