RICHARD MADELEY SPARKS BACKLASH AS GMB VIEWERS SLAM 'DISRESPECTFUL' STRIKE COMMENTS

Good Morning Britain presenters Richard Madeley and Susanna Reid were joined by joint general secretary of the National Education Union, Kevin Courtney, on Wednesday morning to discuss the impact of the strikes. However, viewers of the show slammed Richard for being "disrespectful" and "rude" towards Kevin.

Kicking off their debate, Richard asked: "Did you inform your teachers not to inform the head teachers if they were going on strike today?"

Kevin explained: "We told them they had the right to do that because we have obeyed every part of the very strong anti-union laws in this country.

"People who are going on strike do not have to inform the employer beforehand, that division is there to stop potential intimidation.

"Not that we think that would happen in schools, but that is a right that people who are going on strike have and we told them they had that right."

Keen to know more about what information teachers had been told about striking, Richard continued: "I saw two separate parents who approached me yesterday.

"They know I do the show, they recognise me, and they came up and one couple said they support your action, they think you should be paid more.

"But they are furious that they don't know this morning whether their school is going to be open or not because they can't plan.

"Why isn't it fair to let parents know if their school is going to be affected this morning? Because millions of them don't."

"I think parents should have been informed," Kevin expressed. "We told headteachers how many NEU members we had at the school and told them that we thought they should plan on that basis.

"The government have been putting enormous pressure on headteachers to get nursery nurses to replace striking nursery teachers and I think that causes a great deal of uncertainty.

"We think that headteachers should have acted on the basis that NEU members would be on strike."

Susanna also jumped in and admitted: "My children during the pandemic were all in state school, all of them, in what I thought was full-time education.

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"And they all missed out because of lockdown. Now I am very supportive of teachers but for children to miss out on more education because of strike action... what are we doing to our children's education?"

Kevin hit back: "I agree with you but my point is that children's education is being disrupted every day since the pandemic.

"Now that we have passed the ballot thresholds, they are beginning to talk. We don't want to take another day of strike action."

Fans of the show were left furious with Richard's line of questioning, with Louise Pallot writing on Twitter: "Please get rid of patronising Madley he's so unprofessional #GMB."

Amy Thomas commented: "You. Are. So. Rude. Richard. Who the hell does this guy think he is!? #GMB."

@MarieMarie19781 expressed: "How dare @richardm56 talk to this teacher the way he is? it's just rude. I can't watch. @GMB #GMB."

@VintageFairFan stated: "@gmb presenter being incredibly rude to certain interviewees but not others. Horrendous bias #GMB."

Kirstine Scott slammed: "Patronising, rude a***hole!! Who does Richard think he is talking to someone like that.. #gmb." (sic)

Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV.

2023-02-01T08:27:08Z dg43tfdfdgfd