Islington South and Finsbury MP Dame Emily Thornberry and a pupil at St Peter and St Paul’s Primary School in Clerkenwell for the launch of the school’s new free breakfast club

ISLINGTON South and Finsbury MP Dame Emily Thornberry has said Labour do not have a “sexy message” to push as she called on her government to “go faster” and “be clearer” about their vision for the country.

She said the government had failed to explain “that we have a plan or what that plan is”, and blamed slow progress on the fact that “there’s no money”.

Dame Emily’s comments came as she visited St Peter and St Paul’s Primary School in Clerkenwell for their launch of a new free breakfast club, supported by a government scheme that kicked off this month.

The primary in Compton Street, where almost 60 per cent of pupils are on free school meals, dished out watermelon slices, buttered toast, and blueberries from 7.30am.

The breakfast club – which was previously run by volunteers – can now expand thanks to the government funding, teachers said, providing working parents with free childcare, as well as giving the pupils a healthy start to the day.

Maria Bennett, the school’s business manager, told the Tribune: “We were running it mainly with staffing volunteers because there wasn’t the funding.

“Now, with the funding, it’s more secure. We’ve had about 20 or 30 children using it, but the aim is to bring that up to 100, so we will have in each class a little breakfast station.”

She added: “We know it helps for working parents. We see more parents going into work now because it’s free childcare.

“Another aim is with attendance – we have problems with attendance, and that helps bridge that gap for learning. Some of our children who do come in without breakfast are not ready to learn”.

Dame Emily said that the wealth inequality in the area was “shocking”, and that it was “the job of politicians, of the voluntary sector, of the churches to essentially keep this community together”.

“There is no question that Islington has Georgian squares and cappuccino bars and the chattering classes, but we also have the other extreme and we’re really mixed”, she told the Tribune.

“This particular school covers the area around which is estates in one of the most deprived parts of the borough, right next to the City of London.”

The MP added that the government should be trying to tell a story about how Labour was helping schools like these, where children now have access to free lunches, free breakfasts, and there has been recent investment in a nursery for two-year-olds.

This helps to fill their reception class when primaries across the borough are struggling to enrol enough pupils.

Dame Emily said: “Here is a school where it is happening, but it’s not happening fast enough and they need more, but we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

“It’s just taking a long time, and it is different to how it used to be.”

She added: “People feel we voted Labour, and we voted Labour with such a promise. Where is it?

“It is really frustrating and difficult to sell to people, it is coming, it’s just taking longer than you want.

“It’s not a very sexy message.”