Jacqui Smith peerage

[Westfacing]

AIBU to be perplexed by Smith being given a peerage and made a minister for education?

I understand that Labour have to increase their number of peers and am in full agreement with Vallance and Timpson but J Smith, why?

She was briefly Home Secretary under Gordon Brown but I don't recall her being associated with Education, nor was she particularly distinguished as a politician.

Am I missing something?

Well yes when you select from MPs that's how it works. When you select from a much wider group where there are hurdles to be got over, you'd expect it to be for someone far more experienced with skin in the game (as with Timpson and Vallance).

She was really useless on Strictly.

She would usually have got a peerage as an ex Home Secretary. Surprised about the education brief- she was a teacher for a long time. But she's now (I think) the chair of an NHS Trust so surely a health brief would have suited her better

I think she said she cleared the house thing with the chief whip....But who knows!

Whether she cleared it with the chief whip is beside the point as far as I am concerned. It may have been within the letter of the rules but was certainly NOT within the spirit. The “second home” expenses rules were brought in to reflect the fact that MPs with non-London constituencies/homes would have to pay for accommodation in London when they were attending Parliament. ANY common-sense interpretation of that is that they should claim for what they pay to stay in London when Parliament is sitting. Any normal person looking at Jacqui Smith’s circumstances would have been bound to conclude that her family home where she lived with her husband & children was her “main residence” and the spare room in her sister’s house was her “second home”. It indicates a total lack of any moral compass to claim - at a time when the country was suffering the effects of the financial crash - that her sister’s spare room was her “main residence” and her family home should be paid for by the taxpayer, you and me!

She was actually “dobbed in” by her neighbours, who knew by seeing her Home Secretary’s Security Detail police presence outside the house how little time she spent in London, relative to the family home.

The correct position, to be within the SPIRIT of the rules, would have been for her to claim for the “rent” she paid to her sister for use of the room and pay for her own family home HERSELF!

That would be conflict of interests.

Didn't she have to resign because her and her husband got caught with their hands in the till? Or was it porn? Can't remember now, but she's 'disgraced'.

How come these people always fall upwards?

This will come back to bite Starmer. What was he thinking?

She was a teacher for years. She had a senior position on education in the Blair years. She was the first female Home Secretary.

i listen to a podcast she did and she comes across as sensible, warm and intelligent. And also very normal. She is divorced from that husband and has been chairing NHS foundations I believe. I actually think that she is a great choice.

It seems odd to think a woman’s career should be blighted for all time because of something her now ex husband did 15 years ago.

Well she has experience in education (junior education secretary and schools minister as well as being a former teacher)and experience in government 🤷‍♀️ What other skin in the game might we expect?

I think the problem is her moral failings rather than her qualifications!

It wasn’t her husband who claimed expenses for the family home - it was her!!!

She inadvertently claimed for his porn viewing amongst the general household expenses. The “porn” isn’t the issue! It’s the fact that a Labour Home Secretary thought that it was ok to make the taxpayer pay for her family home rather than pay for it from her Cabinet salary plus the £40K her husband was getting from the taxpayer

Exactly this. The posters on her scrutinising every little thing smacks of Farage's threat to come after Labour and of course they'll pick the women.

“Every little thing” ???? She claimed over £100K expenses for her family home from US !!!

And as for Farage, I despise him! I stayed up all night celebrating Labour’s win, which is why I feel so let down by this appointment.

Calm down, dear. It was 15 years ago.

It wasn’t 15 years ago, dear. Her appointment was made yesterday

The events you’re fulminating about were 15 years ago, dear.

I am extremely unhappy about her peerage/ government appointment. These were announced yesterday, hence the post and subsequent comments today.

it may be that you have lower standards than I do dear ? 🤷‍♀️

Totally agree with this. I’m very cynical of all politicians but I liked Keir Starmer and gave him the benefit of the doubt. His talk of putting the country before politics seemed like a breath of fresh air after the shitshow of the last 14 years. Then… this. And I’m now feeling let down and a bit stupid that I believed Starmer might be different.

Different, not lower.

It’s something that she did. She claimed expenses when she shouldn’t have and ripped off the taxpayer. She was claiming her family home was her second home so she could get us all to pay for it on expenses. Pretty corrupt.

But here she is again. New Labour is the same as the old

Of course he isn’t different. Have you listened to anything he said? He squirms around and outright lies when asked what is a woman. Claims he’s a great pal of Rosie Duffield and meets her all the time (she hasn’t met him at all for years). When asked why he supported Corbyn he lies some more. I don’t trust him at all.

im not saying he’s necessarily any worse than the rest but he’s no better either

so? So was jacqui smiths political career. Which ended by her resignation over the expenses scandal

shocking that she has been managing an NHS trust too. No wonder the NHS is in such a state

There are more people in Keir Starmer's Cabinet with previous experience at that level than there are left in the commons who were in Johnson's last Cabinet.

FML. She was MY teacher.
I mean she was an ok teacher but a shit MP.
She's making £££££ off NED positions ever since the porn thing.