To feel very sad that Margaret Becket isn't deputy leader of the Labour Party, instead of Angela Rayner?

[MaMaLa321]

I listened to Margaret Becket's speech at the start of the Labour Conference this morning. Reasoned, intelligent and temperate.
(I watched it live, and can't find a link yet - apologies).
Then read the transcript of Angela Rayner's speech at what seemed to be a fringe meeting yesterday, which was the absolute opposite. No reason. No intelligence. Just a rant.
I'm very off the party at the moment, but Beckett made me think again, while Rayner - well - who would that attract, apart from those who were already going to vote Labour (and feel very smug about it in the process)?
Of course, the latter speech gets loads of media coverage, which is just what the Party doesn't need.

Rayner desperately needs a style/image/brand consultant to tone down her rough edges. She has a really powerful story - she has very much risen above a pretty rubbish start - and could tune it carefully to appeal to a much broader base.

I hate to say this as both a woman and a redhead but she really needs to tone down the big hair and ditch the tight/short/bright outfits. There is nothing wrong with either of those things but it won’t get you elected, it alienates the masses and Labour needs to be in power if they want to actually do anything.

For anyone else despairing over Labour I recently listened to “Politically Homeless” by Matt Forde on Audible and found myself nodding along as he made a lot of good points. Written by an ex Labour insider / comedian.

I couldn't be more put off at the story of Angela eating dog food, bathing once a week in water that had previously been used by her Brother, Mother and she was sharing with her sister after lying in a urine soaked bed because her Dad was as shouty as she is.

How is her telling me she wants to have perverts impregnating women and girls as they please, her tales of her eating dog food and her sleeping /bathing in that vomit inducing lifestyle meant to make me like her, she is making me want to hurl and I remember wanting to hurl every time I look at her. Clearly the labour party members want to live like that, the UK public don't, as I say they remind me of gamblers.

She's ridiculous. Eating dog food?? I think a champagne socialist type would be preferable to this kind of nonsense. Again Labour has misread the electorate yet again.

And just to add to the bizarre backstory, isn’t she known to glorify herself as a teenage mother and then her own daughter being a teenage mother. As though that’s the cycle of low aspiration that women should aspire.

@prynaithda

Yvette Cooper or indeed Lisa Nandy would be better than both of them.

I quite liked Nandy until she went full-on TWAW.

I've lost all respect for her now.

We all shared bath water in the 70’s. I shared baths with my siblings. My mum never served dog food though.
I think her background has actually helped rather than hindered her. It’s been an advantage particularly in the Labour Party where the harder your childhood the better ( Tories do this too of course)
We all know whose fathers are bus drivers etc. I heard a quite posh now Labour politician going on about his coal mining grandfather despite the fact he himself was privileged and grew up that way and I did think

Of course she want served dog food and shaving foam - were that even remotely true, then genetically, she’s only good for filter-feeding and NOT running a country.

Why on Earth would she feel such a tall story is remotely believable, endearing or even relatable?

IDGAF about her colourful clothes/big hair - I’m looking for big brains and big visions in my representatives.

And now she’s saying Northern working class people often jovially call each other scum.

YANBU. Rayner is crap and stupid. Not a vote winner.

@Theluggage15

And now she’s saying Northern working class people often jovially call each other scum.

I have lived-in the northwest my entire life the only time i have ever heard people call others scum is when they mean it Shes a Gobshite

I looked it up. Apparently the dog food was because her mother couldn't read the label on the tin. Sounds a bit of a tall 'tail' to me.

@sashagabadon

You could certainly imagine her getting into a pub brawl. Mind you John Prescott was the same, he actually punched a potential voter once on the campaign trail! But I don’t believe he was quite as course as Raynor and had more humour about him and more self deprecating and was respected amongst his fellow Labour mp’s ( iirc). He was also liked by Blair crucially. You just know Keir can’t bear Raynor but can’t get rid of her and I very much suspect there are plenty of Labour mp’s that cringe when she gets up to speak.

Somehow, I doubt somebody who had brought items to use as projectiles specifically to assault John Prescott with at the event was ever in any danger of voting for him.

Despite not being in any way Tory leaning, I do get the impression that for some, it's quite a nice life to get the allowances, pay, pension scheme and lifestyle that goes with the MP job title without actually having to do the boring and thankless task that actually running the country entails much like Boris Johnson in that respect. After all, why would you take on a much more demanding and harder job for pretty much the same money if all you have to do is complain that the people already doing it are a bit shit and you'd do it better if you were given the opportunity?

I always liked Alan Johnson. I knew people who had dealt with him when he was the union guy at meetings - they spoke very highly of him, even though they were from the other side of the table, as it were, and said that they could very easily see him becoming PM and being very good at it. Whether he actually wants that or not, it's telling that people who weren't 'on his side' in RM senior management liked and respected him to that extent.

@Theluggage15

And now she’s saying Northern working class people often jovially call each other scum.

And therein lies the problem. Labour put up thick as mince idiots like Rayner and then tell northerners ‘oh look, she’s just like you’.

Way to go if you want to insult and alienate all northerners in one fell swoop.

I quite liked John Prescott. I think he had intelligence and understood the ordinary working person. Rayner fails in both respects.

I feel very sad when I think about Alan Johnson - such a loss to politics.
As for Stella Creasey - she's as bad as the rest, no thanks.

Angela Raynor was an absolute disgrace this morning on Trevor Philips show. You cannot have someone seeking high office calling everyone she disagrees with as 'Scum' . Firstly it shows she has no intellectual ability to analyse or debate just the same level of knowledge or debating skills as a drunk down the Pub.

Christ knows what Nick Thomas Symonds must think when she opens her 'GOB'.
Not a Labour supporter but when you think of political heavy weights such as Barbara Castle, Mo Mowlam , Harriet Harman and even the brave Luciana Berger and this ill mouthed yob.
She should not be allowed within 5 miles of the Conference Centre, never mind have the biggest gob in the arena.

Kier Starmer though needs to sack her now and if the NEC won't accept it resign himself both as leader and an M.P . Angela Raynor as his deputy is making him look pathetic.

Another problem which sums up the state of the Labour Party is the belief that Angela some how represents the 'Working Class' in particular the North is deluded.
Angela Raynor as a person is everything Working Class Northerners despise.

Margaret Beckett is an intelligent, educated woman with oodles of experience and the gravitas you'd expect from a serious politician.

Angela Rayner is a yob.

"That's my passionate way"

My advice to Ms Rayner would be "When in a hole stop digging".

I find the idea of Rayner complaining about others being misogynist to be risible.

It's gaslighting.

Keir Starmer is a disappointment but Angela Rayner is a complete embarrassment - both to the Labour Party and to this part of the world (please believe me, we’re not all like her)!

Didn’t Starmer try to sack her and then ended up giving her a jumble of new job titles instead?

I think she’s auditioning for the leadership tbh. It plays to the elements in Labour who want to just shout at tories/people who voted for them. Probably should change tack if she wants middle of the road Labour voters back 🙄. I’ll always have a soft spot for Caroline Flint.

Daily: In a previous life my ex husband sent me to Ashton -Under Lyne to solve a dispute between staff and management at a factory his family owned. I found the staff to be the grown ups considered, composed reasonable and forward thinking. These are all the skills that Angela Raynor does not possess . Therefore, the perception from the socially liberal left that Angela Raynor represents the Northern Working Class, is out of sync with reality.