Carol Vorderman hits back at claim she’s a ‘snob’ following Johnny Mercer row

Carol Vorderman has issued a scathing statement to a Member of Parliament who called her a “snob” via social media earlier this week.

The former Countdown presenter took to Twitter today (July 11), to call out Jacob Young, the Conservative MP for Redcar.

In response to being called “a horrible little snob”, the 62-year-old wrote: “Must be doing something right.

“My words about anti-foodbank MP (sic) and his wages being twisted by the Tories today into trying to label me an education ‘snob”….what a joke…

“They can’t think of anything else to have a go at…. (sic) However, I’ll let my record in education do the talking,” she said.

Carol then listed off how she has helped “500,000 children with their maths during lockdown”, gave out bursaries to young people and “schools with disadvantaged backgrounds”, and helped David Blunkett to introduce the Numeracy Hour.

The mum-of-two then stated that she has always been “a believer in encouraging young people to achieve their best, in whichever way that comes around, to be strong and happy and confident”.

“Anything else being espoused is offensive, targeted, predictable right-wing nonsense,” she continued.

“PS Tories….this attack won’t work. It just makes us more determined.”

She ended the post by writing: “PPS thanks for all your support…we’ll beat them in the end,” before some of her 821,00 Twitter followers spread the word.

This bold tweet comes after Vorderman posted on the platform last week predicting that the Labour Party would win the Plymouth Moor seat at a general election.

At the time, she wrote: “Gosh, what are arrogant Johnny Mercer ⁦(sic) and his wife going to do for a joint income of £160,000+ plus enormous expenses?

”Not a degree in sight in spite of expensive private education! So who’d employ them?,” she concluded.

Retweeting the statement yesterday, Jacob Young wrote to his 13,500 followers: “I grew up watching this woman on TV.

“I was good at maths and preferred the numbers part of Countdown. A degree wasn’t right for me, so I did an apprenticeship instead.”

He then quoted part of Carol’s original tweet and said: “What a horrible little snob she has exposed herself to be.”

However, fans have flocked to the now-viral sentiment posted by Vorderman to praise the presenter and thank her for “everything she does to help children”.

One Twitter user wrote: “You’re doing amazing things Carol, the fact that they want to stop you clearly shows this. Full support to you.”

A second commented: “Carol in life whenever someone tries to shout you down or say rude things about you it means YOU ARE RIGHT.”

Another said: “Thank you for everything you do to help children understand and love maths. Before I retired from primary school teaching I was a Numbers Count teacher specialising in maths intervention helping children from (sic) Year 1 to Year 6 and loved to see them becoming really happy and confident.”

Elsewhere, another user on the platform responded: “Keep on fighting, Carol! You inspired me when I was at school, not to be ashamed of being a girl who was good at maths, and you are even more inspiring now. Don’t let them get you down!”