Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Rachel Reeves crying in the House of Commons

267 replies

IdaGlossop · 02/07/2025 17:50

AIBU to think it's possible to feel sympathy for Rachel Reeves for being visibly upset at Prime Minister's Question Time today, even if you revile Labour and its policies?

Lots of misogyny on Twitter - the UK is a laughing stock because of the behaviour of menopausal women in the Commons (including an example of Stella Creasy with her baby in a sling asleep and another of Angela Rayner flashing); women can't hack it etc etc.

I can only imagine it must feel dreadful to know the world has watched you in distress and that the financial markets have reacted because of fears of government instability. The phrase 'bring your whole self to work' is a piece of HR speak I can't abide but what we saw today was Rachel Reeves doing just that. Despite my sympathy for her, it would have been better all round for the upset part of her to have stayed in her Downing Street flat.

OP posts:
Lavendersong · 02/07/2025 20:18

I think Kemi is an absolute bitch for highlighting Rachel’s distress in front of everyone

EasternStandard · 02/07/2025 20:19

Lavendersong · 02/07/2025 20:18

I think Kemi is an absolute bitch for highlighting Rachel’s distress in front of everyone

I thought people wanted to be nicer about politicians. Too many online attacks.

Or is that only Labour ones

EasternStandard · 02/07/2025 20:20

Birdsinginginthetrees · 02/07/2025 20:11

She looked like she’d been crying all night.

Yes she did. It’s likely the party politics.

CircusofPuffins · 02/07/2025 20:22

If it was a personal issue, I don't understand why she didn't duck out - and it would have been more easily explainable. Either say it was personal issues, that she was feeling unwell, etc. Nobody would have batted an eyelid.

But, as the media reaction has proven, trying to carry on in that state was just terrible optics and has probably caused her and the government more problems.

TwoFeralKids · 02/07/2025 20:25

Surely you would pretend you didn't see it rather than actually like a school girl in a playground?

TwoFeralKids · 02/07/2025 20:30

Act*

allamberedover · 02/07/2025 20:30

If RR hadn't appeared it would have been equally bad optics.
Can you imagine what the press ,Badenoch et al would have made of that?
They would have had a field day.

BIossomtoes · 02/07/2025 20:30

CircusofPuffins · 02/07/2025 20:22

If it was a personal issue, I don't understand why she didn't duck out - and it would have been more easily explainable. Either say it was personal issues, that she was feeling unwell, etc. Nobody would have batted an eyelid.

But, as the media reaction has proven, trying to carry on in that state was just terrible optics and has probably caused her and the government more problems.

If she’d done that the speculation would have been endless. Damned either way.

sciaticafanatica · 02/07/2025 20:32

@Livelovebehappyno I’m not. If it is due to personal reasons then she should have been professional and stayed off camera.
she went for the sympathy vote and it’s back fired.
she can literally cry me a fucking huge river!

Fringle · 02/07/2025 20:32

Ooh, ooh nasty Kemi. Grow up FFS.

Labour attacked the Tories relentlessly and personally.

NaySaidThe · 02/07/2025 20:33

BIossomtoes · 02/07/2025 20:30

If she’d done that the speculation would have been endless. Damned either way.

Oh come on, She was quite obviously crying because she’s worried for herself. She’s a despicable bully and deserves no sympathy,

EasternStandard · 02/07/2025 20:34

Fringle · 02/07/2025 20:32

Ooh, ooh nasty Kemi. Grow up FFS.

Labour attacked the Tories relentlessly and personally.

Yep plus Starmer at PMQs, a few minutes of that nastiness is enough to switch off.

Bigfatsunandclouds · 02/07/2025 20:34

It's okay when men get angry on the house of commons - that is emotion. Why isn't it okay for someone to cry. She's a human being, we are emotional and it's absolutely okay to show emotion. I feel very sorry for her and the mobs of angry people hating on labour and trolling her will take its toll on anyone.

sciaticafanatica · 02/07/2025 20:36

@Bigfatsunandcloudsive no sympathy for someone who has literally gone for the most vulnerable in society.
she is upset because she knows she is on her way out!

Flamingfeline · 02/07/2025 20:37

I would have liked to have seen someone else go over to her and offer a hanky or a hug. I don’t like her policies (I’m a labour voter and feel very disappointed) but the way that played out in public and on TV, with no support offered, Kemi making fun and some tories smirking, was horrible.

