Andrea Leadsom - please stand for leadership!

[Millyonthefloss2]

Anyone agree?

Judy

You sure are in fighting mode. In fact you sound furious.

You said all this yesterday.

Is it really Andrea Leadsom that makes you this furious or the fact that you wanted to remain in the EU and she could take us out quick.

Leadsom is an awful choice, she has been shown to be dishonest on her CV, has dubious opinions, is pro deregulation of rights for employees etc, pro privatisation

She lacks intellectual credibility too, but is however a right wingers wet dream, and exactly what leave voters deserve, however the rest of us will be taken down with them.

I'm sure she could press the red button quick. I'm not so sure she could actually do any of the actual stuff that ought to be done to take us out in the best way possible.

So I guess she is perfect for any Leaver who doesn't like knowledge, or experts, or thinking any further than "Let's Leave".

She still hasn't published her tax return.

I don't know if I am more scared about, how few people will be deciding who will be PM or how unrepresentative they are.

Yup, 150,000 Conservative party members making the decision of who is Prime Minister, I think Leadsom has a chance with those lot.

Yes Andrea Leadsom has made some mistakes but bloody hell the hate directed at her just ridiculous. It's obviously because she wants to take us out of the EU. And out fast. The remainers can't stand that prospect, and fair enough, but at least be honest about it.

Umm, no. It's because she's a liar, has traduced the reputation of a journalist (unjustifiably) and wants to remove every single employment right from people who work for small companies. She blathers about the importance of mother and child bonding but would be happy to see a woman forced to return to work the day after giving birth or face penury. She also gave a speech on the economy which contained nothing but ridiculous platitudes and refused to answer any questions on it. Why do you think papers like the Telegraph, which supported Leave, are supporting May?

Isn't Merkel also childless?

I wouldn't trust Andrea Leadsom to negotiate effectively - she'd be insisting she'd been misinterpreted and misquoted at every opportunity. In reality, she said what she thought and it was an unwholesome thought. Makes a change from the lies, I guess.

Inkanta, I join with many, many people in not wanting someone who has a track record of deceit and incompetence as a Prime Minister: that doesn't make me "furious", that makes me sensible. If none of that bothers you, good for you.

Sure, I also don't want a Prime Minister who would invoke Article 50 before we have in place the experienced negotiators that are essential for the process. Do you?

Maybe in the negotiations she'd lie to the other side and then lie to us and the lies would sort of cancel each other out and it would all go jolly well.

Andrea said she would get on with the job of getting us out of the EU straightaway and Theresa said she'd go slower and start next year, so I assume that would concern some remainers.

And you believe her based on what? She will trigger Article 50, and what will happen after that is this:

Politicians will scramble together to find a way out of the EU. In the process of trying to meet the deadline, they will likely agree rashly to things Leave voters will hate or the two years will lapse and we'll be in crappy WTO agreement by default, forever trying to negotiate trade agreements after that (which generally take more than two years).

"politely disagreeing with someone in a conversation about politics" =/= "hounding".

"pointing it out when someone who is campaigning to be Prime Minister has lied about relevant matters" =/= "hate".

Most of the support for AL in the early part of this thread seemed to be on the basis of her experience and competence, both in her professional life and the way she handled herself over the EU debates. She seemed to be perceived by her supporters as calming and trustworthy.

It now seems that she is not trustworthy, does not have the financial/managerial experience she claimed to have, does not have the competence to handle being either a banker or a politician after all and could certainly not be trusted to reassure us. However much one might not want TM, she does seem to have competence and experience.

Umm, no. It's because she's a liar, has traduced the reputation of a journalist (unjustifiably) and wants to remove every single employment right from people who work for small companies. She blathers about the importance of mother and child bonding but would be happy to see a woman forced to return to work the day after giving birth or face penury. She also gave a speech on the economy which contained nothing but ridiculous platitudes and refused to answer any questions on it.
AND she wants to bring back foxhunting!

I think that journalist knew exactly what she was doing. I have a relative who does that sort of reporting routinely and he would never, ever have done this.

