Angela Rayner sacked [shock]

[Youarecountingonme]

So Keir Starmer chooses the one shining light in the labour party. A single mother at sixteen, the most inspiring story to come out of the Labour party. Anyone that has listened to Angela about her struggles to obtain a degree and to better herself. Starmer chooses her as the whipping girl for his failures and has sacked her as co-ordinator. He can't remove her as deputy, but how much longer is that position tenable?
I am genuinely shocked and horrified. The failures of the labour party on are on HIM. He should be resigning.

Absolutely livid. What has the Labour party come to.

Having a baby at 16 is naive and shows a lack of common sense. You cannot possibly be able to support a child and then to boast you are a gm at 35 is really nothing to be proud of. I suspect she thinks that will endear people to her but it really doesn’t.

16 year olds cannot vote and I don’t believe the % of young people voting is great anyway. In the Hartlepool election how many 18-21 year olds voted. Very few I would suspect

I imagine now what we will now see, provided the green party can step up is the educated left wing youngsters Labour would normally rely on moving firmly over to the green party, they will feel more can be done with the a green agenda and that is the future anyway. We might find that put even more pressure on the conservatives in terms of the environment and other facts, and what we might see is the conservatives becoming more of a turquoise than blue, as the young move to push their own priorities forward, and the Greens and Liberals taking up the space Labour used to own perhaps even as the opposition, and I can't think where the Labour voting base is even going to be. If Traditional working class voters vote with conservatives, the young go to the Green party (as my teens will testify this will be growing trend) then I wonder what our political landscape is going to look like in ten years time. Nothing like the blue, red and yellow(ish) we see now.

There is a seismic shift happening.

@Youarecountingonme

You could be right sunflower Some people will never ever truly understand their own privilege raphaellas nor have you even the merest idea of how difficult it is to overcome years and years of piss poor teaching, lack of support, guidance or help. The fact you choose to call her illiterate says more about you than it does about her.

This is exactly the kind of patronising guff from Momentum that turns WC voters off Labour. .

What was Labour's message? Rayner had one job and she failed utterly. I still couldn't tell you what the campaign message was. She is bloody lucky not to be facing a write for some of her comments about the Tory candidate. "Tory Scum" as a slogan didn't work in the 80s and now its not even on trend.

As Chair and the "bridge" to Momentum she should also have done something about Corbynista senior politicians rubbishing the candidate in Hartlepool in the run up to the election. Not only did she have no campaign message but shadow cabinet members rubbishing Labour's candidate in the week before the election should be sacked.

Dh was mourning the loss of Chuka Umunna, maybe he could have turned things around - CU now works as an MD for JP Morgan!!

Right so going into industry and earning good money makes him a class traitor? And you claim to be WC? Momentum really is its own little world.

The op and a handful of others mention a degree. What degree is this? It's not mentioned on her wiki page and I'm sure it would be if it existed.

Personally, I see one of the big problems is Labour voters shifting to Green, as they have in Germany. Obviously that isn't one person's fault

The Greens in Germany are a serious political party and are pragmatic, working with other parties meaningfully. They are a "grown up" political movement in that sense with the benefit of decades in the parliamentary process.

The Greens in the UK are even more buried in identity politics than Labour. The Greens will undoubtedly pick up leftie liberal students and disgruntled Corbyinistas for whom identity politics is top ticket but that won't help the Greens mature as a political movement, if anything the opposite.

It’s because the working class 50 years ago are completely different to the working class today. It’s not split on income lines anymore. People in trades or industrial jobs can easily make more than nurses, teachers, scientists etc. There’s a whole section of society being labelled as “middle class elites” who are in such professions making less than the average U.K. salary. Labour need to capitalise on this and stop caring about the middle class vs the working class or winning back the red wall and just focus on workers, workers rights and pay across the county, regardless of class.

Whilst it was a disastrous night for Labour, they succeeded everywhere with candidates who stood on traditionally old-school economically left and localism platforms. The tories are also decreasing their vote margins in their blue seats in the south. Look at Cambridgeshire. That’s supposed to be true blue and that was a huge shock for the tories, just a seismic shift in cultural values as Hartlepool. Tories also losing major seats in Kent - traditional grammar school county and also the county to feel the first effects of Brexit.

I live in a deprived Coastal town in the South East who has voted Conservative for decades. Same with other coastal constituencies in the area. We still have some of the highest child poverty rates in the country and decaying towns with no investment and working class here forgotten. Lots of coastal towns are like this. Labour have lots of new or disfranchised voters who they can win over.

