To think allisons pearsons rant about Angela Rayner is full of nasty stereotypes about girls who are 16 and pregnant?

[Helhigh]

Well I’m not a fan of Angela Rayner and have never voted labour but Pearsons rant in the telegraph yesterday was half assumptions that Rayner must have been a bully who thumped classmates for doing their homework and distracted the class by talking about how many boys she shagged.
And of course reading books and having a child at 16 is mutually exclusive.
I don’t think Rayner has ever said she was like this Pearson has just made a load of assumptions because she was 16 and pregnant.

Anyway it’s behind a pay wall so I had to copy and paste the nasty part:

“I have noticed a tendency among politicians and commentators, particularly the posh ones, to praise Rayner’s flame-haired “authenticity”. That’s because they didn’t go to school with an Angela. Those of us who did know the harm that the Angelas do to kids from poorer homes who want to work hard and do well but whose lessons are permanently disrupted by those who don’t. The Angelas sit in the back row of the class putting on make-up, doing their nails and chatting loudly, throughout readings from the set book, about who they’ve sh---ed. They disdain the teachers who are rather scared of them.
Angelas have sex by the age of 13 (they mock those of us who are saving our virginity for later). Pregnant at 16, they leave school without any qualifications and work behind the till in Mac Fisheries before embarking on a romantic life which features at least two injunctions and a restraining order. By the age of 37, they are grandmothers (as Rayner was).
Believe me, all the kids who want to get on in life breathe an almighty sigh of relief that the Angelas have left school because now they can hand in their homework and try to pass their exams without being ridiculed or thumped by an Angela.
So you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t join in the applause for Angela Rayner’s vibrant “back story” and her ascent to the top of government through militant trade unionism. The working-class kids I admire often came from difficult council-house homes, as Rayner did, but they clung on to education like a life raft. Or they saw a job opportunity and grasped it with both hands. They did that old-fashioned thing called bettering themselves”

If she'd done so without committing tax fraud I'd agree but the sad fact is our former DMP is a nasty piece of work who has behaved like a school yard bully and used her position to cover up her fraud and get away without proper punishment. Oh and she's also signed a pledge (when she tried to become leader of Labour before the last election) that strips women of their rights and puts men in women's prisons, sports, hospitals wards and changing rooms.
Anyone who is happy to fiddle their taxes shouldn't be allowed to be an mp or member of the house of Lords (yes i know that would take out about 90%of all politicians)

Exactly that. Why should she be above criticism?

I don't think anyone is denying that these sorts of girls exist (or.at least did when many of us were growing up) but no one has any idea whether Angela Raynor was like that or not, and it's a horrible assumption to make just because she had a child young.

Didn't last long did it? Tax evasion and all.

Alison Pearson is a godawful human being and her hacksaw columns are full of spit and bile. She’s a deeply unhappy individual who only feels something when she is making others feel small. I’m not a fan of Rayner, but at least you know where she stands. Pearson is the ‘posh’ mean girl whose sniping and backbiting say much more about her than the poor sods at whom she’s trying to take aim.

Boris still won’t shag you, Alison 😂

Come on. She is vile. By all means criticise, other women bet not in such a vindictive, vitrolic manner. Constructive criticism should be welcomed not this sort of diatrite.

Well you may do but there’s zero evidence Angela Rayner was anything like that at all. The only politician we know was a school bully is Nigel Farage.

I agree, OP. The treatment of Angela Rayner for being working class, northern and having been a young mum is disgraceful. If any of our own kids became pregnant at that age, our hope would be that they could still achieve their potential without being judged or mocked for it. Regardless of her politics, Mumsnet should have her back on this issue. Judge her for her policies, her stamp duty decisions, anything about her career as a politician. But the fact she brought up a child at 16 and then rose to the top of her profession? Bloody well done.

Angela Rayner's tax fraud was front page news in the gutter press for weeks while Reform's Deputy Leader, Richard Tice's much more lucrative tax fraud has been ignored by these publications.

