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Helen Goodman finds herself in hot water over Jeremy Hunt tweet

At this year’s Tory conference Jeremy Hunt defended the government’s tax credit cuts, claiming they would make the British people work as hard as the Chinese. While Hunt has since claimed that his comments were misinterpreted, tonight Labour’s Helen Goodman hit out at the Health Secretary for the comments. She says if things are so great in China then why did Hunt’s wife Lucia — who is from Xi’an, China — move to Britain:

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Given that the personal dig hardly fits in with Jeremy Corbyn’s promise of ‘a new kind of politics’, Labour supporters have been quick to call on Goodman to apologise. Speaking on Westminster Hour this evening, Lady Basildon — the Labour peer — said Goodman should say sorry.

Still, this is just one in a long line of blunders for the outspoken Labour MP.

  • Goodman made the headlines earlier this year after she wrote an article backing Yvette Cooper in the Labour leadership election. In an article for the Huffington Post, Goodman said she would back Cooper because ‘as a working mum, she understands the pressures on modern family life’. With many taking this  to be a dig at the childless Liz Kendall, Kendall’s campaign manager said it showed a ‘paucity of intellectual argument’.
  • Last year she found herself in the news after she confused her constituency village Ingleton — in County Durham — for a village of the same name in North Yorkshire. This then led to embarrassment when she brought up facts about the Yorkshire village 70 miles away while giving a speech to her constituents.

Mr S suspects this won’t be the last we hear from Goodman on the matter.

Update: Goodman has now said she ‘absolutely totally’ apologises for her China comment:

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