You mean your relative, a journalist, would not have reported what their interviewee actually said, and was recorded as saying? That would be an odd choice for a journalist to make.

AL is an absolute disgrace both to women and to our nation. She has still not fully disclosed requested tax returns, her cv is a deceitful mess, her policies towards low earners and women are medieval and she clearly believes the people of UK are so dumb she can lie and deny crap she spouted 5 minutes previously.

It is deeply concerning (and reported internationally as a massive joke!!!) that the IK is floating somebody this diabolical as PM. Truly, the sane-thinking world sees the UK as having and increasingly powerful faction of thick, desperate fascists and economically suicidal levels of ignorance at government level. Sadly, I'd have to agree.

Whenever I hear (read) going on about her values I think of Kinder, Küche, Kirche.

Bah!

Whenever I hear (read) AL going on about her values I think of Kinder, Küche, Kirche.

archery Listening to the transcript, I personally think the journalist went after this comment (i.e. she wanted to get it rather than wanted to put across AL's agenda in a thorough, straightforward and objective manner, she represented it quite misleadingly (by giving the impression AL made this the thrust of the interview on her own) when it was a comment that, left to her own devices, AL may well not have made at all. That's a journalist playing politics and when you look at the paper she's writing for, you can see why. That's stitching up and it's irresponsible reporting as well as damaging the relationship between politicians and press which isn't in the interests of either the public or any one individual reporter.

And I say that thinking personally that it would be a disaster for AL to run the country. However I do think it is even worse to have the country's opinion being swayed violently by media barons. It's not their place and at the end of the day, there has to be some kind of trust and respect between politicians and journalists for the press to do their job.

Very often, it's necessary for journalists to report on issues they know politicians would prefer the public didn't know about but that is a completely separate issue from journalists going out to create an occasion in which a politician will say something that they will subsequently wish the public didn't know about, IYSWIM.

For my relative, he manages to be perfectly lovely while going for the jugular in an above board, pleasant way by asking a straight question.

I see what you are arguing, gonetosee, but Andrea Leadsom chose on many occasions during the leave campaign to tell people her opinion "as a mother," so it would be a weird journalist not to ask her why she attaches so much importance to her status as a mother and what difference she thinks that makes to her abilities as a politician.

Come off it, gonetosee. Given how much AL went on about her views "as a mum" no responsible journalist could have avoided the question what the relevance of that was. All she asked was whether AL felt like a mum in politics. At no point did the interviewer mention the fact that Theresa May had no children, it was AL who, totally gratuitously, dragged that into her answer. She even went on to embroider her answer by saying that TM might have nephews and nieces but that was not the same as her who has children who will be directly affected by what happens in future. You may feel that the journalist wanted her to say something like that, but the fact remains that she didn't at any point lead AL into mentioning TM's childlessness.

And then AL went on to exacerbate what she did by insisting that she didn't say that, it was the opposite of what she said, when we can all work out for ourselves what the truth was. Again, none of of that was prompted by the journalist. If you are going to go into politics, surely one of the first things you learn is that you think carefully before you open your mouth, and that if you don't, claiming that the nasty journo made you do it is going to make you sound like a weak, deceitful fool.

gonetosee I agree with roundabout - AL has made such heavy weather, so very often, of her "as a mother" thing that it's a pefectly reasonable (and indeed predictable) thing for any journalist to bring up in an interview.

And ...this is someone who is running for the highest elected office in the land, who will represent us internationally, and who will have their every move and every word scrutinised. This is someone who is a Minister already, whose judgement we are supposed to be able to trust. If they are completely thrown by an utterly predictable question from a jobbing journalist, perhaps they are in the wrong line of work.

A handy list of all her 'small mistakes' so far

infacts.org/ms-leadsoms-misleading-claims/

*yes I am a Remain voter. It doesn't mean I don't get to care that the leader of our country is more qualified than someone who is only a junior cabinet minister, thinks being a high flying City professional just before the hugest credit crunch in history is a positive thing or shows such ill judgement talking to a respected political journalist... And then denying it