Education secretary says she'll turn Tory leader's insult into a T-shirt

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has told the BBC she will be turning Kemi Badenoch's attack on her at Prime Minister's Questions into a T-shirt. The Conservative leader called Phillipson a "spiteful class warrior" for taxing private school fees, claiming this was to pay for more teachers in state schools "but the number of teachers has gone down". Sir Keir Starmer defended Phillipson, saying he was "proud" that she was his education secretary - but the two women exchanged harsh words after PMQs and continued their row on social media. Badenoch's latest post doubled down, telling Phillipson: "You are sacrificing the future of generations of kids on the altar of your class envy." Badenoch was attacking Phillipson for Labour axing the historic VAT exemption for private schools and introducing a 20% rate, expected to raise £9bn for the education budget, but not ringfenced for hiring teachers specifically. However, there is an ongoing teacher recruitment crisis, with the number of teachers shrinking by 2,000 in the last year, according to the latest government statistics. …