Don’t forget, in the 2019 election, the Conservatives only increased their vote share by 1.2%. That means for every one labour voter that switched to voting Conservative, there was three that didn’t vote labour but still couldn’t bring themselves to vote Conservative. Labour just need to give them a bold vision and something to believe in to win them back.

Why the Labour Party aren’t talking about housing housing housing and social care - what will be the two biggest problems reaching a critical mass in a decade, I’ll never know. Soon, nobody will have a house they own to sell for their social care so the state bill for care will be astronomical. It will bankrupt the country.

This warrants a meme, if anyone has time and the skills to create one:

Angela made poor choices and got pregnant at 16. Angela calls people nasty names when she doesn’t agree with them. Angela is incompetent. Don’t be like Angela.

I don't agree with Angela Rayner calling anyone 'scum', and I can't stand the shouting and insults from either side. A return to civility is something that is very important to most of us.

I am going to ask how on earth Rayner had any hope of a successful campaign with no real policies to work with? No vision whatsoever of how life might improve under a Labour government. A leader that has had a charisma bypass and a party broken and divided where would you even start? You are asking the impossible to expect her to turn around the LP juggernaut of incompetence. That is why I think it is unfair. It has nothing to do with her intellect, and everything to do with the total absence of Labour leadership and direction in my humble view.

Yes I agree as the Bridge she could have worked harder, but again what a job to be tasked with as things stand. A barely concealed sticking plaster.

I did not call CU a class traitor thank you! Just an observation that the best chance we had of having a great leader to take on Boris Johnson was lost, and is now working elsewhere a long way from the bun fight that is now the LP.
And good on him, because who wants to be waste their talent, youth and ability in a party that is failing so badly. That is now going to be Labour's biggest problem, anyone that has/had the potential to turn its fortunes around is long gone, they are going to find the brightest and best draining away, not wishing to be associated with a party that is in massive (seemingly terminal) decline. It is sad for me. my gps would be turning in their graves watching this spectacle. They have let so many people down.

@HarrietPierce its so annoying that people can't get their facts straight about the Labour leader. Calling him 'posh' when his backgroud is anything but.

Poster on page 5 summed it up. She was foisted upon KS. She is close friends with Rebecca Long-Bailey so it cannot be an easy situation. I think he has been handed a golden opportunity to get rid of her and make her situation untenable. John McDonnell said she was not his choice, Richard Burgon was for Deputy so maybe she is not that hard left.

I personally find her scary and unlikeable. Willing to publicly call people scum. I know nothing of her background but bleating about past issues does not endear her to me. I always thought bully. In a different way to Priti Patel but still one.

I disagree with everything John McDonnell says, but at least he took the blame when things went wrong for Labour. He says KS as leader should take the blame, although JM was happy to do so whilst not actually being the Labour Leader.

The only one in the cabinet who I rate is Richard Ashworth and now there is talk of moving him. He is annoying but also surprisingly human on GMTV.

OP she managed a campaign that performed appallingly. She has been sacked from the campaign position. Perfectly reasonable IMO.

morgth You are absolutely right people are voting not by class anymore but with their own values and to some extent culture. We seem to have moved past class now, and somehow come down to more traditional voters versus cosmopolitan, and even that is a blunt view there are many shades and blending of both.

Labour seem to have no idea this was happening even when the writing was on the wall with the referendum back in 2021. Who is advising them? Could they not see that the movement on the country, the feeling of the country was moving against them? Even the most ardent supporter would struggle to know what the LP even stands for now.

People talk of rebirth, and I hope they are right but I can't see it. It is game over unless they come up with a miracle. They would need to produce Jesus himself walking on water to have any hope now.

If I were a betting type woman I would be going for green all the way.

**2016!!!

While I'm here, I also don't see how coming from a working class background and emerging pregnant at 16 and ill educated is a thing to be praised. Shouldn't we be more impressed with those who came out literate and unhindered by pregnancy.

I came from a working class background, lived in council houses until I married at 20, lived in 12 different houses up to the age of 12, moved schools alot and had 2 disabled parents who couldn't help with homework due to their disabilities. I ended up well educated, literate and too sensible to get pregnant.

I suppose one glaring difference is that I lacked ambition, but maybe ARs ambition is misplaced.

