Jacqui Smith peerage

🙄

There may be, but that's not the point. It's about inexperience in government and needing to hit the ground running.

Did that memos existance ever get proven? It was alleged at a Tommy Robinson rally. Then later on it was repeated by Nazir Afzal, who had a problem with the link to the men being Muslim and also opposed the new proposals to hold terror suspects for 42 days, as well as similar proposals. He did say that the alleged language was out of the ordinary. It all seemed very confused. So have they now shown that the allegations were true?
Also Vallance refused to say that the lock down breaking by the Tories, the meeting up with the bit on the side, the car journey etc was wrong. I suppose it makes him a useful puppet, with credible qualifications.

Oh dear. If this had been a Tory, every Labour cheerleader on MN would be shouting about corrupt Tory scum. Usual double-standards from Labour. They’re really not any better than any other party when it comes to honesty and decency.

i remember Smith’s time in government well. She was useless. Her downfall was cheating expenses. The husband’s porn film thing wasn’t a mistaken expenses claim IIRC but a leak from within the cable company. That’s the one thing I was on her side about: that was private information that should never have been published.

All I can say about Jacqui Smith is that she is incredibly nice. I worked with the extended Labour party including through the referendum and she was one of few people who listened, looked out for younger colleagues and had a warmth about her. I'm not surprised to learn that she was a teacher.

Glad to hear she is divorced from whoever it was - I hadn't realised that was Jacqui Smith, but I can see why she will be valuable at education starting now, as they have to sign off on the teacher's pay review.

Aye I bet the grooming gangs did as well.
Free rein to rape young girls
What's not to like?

YABU in my opinion.

I’m a big Jacqui fan and I love her podcast with Iain Dale. It’s very funny and brilliant to have an older women commenting on politics rather than all the ‘centrist Dad’ podcasts.

I think it’s great that an older female experienced politician is returning to Government.

This Labour Government despite planning HoL reform needs more Labour peers to get legislation through.

Jacqui has been very active in helping other women to get elected through Labour women’s network and has done a lot of media for Labour on eg GMB and other daytime shows.

There are also inaccuracies regards the expenses scandal.

I think it’s more nuanced. The expense scandal arose partially due to the system.

As I understand it her husband ran her constituency office and did heavy lifting parenting to allow her career to progress. It was ‘normal’ for the political wife to do this and there were no rules against employing family members. Her ex- husband drafted the expense claims and included the full broadband bill which had the porn films on it by mistake - this cost her her career.

With regards to the house I looked into the report on this - she co-owned with her sister and at one time Ministers were told it it was accepted/recommended that their London home was their primary residence. It seem that unlike a lot of male MPs who are Dads Jacqui made big efforts to go back to her constituency after late nights when it would have made more sense to stay in London- juggling being a working Mum. This made a difference when the number of nights spent in each was totted up.

(Set my account up again to post this as felt sad at a lot of the posts on here. I genuinely have nothing to do with Labour nor do I know Jacqui!)

FML. She was MY teacher.
I mean she was an ok teacher but a shit MP.
She's making £££££ off NED positions ever since the porn thing.

There are more people in Keir Starmer's Cabinet with previous experience at that level than there are left in the commons who were in Johnson's last Cabinet.

so? So was jacqui smiths political career. Which ended by her resignation over the expenses scandal

shocking that she has been managing an NHS trust too. No wonder the NHS is in such a state

Of course he isn’t different. Have you listened to anything he said? He squirms around and outright lies when asked what is a woman. Claims he’s a great pal of Rosie Duffield and meets her all the time (she hasn’t met him at all for years). When asked why he supported Corbyn he lies some more. I don’t trust him at all.

im not saying he’s necessarily any worse than the rest but he’s no better either

It’s something that she did. She claimed expenses when she shouldn’t have and ripped off the taxpayer. She was claiming her family home was her second home so she could get us all to pay for it on expenses. Pretty corrupt.

But here she is again. New Labour is the same as the old

Different, not lower.

Totally agree with this. I’m very cynical of all politicians but I liked Keir Starmer and gave him the benefit of the doubt. His talk of putting the country before politics seemed like a breath of fresh air after the shitshow of the last 14 years. Then… this. And I’m now feeling let down and a bit stupid that I believed Starmer might be different.

I am extremely unhappy about her peerage/ government appointment. These were announced yesterday, hence the post and subsequent comments today.

it may be that you have lower standards than I do dear ? 🤷‍♀️

The events you’re fulminating about were 15 years ago, dear.

It wasn’t 15 years ago, dear. Her appointment was made yesterday

Calm down, dear. It was 15 years ago.

“Every little thing” ???? She claimed over £100K expenses for her family home from US !!!

And as for Farage, I despise him! I stayed up all night celebrating Labour’s win, which is why I feel so let down by this appointment.

Exactly this. The posters on her scrutinising every little thing smacks of Farage's threat to come after Labour and of course they'll pick the women.

It wasn’t her husband who claimed expenses for the family home - it was her!!!

She inadvertently claimed for his porn viewing amongst the general household expenses. The “porn” isn’t the issue! It’s the fact that a Labour Home Secretary thought that it was ok to make the taxpayer pay for her family home rather than pay for it from her Cabinet salary plus the £40K her husband was getting from the taxpayer

Well she has experience in education (junior education secretary and schools minister as well as being a former teacher)and experience in government 🤷‍♀️ What other skin in the game might we expect?

I think the problem is her moral failings rather than her qualifications!

It seems odd to think a woman’s career should be blighted for all time because of something her now ex husband did 15 years ago.

She was a teacher for years. She had a senior position on education in the Blair years. She was the first female Home Secretary.

i listen to a podcast she did and she comes across as sensible, warm and intelligent. And also very normal. She is divorced from that husband and has been chairing NHS foundations I believe. I actually think that she is a great choice.

Didn't she have to resign because her and her husband got caught with their hands in the till? Or was it porn? Can't remember now, but she's 'disgraced'.

How come these people always fall upwards?

This will come back to bite Starmer. What was he thinking?