Boris Johnson’s Partygate scandal is undermining efforts to teach “decency and honesty” in schools, a union boss has said in a blistering attack on the government.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), will use a speech on Friday to accuse the prime minister of “misleading” the nation over Downing Street parties.
The schools’ leader believes that “political failure” at the top of government had led to a breakdown in trust and made the job of teachers in setting standards of behaviour more difficult.
“The first things [taught in school] are self-regulation, good behaviour, decency, honesty and integrity. Things that are hard to observe in the UK government right now,” Mr Whiteman will say.
Attacking Mr Johnson personally, Mr Whiteman will say: “For the prime minister of the country to mislead us about it, repeatedly, is unforgivable, and clearly in breach of the standards of our democratic institutions.”
The NAHT chief will add: “If we cannot trust our leaders to tell the truth about cake, how can we trust that we will be told the truth about war?
“How can we trust that we will be told the truth about refugees, how can we trust that we will be told the truth about the economy, the progress of the pandemic … or the government’s ambitions for education?”
Mr Whiteman believes Partygate “matters” to the teaching profession because “young people can see this playing out before their very eyes”.
He added: “Schools’ efforts to make sure young people understand the basics of self-regulation, good behaviour, decency, honesty and integrity become so much more difficult against that backdrop.”
Mr Johnson will face a parliamentary investigation after MPs agreed last week to probe claims he misled parliament about parties held during Covid lockdown curbs.
MPs on the privileges committee will investigate whether he is in contempt of parliament with his repeated denials in the Commons that any rules had been broken.
Mr Johnson has already been fined once by Metropolitan Police for attending his own birthday celebration in June 2020. He is thought to have been at up to six of the 12 possible rule-breaking events being considered by Scotland Yard.
The NAHT leader with also use the teaching union’s annual conference on Friday to criticise the government’s record on welcoming refugees from Ukraine and elsewhere – rejecting the idea that ministers could police political issues in schools.
“Like the rest of us, young people see on the television every day the appalling scenes from Ukraine. And before that, the difficult scenes from Afghanistan and the difficult scenes from Syria,” he will tell the conference.
“They see refugees, desperate humans, arriving on our shores in rubber boats from France. And they also see the complete lack of compassion, the complete lack of humanity demonstrated by our government in the way we deal with these issues. Young people are not stupid.”
