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”

Presumably you’d trust the senior economist at Goldman Sachs? I haven’t seen any economist say it isn’t true.

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/a-colossal-economic-shock-senior-economist-eviscerates-brexit-404735/

I’ll take the NBER’s assessment over those reports.

‘This paper examines the impact of the UK's decision to leave the European Union (Brexit) in 2016.

Using almost a decade of data since the referendum, we combine simulations based on macro data with estimates derived from micro data collected through our Decision Maker Panel survey. These estimates suggest that by 2025, Brexit had reduced UK GDP by 6% to 8%, with the impact accumulating gradually over time. We estimate that investment was reduced by between 12% and 18%, employment by 3% to 4% and productivity by 3% to 4%. These large negative impacts reflect a combination of elevated uncertainty, reduced demand, diverted management time, and increased misallocation of resources from a protracted Brexit process. Comparing these with contemporary forecasts - providing a rare macro example to complement the burgeoning micro-literature of social science predictions - shows that these forecasts were accurate over
a 5 year horizon but they underestimated the impact over a decade.’

There are a small number of economists who don't think Brexit has been a negative for the UK economy. The consensus is in the opposite direction, however. Even in that hotbed of woke lefty banking that is Goldmann Sachs.

No wonder Russia cheered on Brexit.

Catherine McBride has her own view of the situation. I see stuff from both sides saying why the other is wrong.

I don’t entirely trust the objectivity of someone who uses terms like “Remainer zombies”.

The people voted for Brexit, Cameron was quite keen to keep inside of the EU.

Austerity - The primary aim was to reduce the structural deficit after the crash of 2008. The annual deficit 64.7% fell by nearly half between 2010 and 2015, dropping from roughly 10%.

Now it’s 93.8%. If it goes over 100% the bond markets will come for us and we’re fucked.

Did people vote to knock 8% off GDP?
How strange.

But the gross national debt rose by £600 billion over the same period.

Me too. At my school those girls were the ones bullying people who did their homework, swearing at the teachers, smoking at break and doing whatever they could to avoid learning. S5 and S6 when most of them had left to get pregnant or go on the dole was so much nicer.

there is most definitely that “type”.

Her headmaster said she was the one bullied in school because she came from a deprived background.
If you had the thread you know that and that there is no evidence Rayner was a bully at her school - far from it.

McBride is not more independent than the NBER.

Yes, there may be a "type" that does that - but why attribute it to Angela and write a whole piece on her about it when there's no evidence that she's anything of the sort just because she was a young mum?
It's throwing shit and hoping some sticks just because some are too dense to think any further. Job done, character tarnished. If I was her I'd want to sue, and I'm not usually the type to say that at all.

I've not read it. But there is a book some guy made listing each benefit of Brexit

ok, so not "just before current government came into power"

I actually remember 2023 well - we were offering 100k+ packages with substantial bonuses and fully flex and couldn't hire for love nor money bog standard roles, not even niche skills, job market was white hot. I was getting a several calls from recruiters weekly. It was technically a recession, but inflation was steadily coming down.
It's very different this time with unemployment growing, especially youth one.

Kindly - debt and deficit are different things. It was explained even here on MN many times.
Markets are ok-ish with debt, they don't forgive deficit above certain limits.

A work of fiction by Gully Foyle

People didn't want to be constrained by the EU. They wanted regulatory freedom. They wanted sovereignty.

I don't think pro or against EU is a measure of a person. Both sides had honest respectable views and you can have a sensible discussions.

Even in Brexit it makes sense to reduce trade frictions...both sides benefit.

You measure someone as a whole..not on one policy issue.

Being for remain doesn't magically make anyone good. And being for Brexit doesn't make anyone bad.

Good luck - it’s akin to trying to teach a dolphin how to play a Stradivarius…

I know that - £600 billion is hardly peanuts, is it?

There was no plan for Brexit. The vote was a simple stay or leave.

The Tories messed up what came next.

They didn’t vote to be poorer - and yet that was the outcome.

Do they feel they’ve got that?

How's the regulatory freedom and sovereignty working out for you?

Are you much better off?