Wigan's MP has defended her decision to label new US president Joe Biden a 'woke guy'.
Lisa Nandy, the shadow foreign secretary, praised the attitude of America's incoming leader in an interview on BBC One's Andrew Marr Show this morning.
She was asked why she referred to him as 'woke' - a term which is sometimes used to describe politicians with liberal social views but can be used by critics to suggest a person is overly sensitive to social issues.
Mrs Nandy said Mr Biden's attitude was 'the sort of leadership frankly that we’re lacking here in the UK'.
She said: “Joe Biden is somebody who knows exactly who he is and what he stands for and he’s very comfortable with it.
"He’s happy to stand up for and fight for the working classes in America and to stand up for minority rights.
"He stands up against aggression from America’s adversaries and he looks out to the world and wants America to be an open, self-confident, tolerant country that plays a role on a world stage.
“You can call it woke, you can call it progressive, you can call it what you like, but the important thing is that under his leadership, America is self-confident, it’s comfortable in its own skin, it’s a reliable partner, it’s the sort of leadership frankly that we’re lacking here in the UK.”
Mrs Nandy also criticised Housing and Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick for an opinion piece he penned in The Telegraph last week which claimed the government would 's ave Britain's statues' from 'woke militants'.
She said the government appeared to be trying to start a 'culture war' over the term woke rather than focusing on genuine problems.
"The whole country came together united in condemnation of the vandalism of the Churchill statue. There is overwhelming public support for that statue, the only person, as my colleague David Lammy said, who kept going on about it was the Prime Minister," the Wigan MP said.
What do you think of the MP's comments? Have your say below
“The government has spent significant amounts of time since the PM got himself into a complete mess over whether Joe Biden was woke, trying to dig up scurrilous stories about me, most of which you won’t see in the newspapers this weekend because they’re not true.
“I just think this sort of nonsense is ridiculous, we’ve always stood up for the armed forces, we’ve always stood up for this country.
"When I first got appointed as shadow foreign secretary I said that national security would be our top priority.”
She added: “I’d really just urge the Government to get on with the task in hand, get a grip on this virus, start to rebuild our economy and stop dividing this country, start bringing us back together, these silly games are just not worthy of a Government.”
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