Gillian Keegan appeared to make another political gaffe this afternoon, when confiding with a conference of school leaders that she’d have “punched” an Ofsted inspector. The comments came amid anger by teachers towards Ofsted, following the suicide of headteacher Ruth Perry after her school was downgraded.
Ms Keegan told the Association of School and College Leaders annual conference of one recent trip to a school which told her about their experience being inspected.
The education secretary said: “They told me how their Ofsted experience had gone and I was shocked. I was actually shocked.
“I thought ‘God if I had met these people, I would probably have punched them’. They were really rude.”
The comment received a smattering of laughter from the audience, with the host joking: “We’re not filming this are we”.
Mrs Keegan continued: “You expect people being rude to you when you’re a politician, you kind of sign up for that, but when you’re trying to run a school and educate children and change lives you don’t expect somebody to come in and not be respectful”.
The contentious comments come after Ms Keegan was caught on hot mic complaining that no one has congratulated her for doing “a f****** good job” amid the RAAC concrete scandal.
Speaking off the cuff after an ITV interview, Ms Keegan said: “Does anyone ever say, you know what, you’ve done a f****** good job because everyone else has sat on their arse and done nothing?”
She was forced to apologise for her “choice language”.
MORE TO COME…
