to thank Emily Thornberry profusely

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She has just shown how much Labour detest the aspirational working class, the swingiest of swing voters. Labour will be hit with this again and again and again; ever denial and denunciation will just bring Labour's true views to a wider audience. Fundamentally, it will only reinforce the undeniable fact that Miliband's centre of gravity is firmly ensconced in Islington.

She has made a Tory/UKIP coalition, perhaps the best possible electoral outcome, much more likely. Thank you Emily!

She came to my DCs' school some time back. Her 'interest' in what they were doing was patently for show and not a convincing one at that. She sat fiddling with her phone all the way through a (short) performance the kids put on, only jumping to attention when people applauded at the end. She left me enraged at her rudeness and general attitude. The fact that people could put this interpretation on the photo she posted on Twitter does not surprise me in the least.

And this 'I'm a working class girl' nonsense is rubbish. She keeps her own kids away from the hoi-polloi and in private schools I understand. If she does good and valuable work in the legal sphere, then fair play to her. She should stick to that. Labour frontbench material she is not. She absolutely personifies the justified perception that Labour top-brass are wealthy, metropolitan, out-of-touch career politicians who don't actually give much of a stuff for the public, or the on-the-ground activists in their own party.

Labour won't win the next general election - and I for one (having been born and raised on an east london council estate) won't be sorry.

Cameron has said this on BBC news, about whether he would ask a cabinet minister to resign if they had tweeted picture:

Absolutely. Let’s be clear: Emily Thornberry is one of Ed Miliband’s closes allies and aides, and effectively what this means is Ed Miliband’s Labour party sneers at people who work hard, who are patriotic and who love their country. And I think that’s completely appalling.

That is some full on extrapolation there!

Precisely, ScrambledSmegs. I live near her and I've seen plenty of England flags flying on houses. To claim it was something she'd never seen before ('there were 3 of them!' ) is just patent nonsense, unless she's really trying to convince us she goes round her own bloody constituency with her eyes closed.

When I heard about this I felt she might have done it on purpose as Labour might be going to far left for her. Hell she would eligible for the mansion tax!
However no great loss for the Labour party she has always come across as smug, patronising and very middle class to me. Not that there is anything wrong with being mc just disputing the being brought up on a council estate idea. I would say the same about Dianne Abbott can't take to her either.
I will be voting for Ed and I hope he stays to the left.

"She is now being persecuted not for what she said, but for what other people have decided she meant"

Agree with this. The whole thing is absolutely barking.

And can I just point out, that given the narrative UKIP are trying to sell us about how you can't talk about immigration etc, let's compare these two hoo-hahs:

Mark Reckless suggests turfing out all foreigners and is duly elected.

Thornberry tweets a pic that mildly implies plastering your house in England flags is undesirable; instant resignation.

I look at all the MPs who have got away with supporting the notion of leaving migrants to drown, who have got away with all kinds of horrendous things, and I look at IDS, who laughed openly when the plight of a woman and her child who were trying to avoid being murdered by her ex came up in the Commons chamber.

And yet it's Emily Thornberry - who has put a great deal of work into making sure working-class people on poverty incomes aren't pushed into further debt by tackling Wonga - who gets to resign.

Ain't no justice in this world.

We need a real left wing party, a left wing version of UKIP that isn't full of millionaire, London-centric, Oxbridge, chattering class "intellectuals". Seriously, Labour hasn't represented socialist values since liar Blair got into power.

Oh, and a Tory MP tweeted about the "scruffiest house in Feltham" having a Vote Labour poster in the window, but apparently that's just fine.

One rule for them...

killerlego is there something wrong with being "intellectual"?

everything that paleodad and hackmum said x 10

"Aspirational working class"??

Is that the latest patronising catchphrase for us?

I don't know the man whose house was pictured. I do know the man who lives in the house decorated like it on our council estate. He is the worst kind of bigoted racist and I'd be appalled if he was held up as some sort of role model.

She keeps her own kids away from the hoi-polloi and in private schools I understand.

bobthebuddah that's not true. The school her kids go to is a state academy.

Archery surely we aren't surprised at snotty views from a Tory?

Who the heck are you to dictate what .people can post?

1. Somebody with a brain
2. Somebody who was beaten up by the National Front.
3. Somebody who doesn't support UKIP
4. Somebody who is really bored with the crap posted by two people in particular about UKIP.
5. Somebody who isn't actually trying to dictate but is merely stating the fact that what they would actually prefer is not to have racist/sexist shit in their faces, having suffered the consequences.

Sadly I thought hackmum and Paleodad's posts were the sort of heads in sand that have harmed Labour in the past.

I agree Thornberry has a lot to offer, just not to white van man I guess!

ArcheryAnnie, I stand corrected, to an extent. If you're referring to Dame Alice Owen, that is most definitely not an academy and very, very hard to get into via one of the few places available to Islington kids. Does she have other children at a local academy then?

Well, no, but that tweet from the Tory didn't get wall-to-wall coverage on the BBC's flagship radio current affairs programme!

It might be posh, it might be hard to get into, and it might be selective (I don't know), but it is definitely an academy, bobthebuddha.

I grew up on a council estate and my parents and their friends would have died rather than stick a flag (any flag) out the window. My grannie who grew up in the slums of Edinburgh would have called it "common". I guess times have changed or maybe we were all working class snobs.

I really don't know why's she's resigned, MPs have done far worse and clung on like leeches.

If Emily Thornberry didn't want the tweet left open to interpretation she should have included a comment that explicitly articulated what interpretation she wanted people to take from it. However, that's probably impossible so political nous should have meant she didn't tweet it.

Also is it normal/acceptable to tweet a picture of someone's house and their vehicle with the index number clearly visible? To make the owner of the house and van so easily identifiable and traceable is wrong, he is now being used by the media something he never asked for.

Snotty Tory is not newsworthy!

Emily T's tweet like Brown's "bigoted woman" tirade, surprises some people who still think the Labour Party have working class people's interests at heart. So it's newsworthy.

Maybe the modern Labour party could change it's name to break with the past and save itself the hassle of appearing respectful to those some MPs and commentators despise.

I think Dame Alice Owen's is an academy.

Louise in that case I'm a working class snob who wouldn't sport a flag too, I only admit that on an anonymous site. Would I judge my neighbour or assume motive, no. Live and let live was the mantra I was brought up on. Commentingon it is the gaffe.

yes it's fine for a tory to tweet that the 'scruffiest house' he'd seen in the area had a 'vote Labour poster in the window' - that's fine

YABU for assuming what she said reflects every single Labour politician and party members view though - a bit of a leap there to score a point

but if you want to thank her that's your choice

UKIP are a one trick pony and I'm sure they will enjoy their 15 mins