...to think Angela Rayner needs to wind her neck in?

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Why is a FORMER deputy, who was binned in disgrace for being VERY NAUGHTY potentially in line to oust Keir Starmer as big boss?

I'd have sacked her completely, not just as deputy leader, for her prior misconduct. Surely the Labour party can't support ousting their leader and replacing him with a proven wrong'un? Is there nobody else decent? Has she no shame?

Fucking snakes, the lot of them. I thought we'd seen the back of that sort of barefaced bullshit with the downfall of boris.

No one needs to worry about Angela Rayner becoming the next PM, the British Labour Party won't elect a woman. It seems to be the only time they know what one is.

Not unnamed no. Leading Times Radio News headline.

Kim Johnson ‘his position is irredeemable’.

Not male and not in your list. Female Labour MPs speaking up and good on them.

I agree.

To even get selected as a candidate is a hell of an achievement for a working class woman who left school at 16 and was a single parent not long afterwards. And that makes a lot of men in politics feel threatened.

And the issue with the stamp duty on her home isn't a big deal imo and I'm mystified as to why whoever did her conveyancing didn't check it out properly.

I was always under the impression that a property held in trust for another person (which hers is) doesn't count as yours. It certainly doesn't when it comes to means-tested benefits, and I don't get why stamp duty treats it any differently. If I had a disabled child whose home I wanted to protect, I'd probably do the same.

The £30k underpayment is small change compared to the amount of inheritance tax rich people avoid by putting their estates into family trusts, like the Drax family, who are estimated to own land worth £150m before you even start looking at other assets. I don't recall anyone kicking off about that when Richard Drax was an MP.

Johnson is on the left of the party and this is not the first time she has been critical of KS. I have no idea what being male has to do with it, but she absolutely would sit well on my list, she just isn't as well known as the others.

Well you might not want people criticising Starmer, not sure why so loyal, but his own MPs are, it looks likely he could go.

Good for the women in politics calling out male power and bad decisions, something else Kim raised. She felt silenced over the Mandelson appointment when saying it was a poor one.

I have said I think we should wait to know exactly what KS knew before deciding whether to be loyal about this issue. At the moment, a leadership contest would be destabilising for the party but also and more importantly for the country, and it should not be entered into until we know exactly what went on. It may be that at that point,KS will have to go.

You are trying desperately hard to make out it is just women MPs who are speaking out against him, but it's not. It's men and women who are on the left of the party and who have never supported his leadership.

ETA: I find it really weird that people are always trying to make out that KS is sexist. He has plenty of women in his cabinet, including the first woman Chancellor, who many off the same people who call KS sexist will happily characterise as Rachel from accounts. Cheering on the left of the labour party while being gender critical is...a choice.

Personally, I think I’d choose Rayner-but the Press and the lower middle classes and the misogynists are against her. Wes Streeting is tainted by Mandelson. So Ed Milliband it is.

You asked who it was and I told you. So right back at you with the ‘desperate’ line which is nonsense.

And yes listening to Kim who talked about female MPs crying because they can see how fucked up men in powerful positions overruling their views is for them.

I don’t get your animosity to the ‘left of the party’ anyway. You voted in a large majority, surely you knew Labour MPs would be on the left.

As for waiting I doubt he has the political capital to get through it.

To your edit maybe listen to what women are saying, his MPs. Rather than dismiss them because they’re ’on the left’.

As for the GC and cheering on women speaking up I can see Starmer holds his place as great for you @pinotnowbut you are struggling there.

Well, it's nice to see you speaking up for 'the left,' @EasternStandard . I wonder why opponents of Labour are so happy to see the party divided - I just can''t work it out. I have no animosity to the left of the party and economically would be placed there myself. Where I do have a problem is people destabilising the government whose manifesto they stood on and which gained them their seats and their jobs. I think Kim Johnson falls into that camp. We saw what the constant in-fighting and rebellions did to the Tories and I think it's deeply irresponsible of some Labour MPs to be emulating that. While some are doubtless horrified and angered by Mandelson's association with Epstein and rightly want to know exactly what KS knew, some are undeniably the usual suspects who've done nothing but cause trouble since the election. That angers me not because of blind loyalty to KS, but because this country needs a Labour government and these people are undermining it and have been doing so from the start.

I am disappointed with what looks like very poor judgement on KS's part to have appointed Mandelson in the first place, but I can see why he did it (assuming he is telling the truth about what he knew) and for a while it seemed to have been a risk that paid off. I thought his speech the other day was excellent and full of genuine regret and anger, and I'm now giving him the benefit of the doubt until the findings of the investigation are publicised.

Not really I don’t care as much as you do that Kim is on the left of Labour. I hear a woman speak up who also talks about frustration and upset from other female MPs over male power and how it has impacted them. I believe them.

What their politics are is secondary to me in that case.

Who do you think should be Prime Minister?

