...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.

She is neither. She doesn’t have your sort of education, but she went to college part time while caring for a young child. Have you heard her in the HOC? The last thing she is is inarticulate. Maybe try to listen past her accent.

Incidentally, @Arraminta-I assume you are not the same poster as a much more thoughtful and polite one with a practically identical name? I would hate there to be any confusion….

Yep I’ve changed my mind. I didn’t want her now I think she’s great.

She played a blinder in the HOC the other day and anyone who can do that and get comments that she did from her own MPs is politically strong.

She is also outplaying Starmer and McSweeney in their grubby briefing games when they did the same and sank Burnham.

I might not like her policies who knows, probably not, but I absolutely say go for it. I still like Kemi. Let the women take it from here, let’s blow the roof off this rot.

You've picked a side.
You want the Labour women to be quiet so that Starmer can stay in power. You're not the first woman to take that stance, and you won't be the last.

Hear hear

Rubbish. I've said multiple times that KS will have to go if it is revealed he knew more than he is currently saying. In the short term it may feel good to say women got him to resign and that shows female power etc, but if the long term result of that is an early general election and a Reform or Tory/Reform government, it absolutely will not have been worth it. That might well be the case if it turns out KS has lied and has to go next month or whenever, but there will be no choice at that point and personally I'll never forgive him. But we aren't there yet and I do have hope that we won't be.

You can bang on about me wanting to silence women all you like, but it's just tokenism, and dangerous, to have two women leaders or KB and Andy Burnham or whatever, if the result is NF as PM, or anywhere nearer the levers of power than he is now.

@baroqueandblue You need a basic lesson in economics in order to understand growth, taxation and spending.

AR simply doesn’t have the depth of understanding required on many fronts. Commons performance and political posturing is not the same. This all went wrong with Johnson. Style over substance and now we might get it again. She’s not good enough to lead the Uk because she’s just a politician. We need more. Who? No idea because we have poor MPs. They are not good enough to see beyond partisan politics and simply are not able to see the bigger picture let alone have workable solutions.

Continuing to over tax and not support business leads to redundancies and no growth. Growth gives us money to spend on what we want. Rayner is about punishing better off people who then simply batten down the hatches. Grads cannot get jobs and we see a stagnant economy. We need the right decisions to promote growth.

Do you? Noted.

What more do you need to know about Starmer's decision to appoint Mandelson? Is it not evidence enough that he was warned by many, and reports by the FT of Mandy staying in Epstein's home when he was in prison? He knew!

So Starmer has convinced you that Rayner is a risk due to Reform? And we can’t have two women leaders, tokenism seems very dismissive btw. It would be a big achievement.

His approval rating was 11% and that was before Mandelson / Epstein affair. Why can’t she do better than that?

She may well end up as PM, for about 5 minutes. Until the next GE basically. Professional, intelligent people don’t call their colleagues ‘scum’. That says more about her than any amount of tax dodges.

An outburst that she very promptly apologised for.

Starmer has convinced me of no such thing - I don't believe he has said anything about Rayner as PM and the likelihood of a Reform government. I think I've already said it, but to be clear, I believe any change of leadership would be disastrous for the party and the country. I think Rayner is capable of being a good PM but I do believe that would have to come after Labour have proved themselves capable of bettering the country and winning another election - obviously that's not where we are now.

And you're misrepresenting what I said. We can have two female leaders, but not just for the sake of it. Margaret Thatcher did nothing for women's rights that wasn't a backward step. Teresa May was put in to do an impossible job that no man in her party wanted and then bullied out by men. That did nothing for women. Liz Truss....well...

Angela Rayner I believe is more capable and inspirational than all of them put together (though her opportunism this week has dented my approval of her somewhat) but the way the press have treated KS would pale into insignificance if she were to be PM. Until the country is in a much stronger place and Labour can point to achievements that have made people's lives better, and people can feel that in their hearts and wallets, we cannot afford the risk. Same goes for pretty much any would-be leader I can think of at the moment, male or female.

Exactly. She was perfectly suited to being your typical, ignorant, union rabble rouser. But representing the UK on a global scale, mixing with highly educated heads of state? God, no.

Let's not pretend that AR got to where she is because of her finely tuned intellect and dazzling political acumen. She has been promoted far, far beyond her abilities purely because she was a poster girl for the rabid, far left unionists. That is all.

I vaguely recall she used government funds to pay for a 'glamour' photo shoot, didn't she? I can't say I'm remotely surprised.

I haven’t said anything negative about Rayner even though I don’t share her politics. I can see Labour won’t return the favour for female politicians who have succeeded.

Perhaps it’s your posts adding to how hard it is for women to succeed in politics, in that post and the Kim one earlier. The media and SM are constant because commentators are.

Thoughtful and polite? No, that wouldn't be me.

Anything to say on this charming post @EasternStandard or @TheNuthatch ? I'm the sexist one on this thread am I? It's my comments that make it hard for women to succeed? Ok then.

I have a slight Northern accent too, so couldn't care less about that. She is articulate only when reading from a script, but when she extemporises she's halting and her spoken grammar is poor. And when she gets agitated (which is often) then the true vulgarity of her speech is immediately revealed. Calling her colleagues 'scum' etc might be appropriate for grand standing in the workers' canteen, but has no place in the HofC or any professional work place.

I have no interest in being charming or sexist. I just objectively observed what she did, which was use political funds for a glamour photo shoot. Not something you would normally associate with a professional female career politician.

The PM is a job where we need the best person. I don’t care what sex! We had Liz Truss ffs. I’ll never support a politician based on sex or hard life stories. They have to be able to do the job and Rayner falls short on a number of fronts. Being a noisy debater is pointless if you don’t have the other skills needed. Labour has spent 14 years shouting at others. What they don’t have is sufficient intellect to govern. It’s very poor and we have very poor MPs.

The vast majority of people have no understanding of the complexities of setting up a trust for a vulnerable person on the divorce of their parents. Parents are advised to consult experts who also have no experience in this regard because this is not the usual client group.

I think that AR acted on what she believed to be good advice in the best interests of her child and was not motivated by personal gain.

Despite this she took it on the chin awaiting HMCR investigation. If she is cleared of wrongdoing she is exonerated and has behaved ethically. There is no reason why she should not proceed in her political career.

Oh come on AR as PM it’s just a joke I don’t believe it. 🙈

And yet....and yet, thousands of parents in the same position somehow manage to do it correctly and not commit fraud. Funny that.

I can’t find any details of this. She did hire a photographer to document the work of her department, as other minsters (including Sunak) have done. Is that what you mean?

I haven't really thought about it. I'm not particularly against Starmer to be honest. Yet.

Lazy/boring = easy/accurate