He is facing allegations that his property company, Quidnet REIT Limited, failed to pay roughly £120,000 in withholding tax on dividends paid to him and his Jersey-based trust. Reports also allege a separate failure to pay nearly £100,000 in corporation tax. Tice has described the issues as "minor administrative errors" and "technicalities," insisting all due tax was paid.

Angela Rayner resigned. Richard Tice has not.

Crazy because Farage and Tice have both done worse and it’s just been swept under the rug

I have no issue whatsoever with journalists criticising people in the public eye - indeed, I think it is essential for a healthy democracy.

However, I would like to see their criticism focused on the substance of their actions, decisions and conduct in public life. Not just a load of deeply misogynistic and classist assumptions about what she may or may not have been like at school.

No particular love for Angela Rayner but Allison Pearson is unbelievably toxic.

Contrast the character assassination of Rayner (who I presume she hasn’t met) with the appalling sucking up to Lucy Connolly who she apparently considers a “good peasant” even though she threatened to set fire to an asylum hotel.

The elegaic description of Connolly’s family while she was in prison in the Telegraph was pure Catherine Cookson. Absolutely nauseating.

In her dotage she will regret the Faustian pact she made with Farage. She’s not a stupid woman and used to be a reasonable writer. But by God has she soiled herself.

Surely its not a question of whether rayner was like that, its the casual description of sexually active underage teenage girls as sexually voracious bullies that is so off

Is there any evidence/rumour that Rayner behaved in a disruptive manner towards classmates, or interfered in their educatione.g. have any of them talked to the press?

I've never read anything that indicates Rayner's difficult life had any bearing on her contemporaries

Horrible article

And you can bet your boots tabloid journalists will have tried

As I said nobody who has fiddled their tax should be considered as a fit person to be a politician whatever their politics.
Whilst I know very little about Richard Tice (other than him being an odious little toad) if what you say is true he along with AR belong in jail and barred from politics

‘Those girls’ are a symptom of the inequality in our society. Many will have been raised in poor environments with lack of boundaries, aspiration and guidance. You can’t judge a 13 year old’s immaturity and lack of guidance but you can judge an adult making a mockery of a child.

Not that all sexually active girls behave like that but it’s a stereotype that exists for a reason.

This post is about Angela Rayner. You don't need t bring Reform into it

Allison Pearson writes as though this was her personal experience:

'Those of us who did know the harm that the Angelas do to kids from poorer homes who want to work hard and do well but whose lessons are permanently disrupted by those who don’t. The Angelas sit in the back row of the class putting on make-up, doing their nails and chatting loudly, throughout readings from the set book, about who they’ve sh---ed. They disdain the teachers who are rather scared of them.'

The school that Allison Pearson attended was a grammar school so I very much doubt that all these 'Angelas' managed to pass the 11+ but then decided to do no studying and disrupt classes for the other pupils. It's all a load of classist, made-up utter bollocks and the Telegraph should be ashamed to print it.

That article is so nasty! Just because a girl has a baby at 16 doesn’t mean they fit a particular stereotype.

Funny innit how they always, but always end up behaving in the same way as they condemn the opposition for doing.
Has 3 homes Ange paid her tax bill yet? 😂

She’s mocking an adult and using her experience as a teen with other teens. Not quite the same.

I don't need to but I wanted to as I believe that it is relevant because the right-wing posters on here are massively hypocritical. I just wanted to point out the double standards. It's obviously hit a nerve.

Pearson is the one who went bankrupt owing HMRC a load of money, I think. Loser. She didn’t have the excuse of being sixteen and from a chaotic home, though.

Goodness me you don’t have to be a fan of Angela Raynor to know that is a spiteful, nasty take on things.
Getting pregnant at 16 was incredibly common in the big so distant past.
Any hatred for the father of these children? The likes of Bill Wyman, Elvis Presley, Donald Trump, P Duffy, Epstein, Paul Gadd…… all either sex offenders in their own way.