I'm finding the lazy stereotyping of working class people by those who rate AR very annoying.

Inspiring story perhaps, but did people warm to her?

I also think no one really wants a party that hates the British culture, hates British history, is openly hostile towards us and thinks it is racist to feel some/any sense of pride in the country.
For those that are working hard, raising families and trying to leave our children some kind of future, hope and opportunity. Certainly for me the relentless negativity is on the reasons why I have become so fed up with them. Banging on endlessly about the guilt and shame we should all be feeling. The woke agenda has grown to epic proportions, it started out well with the best of intentions but then became ugly and divisive.

We need a brand new set of politics to reflect the change on the ground, to prioritise our needs and ambitions for the future.

People care about the planet, they care about animal welfare and the oceans. They care about the destruction, globalism and loss of core culture. There is no way back to industrial union based parties in my view. Tomorrow is going to look very different, you only have to speak to any young person to know that.

OP, if you are betting on greens, please don’t bet more than a £1. Aside from the Greens being a protest party with no reach, the Tories have parked their tanks on everyone’s lawns - including the greens. The net 0 carbon targets, the switch to electric, offshore wind. British public have no appetite to go any faster than this. This is way faster than some other G8 economies anyway.

And your defense of Rayner really doesn’t make sense. You say the party has no strategic leadership, and ask how is she to blame. Well, she is the deputy leader, perhaps she should try doing a better job, but like others said she is out of her depth. Not only that but it is frankly insulting that the Labour Party puts her up as representation of the North. Is this how Northern women see themselves? Clearly not, as the Hartlepool result and this thread demonstrates. Northern people have higher aspirations and standards than epitomized by the likes of Rayner.

I’ve heard her being interviewed on Radio 4 several times and she came across so incredibly badly I vowed not to vote labour while she was in a senior position. If she lost the deputy role I might consider voting labour.

The George Carlin skits on YouTube about politics are fantastically relevant right now. The idea that voting gives you a voice and is meaningful when in reality it’s all for show to give you the illusion you have a choice and a say in how things are run.

Being pregnant at sixteen is nothing to be ashamed of, and given AR had access to abortions, having the baby was probably the bravest choice to make out of the two. It is not about her, it is about the example she sets. That it is never too late, no matter what your circumstances to turn your life around. I don't know why you have such a problem with it.

As a genuinely WC girl with a difficult childhood, and a patchy education I have spent many years 'making up' for the set backs I had to contend with as a child, it is not easy!!! The number of hurdles just to get on to an even playing field are huge, not to mention the lack of support, in built confidence and solid foundations.

By saying none of this matters, you demean all of us that are still battling away to the starting point, you demean all of us that grow up in poverty, you demean all of us by NOT recognising what Angela Rayner actually means to some people. I don't care if you find her abrasive, I don't care that you don't like her but at the very least you could get behind her efforts to improve her life, as much as she is able to, and that of her child and for the many young girls watching her from afar.

@Youarecountingonme

Being pregnant at sixteen is nothing to be ashamed of, and given AR had access to abortions, having the baby was probably the bravest choice to make out of the two. It is not about her, it is about the example she sets. That it is never too late, no matter what your circumstances to turn your life around. I don't know why you have such a problem with it.

As a genuinely WC girl with a difficult childhood, and a patchy education I have spent many years 'making up' for the set backs I had to contend with as a child, it is not easy!!! The number of hurdles just to get on to an even playing field are huge, not to mention the lack of support, in built confidence and solid foundations.

By saying none of this matters, you demean all of us that are still battling away to the starting point, you demean all of us that grow up in poverty, you demean all of us by NOT recognising what Angela Rayner actually means to some people. I don't care if you find her abrasive, I don't care that you don't like her but at the very least you could get behind her efforts to improve her life, as much as she is able to, and that of her child and for the many young girls watching her from afar.

Well we will have to differ because IMO she didn’t make the brave choice, she made the uniformed and really rather stupid choice. And if young working class girls are seeing her as a role model we really have got a problem.

Everyone should watch George Carlin for sure.

You clearly have no idea what it is like kora so I will leave you with your ignorance. The problem is not AR but the inequality that starts at birth and continues to grow in this country.

OP, it’s not brave, it is what it is. It’s a case of getting on with the consequences of bad choices. What else is there to do? Lots of people make bad choices all the time, there are no medals to be given out. But applauding it is bad for setting an example for future generations.