TwoFeralKids · 02/07/2025 20:37

Fringle · 02/07/2025 20:32

Ooh, ooh nasty Kemi. Grow up FFS.

Labour attacked the Tories relentlessly and personally.

That was line crossed though.

Fringle · 02/07/2025 20:38

Flamingfeline · 02/07/2025 20:37

I would have liked to have seen someone else go over to her and offer a hanky or a hug. I don’t like her policies (I’m a labour voter and feel very disappointed) but the way that played out in public and on TV, with no support offered, Kemi making fun and some tories smirking, was horrible.

That’s just nonsense. And really foolish.

allamberedover · 02/07/2025 20:39

But she didn't act independently with Starmer having no knowledge did she?

Fringle · 02/07/2025 20:40

TwoFeralKids · 02/07/2025 20:37

That was line crossed though.

No. The line was crossed centuries ago. And Labour did worse many, many times.

Flamingfeline · 02/07/2025 20:40

Fringle · 02/07/2025 20:38

That’s just nonsense. And really foolish.

In what way, @Fringle ?

TwoFeralKids · 02/07/2025 20:42

Fringle · 02/07/2025 20:40

No. The line was crossed centuries ago. And Labour did worse many, many times.

Why are you talking centuries ago?

CircusofPuffins · 02/07/2025 20:42

BIossomtoes · 02/07/2025 20:30

If she’d done that the speculation would have been endless. Damned either way.

As endless as why she was very clearly crying in PMQs? I don't think so.

EasternStandard · 02/07/2025 20:43

Fringle · 02/07/2025 20:40

No. The line was crossed centuries ago. And Labour did worse many, many times.

Of course Labour have used attacks, online, from supporters too, and in politics.

NoelFaraday · 02/07/2025 20:44

Daniel Jupp - "Apparently I’m supposed to feel sorry because the Chancellor who lied about her qualifications and experience her whole career and who is part of a government that puts innocent people in prison for telling the truth while fucking the economy, the country and their own people as brutally as they can…..cried in the Commons.

If I was there at the time I’d probably be more sympathetic. It takes a monster to actually be there when a woman is crying and be completely heartless about it.

But at the same time in this context I despise the emotional blackmail of how this story is being presented.

Show some empathy….isn’t this woman fine with two tier policing, with driving a grandfather to kill himself because he called her government corrupt, with banging up a mother with a young daughter and an ill husband for a tweet that wasn’t literal?

Isn’t she fine with a few thousand grannies dying early in the winter months? How did she vote on grooming gang enquiries? What empathy has she ever shown for young girls who were gang raped, primarily in Labour areas by Labour voters and covered up by Labour politicians for years.

If you are a senior Labour politician, male or female, you have been betraying your country, laughing at the suffering of patriots and decent people, and enthusiastically supporting policies that inflict real misery and suffering on ordinary people, as well as robbing them blind in the process.

This is a grossly incompetent Chancellor who has also delivered budgets of pure Marxist malice, targeting farmers for instance with taxes that will generate very little revenue but still devastate farming families and communities, all out of a combination of spite at them for being white or Tory, and corrupt eagerness to hand the stolen land over to BlackRock and shitty solar farms and housing for migrants.

So yes, it’s hard to find sympathy for her after that.
I’m not coming to this from a ‘toughen up lass’ stance either. I never ever back down politically but I have broken down a couple of times in my life, one of which was in a workplace environment. I was pretty easy to break for awhile after my dad died, and numb when my mum did, and in both instances other things got to me much more than they did before those losses.

Sometimes the thing that makes people cry, isn’t the thing that looks like it’s just made them cry.

This is the first time I’ve seen Reeves cry, and it’s true that no man should delight in it. I don’t. But I’m pretty sure she was only crying for herself and I’m half sure she wouldn’t be capable of crying for anyone else. Certainly not for any of us.

And yes, knowing what she has supported does make a difference. I’m sorry, but not sorry, because it does.
There is suffering that matters a lot more then hers, and that suffering was at least partly caused by her".

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Fringle · 02/07/2025 20:45

TwoFeralKids · 02/07/2025 20:42

Why are you talking centuries ago?

Because exposure and criticism of personal weakness and failing has been a part of political exchange for centuries.