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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Nadeem Badshah

Tory MP told to ‘get a grip’ for using Holocaust poem to criticise smoking ban

Esther McVey Smoking Starmer Wes Streeting Holocaust
Esther McVey
Esther McVey’s post on X was criticised by the health secretary, Wes Streeting, and the Board of Deputies of British Jews called it ‘repugnant’. Photograph: Michael Mayhew/Sportsphoto/Allstar

The Conservative MP Esther McVey has been urged to “get a grip” after she posted a poem about the Holocaust to criticise government plans to introduce outdoor smoking bans.

McVey, the MP for Tatton and a former cabinet minister, posted on X the words of Martin Niemöller’s 1946 poem First They Came, about inaction from within Germany against the Nazis.

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