Carol Vorderman has condemned LBC presenter Nick Ferrari for using “humiliating” language to describe parents who are unable to afford toothbrushes and toothpaste amid the rising cost of living.
Speaking on his LBC radio show on Monday morning (6 February), Ferrari responded to new research that revealed four out of five teachers in the UK have given oral hygiene products to students.
He said: “If you are a mum and, or a dad, and you haven’t got money to buy your child a toothbrush, you should never have become a parent in the first place.”
Ferrari has been widely criticised for his comments on social media, with some describing it as “morally repugnant” and lacking in “compassion and humanity”.
Responding to a Twitter clip of Ferrari’s comments, Vorderman replied: “I grew up in poverty and language like this is humiliating.
“My mum (three kids and five part-time jobs) could only afford one tub of hot water per week. Sunday night a few inches of hot water in the bath and we’d take it in turns to wash quickly. No money for heating/clothes but she was a great mum.”
The TV personality was praised for sharing her story, prompting others to tell their own.
“Same here. Mum heated water (and cooked) on a camping stove after going up and down 72 steps multiple times to fill a bucket from the stand pipe (only water in the building). Next to the only toilet for seven one-room flats,” one person said.
Another wrote that Ferrari’s comments were “a simplistic and very insulting attitude to all parents struggling financially”, adding: “Such views are held by people financially well set up who have no idea, or forgot what it is to struggle.
“I sometimes went two days with no food in [my] early 20s. And what if a parent loses their job?”
Elsewhere in the show, Ferrari said he could buy two toothbrushes for 25p in Asda and added that parents who can’t afford that are “spending their money in the wrong way”.
The exchange comes after a survey of secondary school teachers by hygiene poverty charity Beauty Banks and the British Dental Association found that a large proportion (81 per cent) of teachers say some children in their classrooms have no access to toothpaste.
Nearly half (41 per cent) of respondents say the lack of oral hygiene leads to these children being socially excluded at school. One assistant head teacher in Lewisham told the survey that some students wore face masks to hide their mouths.
Household budgets have been squeezed over the past 12 months, with the UK’s rate of inflation rising over 10 per cent in December, according to the Office for National Statistics. Prices in UK shops have risen to record highs as food inflation pushed rates even higher to 13.8 per cent in January.
