Labour’s PE botch job will cost England future World Cup heroes | Politics | News
Although Bridget Phillipson has spent the last few weeks trying to rewrite her legacy, the truth is that her failed cuts to PE funding in schools are putting our chances of winning future world cups at risk. Britain is a sporting nation. Always was, always will be. Jonny Wilkinson’s sensational drop goal in 2003. That sensational “Super Saturday” at the London 2012 Olympics when Sir Mo Farah, Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill and Greg Rutherford brought home three gold medals in one hour. Andy Murray lifted the Wimbledon trophy in 2013.
Kane and Bellingham are giving everything for the Three Lions. These are the moments that bring us together, the moments we cherish, the moments that inspire us all.
Of course, the heroic success of our national football team showed once again the unique power of sports to keep this country together. Made up of ordinary working-class lads from all corners of the country, these teams represent the absolute best of modern Britain. Although the youngsters unfortunately did not make it to the final, the excellent performances of Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham showed once again the power of the sport.
But we often forget where these journeys begin. Many of Britain’s greatest sporting heroes are the direct product of school physical education. Whether it’s a dedicated physical education teacher teaching life-changing lessons or a child discovering an unexpected passion on a muddy school field, it’s impossible to overstate the value of sports in our education system. From cold and wet winter football matches to sunny athletics days on school fields, seeing children participating in sport is one of our finest, most enduring traditions. This is the love of sport that Britain is famous for exporting to the rest of the world. It’s a legacy that other nations have tried to copy for decades.
Realizing this, the Conservatives introduced PE and Sport Premium following the London 2012 Olympics. This ring-fenced funding is designed to support the quality of physical education directly at grassroots level and ensure that every child, regardless of background or postcode, has the chance to live a healthy and active life.
Shamefully, the Labor government has now cut this vital funding by 22 per cent and quietly replaced it with a watered-down “Sports Partnerships Network”. This devastating outage, hidden under the cover of the May half-term break, left school principals completely in the dark. This was described by headteachers as ‘a funding cut that appears to be an attempt to increase physical education and sport in schools’.
Labour’s priorities are all wrong. Labor has focused more on spending millions on flashy advertising campaigns while cutting budgets to keep our children healthy and active. Just this week Phillipson responded to Kemi Badenoch’s legitimate criticism from a few weeks ago by posting a video of her holding a T-shirt calling herself a “vindictive class warrior”. Is this really the best use of an Education Secretary’s time?
This cut in PE funding is a national scandal. Ironically, of course, like so much of what he does, cuts to physical education will hit the least well-off the hardest. Instead of standing up for our children and helping them become the champions of tomorrow, Labor is trying to hold them back. Our future lions and lionesses deserve better than this.