The "champagne socialism" accusations are lazy and boring btw

From what I can see Kim Johnson has spoken in more general terms about the sexist 'old boys' culture at Westminster. She hasn't laid that completely (or at all in the articles I looked at) at KS's door. I have no doubt what she is saying is completely right in that regard. If she is now conflating that with the appointment of Mandelson, well, I can absolutely see why she would. But I wouldn't consult someone who called the Israeli government fascist (she did, 3 years ago) on the appointment of overseas diplomats if I was the PM.

I really like her too. I absolutely love her confidence and pragmatism. She has overcome obstacles that most of us couldn't even imagine. She was born into a disfunctional family with a mum who couldn't read or write and she had a baby at 16. To then become the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party was an amazing achievement. Compare the unrestrained and unapologetic grifting and pocket-lining by Boris Johnson and his cronies and Farage and his cronies yet posters on here absolutely love them.

MPs were warning Starmer of the ties re Mandelson to Epstein and they were asked to stop. It’s his major error and may well cost him the leadership.

Anyone who did that can speak up now if they like, I think even the Labour Party has had enough of the Starmer / McSweeney strong arm and squashing of views. I can see you don’t like her take and prefer to denigrate, which is a shame for women speaking up when they do.

Your strike through section is utterly horrible. Her mum was illiterate but Angela Rayner isn't. You can massively disagree with her politics without resorting to this sort of unedifying snobbery and contempt for her background which, of course, she couldn't help.

Urgh. Its bad enough when men throw mud at women who speak out. Even worse when women do it.
Harriet Harman has also spoken out in the last few days. I wouldn't label her as a left wing agitator who is trying to undermine the government.

I certainly haven't thrown mud at anyone. There is determination from some opponents of the government to make this an issue about female MPs being silenced, and I don't believe it is. Many of those people support a party that has done very little to further women's rights and standard of living in this country and in fact has actively damaged them, such as through austerity, which affected women far more than it did men overall.

Of course it is about them being silenced. Listen to the interviews. I told you what was said.

Stop putting women down or dismissing them because you prefer Starmer.

So why dig up dirt on KJ on something she said about Israel 3 years ago?
You may not realise that you're doing it, but you certainly are. Keir Starmer appointed a close associate of a convicted paedophile. We don't need any more evidence of what he knew as enough was already in the public domain. Its odd that you wish to defend KS, but not the women speaking out against the appointment.

@EasternStandard It's about KS potentially having made a terrible error, perhaps having been given enough information to have not done so. Men and women should, and do, care deeply about that and will want action if it turns out to have been the case.

I am not putting down women or dismissing them, I am stating facts about one particular woman whose views I disagree with. I don''t exactly prefer Starmer, especially if the investigation finds against him, but I do prefer a Labour government over a Tory, or even worse, a Reform one. I believe that would be absolutely disastrous for women in this country and destabilising the government before we know it is necessary makes that more likely.

And stop pretending to care about women when you are a Boris Johnson defender on many threads.

Don’t be ridiculous. I was going to engage with the first part but the pretend line is utter nonsense.

I don’t particularly agree with Rayner’s politics but I’m fucked off enough with male power such as Starmer McSweeney / Mandelson and Epstein links to say she should go for it.

Your lines about Kim being ignored because she said something on another policy is part of the problem. Fuck that. I want two female leaders and the Starmer apologists to get over their need for him staying.

Hopefully it’ll happen.

I only 'dug up dirt,' because I said it was the usual left-wing suspects who were calling for KS to go over this and @EasternStandard said it wasn't and said Kim Johnson was speaking out and wasn't on my list. To be honest, I'd never heard of her so Googled her and found that she has been a vocal critic of KS since at least 2021. So, yes, one of the usual suspects, just not such a high profile one as those I had listed. The Israeli comment was something like the third one listed. If she had made that comment with Jeremy Corbyn as leader @EasternStandard and others would (rightly) be calling it out as demonstrative of antisemitism in the Labour Party. Starting to root that out has been one of KS's best achievements, though sadly it does persist. It doesn't really have anything to do with her views on women and their treatment by Epstein but I'm just explaining why I mentioned it.

It's not snobbery, I am merely observing that the woman is inarticulate and uneducated, which she is.

Intellectually, she is totally unfit and ill prepared to represent the UK on the international stage.

Well, I'm glad you've found your rage for men who abuse their power - is it just the left wing ones who anger you? I ask because I'm disgusted with Mandelson and his connections with Epstein. KS is, as far as I'm aware, not mentioned in the files, but the leader of another Westminster political party is, multiple times. I wonder why that is barely getting a mention in the media, and on MN for that matter. Because that person seems to have a chance of being the next PM if we're not careful.

Of course making a crass and antisemitic remark four short years ago as a sitting MP massively undermines your position. Fuck that indeed! Why do you want two female leaders above all else? I want two competent leaders, Nigel Farage nowhere near power, and a government who cares about women and implements policies that benefit them. Fwiw, I loved AR as deputy and thought she was a great foil to KS. I would have loved to see her take over as PM after another Labour win in 2029. Then the mortgage thing happened and that was blown out of all proportion by our sexist right-wing media. I believe I do remember you being outraged by it but now you want her as leader. Funny how things change.