to believe Rachel Reeves was crying because

@HauntedMarshmallow this take is completely delulu

Their original policy took it away from pensioners surviving on less than £1k a month. Then they restored it to almost everyone which made no sense at all.

An astute chancellor could have limited WFA to those pensioners with an income lower than the minimum wage. Then at least current workers and pensioners would have seen something closer to parity, and there would have been very little protest.

Tbf 2011 was 14 years ago @ForeverDelayedEpiphany

I mean I looked relatively fresh faced then!

@MerryMaidens It depends if you think the tail should wag the dog. Look at Brexit and the Tories. It will be a disaster. It’s not good and is now a symptom of constituent pester power that MPs give into. I prefer the MPs to get their points across privately but the Labour slt doesn’t listen. Good leaders take the troops with them. They don’t assume everyone will follow regardless but this agitation isn’t a good sign. It’s poor leadership and poor of the rebel MPs. Only in power 1 year and already squabbling.

Far too much emphasis was put on some poorly thought out parts of this bill, but the backbenchers have given RR a hard time by rebelling. She’s barely saving any money. Don’t blame the press. She’s crying because she’s going to be told to raise taxes. She’s going to lose face. If they raise taxes the share prices will tumble. That’s your pension losing money. She doesn’t want to but the backbenchers will force it. New MPs but old Labour.

May I suggest you take up a hobby? Chinwagging about politics is all well and good but speculating about someone’s ‘real’ reason for crying at work is just a bit prurient.

Every statement in your first paragraph is untrue (it’s almost satire)

This. She deserves the most rabid criticism. It’s not about the tears. She is now a figure of hate, which is entirely of her own doing. If she wasn’t crying over her job performance, she absolutely should be. So many lies, so much incompetence, so much irreversible damage. Blood on her hands. She is a catastrophe.

To be fair, we all aged over the last 14 years. Though chancellors and PMs of all stripes do tend to age faster.

MPs don't.usually cry in the House of Commons.
She was an absurd sight.

Oh - I personally disagree he looks older than his age. His diet sounds terrible (burgers and fizzy drinks) but he is tee-total, which is very beneficial for your health obviously. Alcohol is very ageing.

😂

@Muffsies I quite agree, we have seen much worse from other high-profile politicians in the recent past than a bit of emotion at what is obviously a stressful time professionally (and I don’t think we can say it’s not personal, we have no idea what she has going on privately and certainly any time I have had personal issues, work stress is more likely to make me emotional).

I do accept that given her very high profile role it’s not ideal that she seemed emotional, given the way the markets reacted. And this is absolutely something she needs to consider and I’m very sure she is fully aware of. However I think it’s a shame that in this day and age a person under significant pressure at work and/or in their personal lives can still not show any of it publically for fear of being seen as “weak” or less competent somehow. I don’t believe it necessarily says anything at all about her ability to do the job.

Saying Rachel Reeves has falsely claimed to be an experienced economist is laughable @Meadowfinch .

She's certainly a lot more experienced than most previous chancellors of the exchequer.

why would anyone think reform would improve things. whenever they get air time they dig a deep hole under the myth of any policies and repeat slogans with no substance.

There is the Horseshoe Theory which Google AI describes as:

Horseshoe theory, in politics, proposes that the far-left and far-right ideologies, while seemingly at opposite ends of the political spectrum, are actually closer to each other than either is to the political center. This theory suggests that both extremes share characteristics like intolerance, authoritarianism, and a tendency towards extremism.

Agreed, she's aged hugely. This is when she looked quite fresh faced in 2011...

I don’t know, I probably wouldn’t have noticed or paid attention if she’d not been there, but this is unmissable. She should have stayed away until she was in control of herself - and taken the time to let her face go back to normal.

Winter fuel allowance was kept for pensioners on pension credits. IE the poorest

But hey let's restore it for Rod Stewart and Lulu

It was very noticeable that KS and AR completely ignored RR, to me it looked like they knew or were the reason she was crying.

Her performance hasn't inspired confidence in the markets and they don't believe the "personal" BS as we'll see on the markets tomorrow.

At this rate Reform will be in by Christmas!

A bit like a certain referendum….

You can’t possibly say that OAP are more vulnerable. You cannot just lump a whole group like that. And that’s where the issue lies, the public doesn’t think longer than 0.1sec about things and forms their opinion off their split second reaction.

Poor Theresa May I mean I completely disagreed with Brexit and wasn’t keen on May as a politician, but she worked hard trying to negotiate a half decent withdrawal agreement ( even though I criticized at the time)

Oh, the irony.

Doesn't mean they can't revisit policies. Most of the benefits are to parents and in work benefits which could be cut if people had a decent wage. Also pensioners on the wealthy end of the scale, The real villains though are the tax loopholes which the corporate world's accountants sale through costing us billions.

Don't get me started on fagagge. The whole 'charge non doms a one off payment' Also pushing the lie that many of the wealthy have left the country. Repeat a lie long and widely enough and it becomes 'truth'.

Looking at a bbc report I would say it's less black and white than your wiki article @Mounjarorookie and @Bluebellwood129.

edited to add link
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c77r05nx11po