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”

With no proof. Claims don’t indicate fact.

Re grammar schools and pregnant teenagers. There certainly were still some young women who became pregnant whist teens at grammar schools. Pearson is a few years older than I am. Our school went comp as I arrived and the older years were still grammar stream. All sorts of kids in the mix and definitely some girls who fitted the stereotype she's applying.

Research?! That's not really a thing amongst those who write in the Telegraph is it?
Okay, there are a few honourable exceptions but, as a general rule.

Why does David Lammy stick out like a sore thumb? Because he is black and from a working class family?

According to Wikipedia:

Lammy studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, graduating with a 2:1 in law. He was called to the bar of England and Wales in 1994 at Lincoln's Inn. He went on to study at Harvard University, where he became the first black Briton to attend Harvard Law School; he studied for a Master of Laws degree and graduated in 1997.

His educational and post-University achievements seem pretty good to me so why do you think that he hasn't gained his position through merit?

You seem to be quite racist and a raging snob.

Allison Pearson is a nasty stereotype. Her employment depends on her churning out this bile and always has done.

The comments under it are a cesspit. Full of I was thinking of cancelling my subscription because we hadn’t had a nasty character assassination in a while, thank you for this gem Allison.

I stopped reading the Telegraph years ago. What finished me off was a personal attack on a female MP who brought forward a private bill on Page 3 topless models. The 'article' was all about the MPs anatomy, etc, you can imagine.

Of course there are disruptive children in schools. However, there is absolutely no evidence that AR was one. And to call them “Angelas” is appalling in so many ways. An “Angela” is surely a woman from a seriously disadvantaged background who worked her socks off to better herself, cared for her children (including one with special needs) and became an MP and the deputy leader of her party. Quite the role model, I’d say.

People post hateful stuff all over social media, including this site, all the time, but it used to be that legacy media held itself to a higher standard.

Her mocking a pregnant then-16 year old is actually gross. I see it on here as well and it gives me secondhand embarrassment.

How is a grown woman slamdunking on vulnerable girls? She has no idea the circumstances that led to any underage girl becoming pregnant and subsequently continuing with the pregnancy.

You can’t take these things too seriously though. There will always be stupid and nasty people around.

So she's pretending she went to school with someone she doesn't like and has probably never met. And has concocted a completely made up stereotype misogynistic classist personality and backstory for her?!

Pathetic.

That doesn't surprise me at all. Unfortunately, this is who most of the DT audience are.

Quite a grifter now though, what with her freebie stays in luxury NY apartments, freebie clothes, oh and not paying her tax.

Yeah there were numerous girls like that at my school and it was great in sixth form when they’d all left. The atmosphere was so different. But I’m not sure it fits Angela Rayner because she actually did go for job opportunities and did exceptionally well for herself. None of the girls at my school did.

The Telegraph is underpressure from GBNews to come up with the most rage bait worthy stuff that used to be left to the Daily Mail to reguritate.
It will only get worse.

I read the article, which seems full of bitter stereotypes.

I don't share Rayner's politics, which are quite opposite to mine. Like Rayner, I went to a bog standard comp (bottom 1% in the GCSE league tables), left with poor results but dusted myself off, resat the exams and worked my way up into a successful professional career.

I have absolutely no sympathy for the people the author describes as 'Angelas'- nasty, either dim or clever but misanthropic bullies keen to drag everyone down. Other than a little notoriety- they pop up in the local paper having made Court appearances for petty crime- they amounted to nothing.

Angela Rayner is not one of Allison Pearson's Angelas!

Our disgusting media is the reason we miss out on highly talented people choosing to go into politics. Who wants to become a MP and have this bile directed at them and their families? Our media are harming our country. It needs tougher regulation.

Regulation by whom though? Certainly not the government (as that’s a slippery slope).

And the problem with the current system of course is that it doesn’t actually prevent things being published or information being obtained illegally.

And any laws around not being able to publish x, y and z leave the country open to a government tightening those laws to include things they don’t want reported.

I disagree. I think we should take this type of misogynist attack very seriously, because irrespective of your politics its gutter journalism at its worst. Any attack on the personal circumstances of our politicians is an attack on democracy itself which is at the very core of our country.

I'm going to make a formal complaint. Who is with me?

No idea if Angela was like that but these people do exist and do disrupt others education. Was a mean spirited piece though as it targeted Rayner. No fan of her myself though.

Weirdly, I agree with you. Because the problem isn't the pressure writing toxic drivel like this, it's the demand for toxic drivel from raging snobs and class obsessed knobs. The UK would be a much better place if its people finally got over their obsession with class and style over substance.

So you are using fabricated misogynistic claims about something that Rayner is known to have never said in order to argue that she didn't get to where she is on merit? Tbh, that says more about you than it says about her.

As for David Lammy, yes, he has been a complete twat with regard to the trans issue, but that in itself is not evidence that he got to where he is through some sort of tickbox exercise.

I’ll join you - Press Complaints Commission? The Telegraph won’t care, it clearly meets with the approval of its regular readers.

As opposed to the journalist Alison Pearson who - checks - was declared bankrupt in 2015 over non-payment of taxes to HMRC. Oh, and also successfully sued for non-delivery of a book that she had trousered a half mill advance on.

The problem here is that they wound up the PCC. Even more of a concern is that the so-called Independent Press Standards Organisation has its Editors' Code of Practice Committee chaired by Chris Evans. So, to come full circle, Allison Pearson's editor at the Telegraph is Chris Evans.