Labour criticises Badenoch over Gestapo remark in schools funding row

Kemi Badenoch singled out Bridget Phillipson at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, 24 June 2026, calling the education secretary a “spiteful class warrior” after Labour attacked her use of Nazi-era language. The Conservative leader later stood by her comment that Phillipson had “acted like a Gestapo officer” over the government’s decision to remove the VAT exemption for private schools.

The row grew out of Labour’s plan to end the tax break and use the money to help fund more teachers in state schools. Badenoch raised the issue in an interview with Tim Shipman for The Spectator, arguing that the policy was being used to punish families who pay for private education rather than to strengthen state schools.

The Commons session quickly turned hostile. Speaker Lindsay Hoyle reprimanded Badenoch during the exchange, and Phillipson and Labour colleague Liz Kendall confronted her afterwards in the Commons lobby. Labour argued the comparison was unacceptable because the Gestapo was the Nazi secret police, and cast the episode as another sign of deteriorating political standards in Westminster.

Phillipson responded first on social media, saying Badenoch had compared her to a Gestapo officer and accusing the Conservative leader of “losing her head” and “sinking lower and lower”. On BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday, 25 June 2026, Phillipson said she would wear the insult on a T-shirt if it helped lift half a million children out of poverty. James Cleverly said he would not have used Badenoch’s language, but could understand her explanation of what she meant.