to let you know what Tulip Siddiq MP said to a pregnant journalist? *title was edited by MNHQ*

[pisacake]

She is the granddaughter of first President of Bangladesh, and niece of current PM, and refused to answer questions about human rights in Bangladesh saying you need to 'be very careful' about questioning me, before saying to the producer "Thanks for coming Daisy, hope you have a great birth, because child labour is hard! See you!"

twitter.com/Hayley_Barlow/status/935600828592816128

The arrogant and accusative warning off of a journalist asking questions is a far bigger issue for democracy.

The whole exchange was nasty. Siddiq came across really really badly.

I loathe the phrase "playing the race card" but there's no other way to describe what she was doing with that journalist.

She is a disgrace on that video.

You'll probably see a lot of Labour MP says " labour is hard" in the next election campaign.

Entitled, bratty, champagne socialist of the worst kind. But they ❤️ her up in Hampstead.
She didn't win by much, it's very marginal here, and at the previous election I think she only won by 22 votes! Glenda always had a fight on her hands but I had a bit of respect for her.* The Tory opponent in the last election, Claire Louise Leyland, is a hard working local councillor who is very well know to residents and really gets involved in local issues.* I didn't vote for either as I was in A&E on Election Day

Wow, that really wasn't her finest moment. I actually do think she's being put in an unfair position here - do we think Theresa May's niece should be making phone calls to her auntie about justice issues? - but her response is pretty terrible and while perhaps not outright threatening I can't see how that final comment can be seen as anything other than nasty.

Her claim to not know the case they were talking about was also extraordinarily disingenuous.

Yes, she’s actually lying by denying she knows who he is. Then the whole “Be careful what you say” is absolutely disgusting.

Who the heck does she think she is?

There probably is a plausible response highlighting the case for not interfering that she could have made.

Her instincts didn't take her there though.

Theresa May's hypothetical niece didn't accompany her on a visit to Putin though.

I really don’t understand why she wouldn’t appear at least to engage with the questions about this man and even feign interest. She must have known that trying to evade any responsibility would make her look terrible. Who has said what to her to make her risk her own political standing here?

I've listened to this several times and I can't think it was meant in a sisterly way.

"She didn't win by much, it's very marginal here, and at the previous election I think she only won by 22 votes!"

Red Jezza is #1 in London ATM, and she won by 15,560 votes in 2007. Anywhere Z1/Z2 got massive swings to Labour

The seat is massively safe as long as Momentum/Corbyn remain a movement.

Davros her majority in 2015 was just 1138.
Her majority in 2017 increased to 15,560. That's not marginal!

Glenda Jackson's majority in 2010 was 42 votes which (I think) made it the most marginal seat in the country.

Then they changed the constituency boundary and in swept Labour. No longer Hampstead and Highgate but now Hampstead and Kilburn and with it lots of immigrants and natural Labour voters. In sweeps Tulip to mop them up!

It was a huge win for her. And completely unexpected. Her team were shocked. They were hoping to hang onto the seat but a win like that was not predicted. I know this because my DH is a Labour Party member and former activist in the area (thank god no more) and knew the team campaigning for Tulip. He didn't vote for her as he was disgusted by her candidacy. He didn't vote at all - pretty bad when you're a member of a party wouldn't you say? I voted for Claire Louise. She would have been a great asset to the area. I felt a lot of support for the Tories around Hampstead during the election but I guess it didn't translate to votes. I spent a lot of Saturday mornings in the village and never once saw Tulip manning a stall or canvassing.

She spent the election in Brent. (Brondesbury Kilburn Q Park)

Tulip was one of the MPs who nominated Jeremy Corbyn. She later withdrew her support and resigned from his front bench.

One irritating thing in the aftermath of this exchange of words is that both parties have complained to the police. I just despise this call to external authority. There's a scooter crime wave going on in London isn't there? And cuts to front line services.

I'd complain about her standards of behaviour both to parliament and her constituency Labour party.

Oh hang on I have just read channel 4 man complained to Labour party but that the MP in turn has complained to the police..

The boundaries were changed before 2010, which is when Glenda Jackson won the seat, marginally.

The effect of the boundary changes was to send off Highgate (which is luvvy Labour) to a different consituency, and acquire bits of Brent East which at that time was held by Sarah Teather for the Lib Dems, but in reality the bits coming in were essentially Labour (Queens Park and Kilburn) & Tory (Brondesbury Park), even if Tories in the Brent East bits had been voting Lib Dem previously.

In 2015, when Tulip arrived the seat was marginal and she didn't do particularly well in comparison to her party, with just a 1% swing.

In 2017 the Tories were wiped out in anywhere vaguely Londonish so she just rode that wave.

I'm not sure she's had a fortune distinct from the Labour party's.

That "be very careful what you say" comes across as extremely threatening, in an "I'm connected" sort of way.

And ofc that is exactly why she is being asked to do something. Duh!

I don't think this is about poor judgment being taken unawares by a question. She has clearly had a lot of notice that this question will keep coming up. She has undoubtedly looked into it, and decided that it is not in her best interests as a relative of the Bangladeshi regime to do anything. This clearly trumps her best interests as a UK MP in this case, which leaves me wondering what and how much she thinks she would lose by becoming involved.

I was only aware of her as a name/number before, the clear outright lie, and the threatening to be careful, and the attempt to obliterate all other speakers with a ranting race card have left me hoping she loses her place as an MP for this. Sad because I would like to see more women and more varied race representation in parliament.

Nadine Dorries just raised it in PMQs.

I think it’s difficult. I certainly didn’t warm to Tulip Siddiq in this clip but I do think she’s in a very difficult position - of course, she could vocally condemn human rights abuses in Bangladesh, but she can’t really be expected to use her family position to influence how her Aunt runs a country can she?! Surely if her Aunt tried to influence UK politics because of thier family relationship we’d be in uproar about corruption wouldn’t we?!

I also don’t think she’s “playing the race card” (I loathe that expression). She is pointing out that her influence is in UK politics (where she was elected) and not in Bangladesh

She's quite possibly more influential in Bangladesh than the UK. A backbench opposition MP isn't that influention tbh.

influential

But the point is she shouldn’t be influential in Bangladeshi politics - she hasn’t been elected there. To suggest a family member can use thier personal connection and influence to sway govt policy is to condone corruption.