Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

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:
BIossomtoes · 02/07/2025 20:46

CircusofPuffins · 02/07/2025 20:42

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

It would have been the same whatever she’d done. She was in a complete lose/lose situation.

Fringle · 02/07/2025 20:47

Flamingfeline · 02/07/2025 20:40

In what way, @Fringle ?

Because attacks on Tories for their family or personal circumstances have been legion.

NaySaidThe · 02/07/2025 20:50

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".

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Absolutely spot on.

BIossomtoes · 02/07/2025 20:51

Fringle · 02/07/2025 20:47

Because attacks on Tories for their family or personal circumstances have been legion.

I can only think of two. Johnson’s adamant refusal to confirm how many children he’s got and the censure of Hancock when his affair was discovered.

Flamingfeline · 02/07/2025 20:51

Fringle · 02/07/2025 20:47

Because attacks on Tories for their family or personal circumstances have been legion.

Yes, but the fact that low down politics, corruptions, personal attacks and worse has existed for as long as there’s been public debate doesn’t make me foolish for saying it’s time to see some humanity and decency.

Screamingabdabz · 02/07/2025 20:51

It’s frankly embarrassing.

What the world needs right now is good old fashioned unemotional competence and integrity.

Why is that so fucking hard for any of these politicians?

sauvignonplonk1 · 02/07/2025 20:54

She’s incompetent and needs to go - so does KS.

Vitrolinsanity · 02/07/2025 20:55

I have the utmost empathy for anyone that is feeling that distressed.

the smarter choice would have been not to appear in the Commons today when she’s clearly going to get the boot.

But here is the rub. She is the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The country is is in the shitter.

Im trying, and failing, to imagine how one of the most senior politicians in any country can sit and sob on the floor of Parliament for anything that isn’t a National disaster, by which I mean loss of life catastrophe.

bad day at the office Rachel. Pull it together or resign.

ContactNightmare · 02/07/2025 20:56

I don’t agree. She’s been treated with total contempt by her colleagues across the board. I don’t think she should be crying in the Commons. I can understand it, but seriously, she is done.

Thatcher cried when she had to leave. The press were full of it.

KeepTalkingBeth · 02/07/2025 20:59

allamberedover · 02/07/2025 20:39

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

Exactly. KS is the primer minister and ultimately what the government does with the money available is his decision.

caffelattetogo · 02/07/2025 21:05

I believe it’s a genuine personal issue, not related to the job. You can’t pause the rest of your life because of your job.

IdaGlossop · 02/07/2025 21:06

allamberedover · 02/07/2025 20:39

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

Starmer as PM is First Lord of the Treasury so could have overridden Reeves on any of her decisions had he chosen to do so.

OP posts:
EasternStandard · 02/07/2025 21:08

caffelattetogo · 02/07/2025 21:05

I believe it’s a genuine personal issue, not related to the job. You can’t pause the rest of your life because of your job.

Why when it’s so bad at work. Look at the votes the night before, a total mess.

Agree with pp on Starmer’s accountability,

hyggetyggedotorg · 02/07/2025 21:14

I seem to be in a tiny minority here but I’d much rather an MP who shows natural human emotions than the usual obnoxious twats we get. She clearly cares deeply about something - whether it’s a personal problem, her own job or the country’s economy. At least it shows she’s able to care about something.

Fringle · 02/07/2025 21:15

Flamingfeline · 02/07/2025 20:51

Yes, but the fact that low down politics, corruptions, personal attacks and worse has existed for as long as there’s been public debate doesn’t make me foolish for saying it’s time to see some humanity and decency.

It’s makes you foolish for attacking Kemi Badenoch and not acknowledging Labour’s scurrilous attacks on Tories.

If you want some examples…Rishi Sunak’s wife; Samantha Cameron’s distress after the the death of her son and attacks on the Cameron’s treatment of the NHS while using it for Arthur’s treatment; Thatcher in just about all personal respects.

Just two years ago David Blunkett decried Labour’s descent into “gutter politics”.

BIossomtoes · 02/07/2025 21:21

I thought Cameron’s son was called Ivan. And he was an absolute hypocrite about the NHS.

NaySaidThe · 02/07/2025 21:24

hyggetyggedotorg · 02/07/2025 21:14

I seem to be in a tiny minority here but I’d much rather an MP who shows natural human emotions than the usual obnoxious twats we get. She clearly cares deeply about something - whether it’s a personal problem, her own job or the country’s economy. At least it shows she’s able to care about something.

Yeah, herself.

EleanorReally · 02/07/2025 21:25

i wonder if she was given a hard time online, hence the tears

Fringle · 02/07/2025 21:34

BIossomtoes · 02/07/2025 21:21

I thought Cameron’s son was called Ivan. And he was an absolute hypocrite about the NHS.

He was. Sorry. The other son is called Arthur.

I think it’s loathsome to accuse Cameron of hypocrisy about the NHS. The NHS got extra in real terms under Cameron just as it has done under all governments.

ArcticBells · 02/07/2025 21:34

She shouldn’t be in the job if she can’t handle what’s thrown at her. I couldn’t do it but RR said she could- so no sympathy for tears .

EasternStandard · 02/07/2025 21:35

EleanorReally · 02/07/2025 21:25

i wonder if she was given a hard time online, hence the tears

Who doesn’t? Usually people attacking conservatives but now Labour are in.

nahthatsnotforme · 02/07/2025 21:36

Screamingabdabz · 02/07/2025 20:51

It’s frankly embarrassing.

What the world needs right now is good old fashioned unemotional competence and integrity.

Why is that so fucking hard for any of these politicians?

This with bells on.

rumblegrumble · 02/07/2025 21:48

I don't think it's misogyny, I think if a male chancellor made bad decision after bad decision whilst smugly ignoring an entire population - and a vast community of bone fide economic experts - not only telling him he was wrong but demonstrating precisely how he was wrong with a dizzying array of impeccably researched data, people would jeer at him too. And probably wouldn't feel particularly sympathetic if he burst into tears when all the (blindingly obvious) eventualities they'd been predicting came to pass. At least she's no longer smirking...

She needs to be replaced and every single policy she enacted needs to be reversed, and then she needs to be investigated for fraud for lying on her CV. I'm fairly sure that if I fabricated a load of evidence to attest that I was an accomplished investment banker then lost a client money, I would find myself locked up - and that would have only harmed one person! She lied her way into commandeering control of an entire nation's finances, and in doing so has drastically harmed millions of people. So no I don't feel sorry for her, I think she's extremely fortunate to be walking free - and I strongly question both Starmer's judgment and morality that she is.

SL2924 · 02/07/2025 21:57

Political persuasion aside, she’s embarrassing. And she’s done a total disservice to working women. The optics of the Chancellor of the Exchequer crying are just terrible-so unprofessional. She’s not up to the job and should stand down.

Couldn’t imagine Jeremy Hunt crying like that.

ContactNightmare · 02/07/2025 21:58

I don’t rate Reeves but she was elected. Lying about her qualifications doesn’t seem to be issue, the issue is competence at political games, which she is bad at. Being Chancellor is a lot more than being an economist, after all many Chancellors aren’t the faintest bit qualified. The issue is she took on the job and did not realise that she couldn’t just come in and do whatever she felt was appropriate, but she had to sell it to her own party to survive. She did not seem to get that from the start.

Well now she knows why you don’t need to be an economist. You need other skills, which she doesn’t have.

Swipe left for the next trending thread