Michael Fabricant

Teaching leaders criticised the comments as "deeply insulting". Lichfield MP Michael Fabricant told BBC News he knew of nurses and teachers who went for a quiet ...

"I think at the time just like many teachers and nurses who after a very, very long shift would tend to go back to the staff room and have a quiet drink which is more or less what he has done.... He said he fully understood the anger of people who obeyed the rules, "couldn't visit relatives, and missed weddings and funerals". In a later statement Mr Fabricant said a teacher and two nurses had told him they had some sympathy with the prime minister "as after an exhausting day at work they, too, had had a drink with their work mates". Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders' union, said in a letter to the education secretary Mr Fabricant's suggestion was "wholly inaccurate and deeply insulting" to teachers as a profession. Dame Alison Peacock, chief executive of the Chartered College of Teaching, said Mr Fabricant's comments were "naïve and wrong" and teachers should be being thanked instead "for everything they have done". Ms Cullen criticised the MP's comments and said nurses and nursing support staff would, after finishing well past the end of their shifts, "get home, clean their uniforms, shower and collapse into bed" rather than "have a quiet one in the staff room".

'Utterly demoralising' to nurses would break the law like elected officials, nursing leaders say.

Despite political narrative, as health and care professionals we know the Covid-19 context is nowhere near over.” Mr Fabricant said on Tuesday: “I don’t think at any time he thought he was breaking the law... Start your Independent Premium subscription today.

The Tory backbencher suggested that rule-breaking parties at Downing Street were little different to what had gone on in other workplaces.

However, while Fabricant admits to having had “enhancement of the follicular area”, he denies wearing a wig. In January the MP told GB news that staff working at Downing Street has been exhausted 'working 18, 19 hour days' on the vaccine programme after news of the police investigation into the garden party drinks. The Royal College of Nursing has indicated that it will make a formal complaint. Fabricant has insisted that voters simply want the Prime Minister to “get on” with his job. But who exactly is Michael Fabricant - and what has he said about Boris Johnson? Michael Fabricant is a Conservative politician who has served as MP for Lichfield (previously Mid-Staffordshire) since 1992.

Michael Fabricant apparently sought to draw parallels between the behaviour of hard-pressed hospital workers battling COVID-19 and that of the prime ...

"At the end of one of the many hours, days and years we have worked, since recognition of the pandemic, I can assure you that none of us have sought to hang out and 'have a quiet one in the staff room'. In a letter to Mr Fabricant, Ms Cullen said that she was formally complaining about his comments on behalf of the RCN's half-million members and painted a starkly different picture of how nurses had been working "ethically, responsibly and in the face of ongoing pressures and constraints". RCN general secretary Pat Cullen wrote to Mr Fabricant to complain formally about the comments, saying it was "utterly demoralising" that he had apparently sought to draw parallels between the behaviour of nurses and that of the PM.

The Royal College of Nursing calls Michael Fabricant's comments 'utterly demoralising'. (FILES) In this file photo taken on December 01, 2021 Britain's ...

She has written to the MP to complain about the remarks and sent a copy of the letter to Conservative Party Chairman Oliver Dowden. The Lichfield MP told the BBC that he knew of nurses and teachers who went for a quiet drink after shifts. A Tory MP has been criticised by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) after claiming teachers and NHS staff broke the law by having “a quiet drink” at the end of their shifts in staff rooms during lockdowns.