Tory MP James Daly has just blamed the struggles of any children in his constituency on their “crap parents”.
Speaking to the i newspaper, the MP for Bury North said: “When you think about the family, it’s about stability.
“Most of the kids who struggle in Bury are the products of crap parents and so what do we do to try to address that issue?
“On the left, it would just be we’ll throw money at this and hope something sticks, somebody like me thinks about this more fundamentally.”
He added that politicians need to be “brave enough” to say such things.
Figures from the Department For Work and Pensions showed that 22.8% of children in the Bury area were living in poverty for the year ending April 2022, up from 18.9% in 2014-15 when comparable records began.
James Frith, the previous Labour MP for Bury MP who is hoping to return to the seat in the next general election, slammed his successor’s remarks.
He said: “It is revealing to see how little James Daly thinks of his own constituents.
“Rather than insulting the parenting skills of people in Bury, he should look closer to home.
“Over the last 13 years, the Conservatives have failed to grow our economy, protect our public services or provide opportunities for young people in Bury and across the UK.”
Labour have been leading in the polls nationally recently, and won Daly’s constituency back in 2017.
Daly secured his seat by the smallest majority in Britain four years ago, winning just 105 more votes than his opponent in the 2019 general election.
However, the Tory MP told the i that he has “come across less than a handful” of 2019 Conservative voters looking to move to Labour – and that there was a greater risk of losing supporters to Reform, which Nigel Farage founded in 2019.
Daly also supported the controversial idea that Farage could rejoin the Conservatives, 30 years after he left and formed UKIP (he left that party in 2018).
Daly said: “I know Nigel. I think Nigel is basically a right-of-centre Conservative. He seems to share many of our values like investing in northern towns so why not?”
However, he added that the “challenge for Nigel” to become more “mainstream” would be to “come away from being this person who can say what he wants”.