Michael Fabricant's lockdown drink comments 'laughable', say teachers

Teachers said claims by a Tory MP that they would drink in staff rooms during lockdown are "laughable" and "bizarre".

One said if she had an alcoholic drink at her school at any time she could have lost her job.

Another with elderly parents said he was too stressed at avoiding passing on Covid to them to socialise.

Michael Fabricant, the MP for Lichfield, made his comments after Boris Johnson was fined for attending a birthday party during a Covid lockdown.

He told BBC News he knew of nurses and teachers who went for a quiet drink after shifts and, after his initial claims, said five more people had contacted him to back his claims.

Teaching unions roundly criticised what Mr Fabricant said with Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders' union calling them "wholly inaccurate and deeply insulting".

Sally Fothergill, a teacher in London, said the MP's comments showed "how little he knows about the inner workings of a school".

"It was laughable really, not purely for the fact it wasn't happening as for the fact he thinks we ever have alcohol on site.

"If I were to have a drink in the staff room regardless of the pandemic I could easily lose my job."

She added she was not even able to have lunch with her colleagues during lockdowns.

"You went straight home" at the end of the school day, she said, and there was "definitely no time for socialising and the last thing on anyone's mind".

"It was tough. My mental health suffered as a result of all that we were doing. It was really pretty dark at times."

Margo Longhurst, a teacher from Leicester, said the pandemic just added to her and her colleagues' workload as they had to adapt to being online and even delivering vital goods to vulnerable children.

"[Mr Fabricant] saying we would all be drinking due to Covid, I just thought we have never done that, whatever school I have been at. We barely get time for lunch," she said.

"There was no time during the day for drinks and even when we have had something for a leaving do at my school it is only cups of tea."

The pandemic had been stressful for the children she taught, Ms Longhurst added, and "the younger they are, the worse it has been".

She also had to cope with not being able to see her elderly parents as they are in the north of Scotland and "it was just that guilt that I couldn't go there".

"Everybody else has been getting on, working to the rules and those comments belittle you."

"What he said was completely untrue, in my experience of 20 years teaching."

Chris Redding, from Ampthill, Bedfordshire, spent the first lockdown when he finished the day's teaching "coming to the back door here, stripping off and washing all my clothes".

He said "everyone was panicked" at spreading Covid and the last thing anyone thought about was having a drink.

"I was desperate not to catch anything and I did not see my parents much during it, so it makes it so much more galling to hear this."

The school's staff room was initially closed and, when it reopened, only six people were allowed in at any one time.

"There were wipes everywhere, you had to wipe down everything after using it. Occasionally you would have a cup of tea but not with a colleague."

"The insinuation you kicked back and did this, it is just bizarre. We all followed the rules because it was the law, but also it was the right thing to do."

Janet Allen, a head teacher in Southport, said the Covid pandemic had been the "most challenging time in my career".

Hearing Mr Fabricant's comments made her "just enraged, furious" as her work involved teaching the most vulnerable children in the building.

"To even suggest thinking about socialising, having a party - people were terrified, people were stripping off clothes at the front door of their home," she said.

During the pandemic she set up a virtual school for the children as well as supporting staff with their anxieties, developed risk assessments, bubbles and on-site testing.

"The things that we did and had to do - it never even crossed our minds to have a drink, we were so following everything, we were given so many guidelines."

Ms Allan said the restrictions meant her daughter missed out on her A-Levels and getting her results with her friends, while her son is only this summer having his graduation, two years after finishing university.

"Those life moments, you remember them, they are all things they haven't done."

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