Would you vote for Angela Rayner?

[WildEnergySupplier]

Sounds like she's throwing her hat in the ring.

She says she's paid off the tax she owes and is no longer under investigation.

This apparently means she's free to run - and is going to.

Priti Patel drops her Gs. I dislike her for a multitude of reasons but, though it grates on me, I’m not going to criticise her for something so trivial.

I am mild-milk semi-skim Tory politically, but I have no time at all for Boris. He was funny on "Have I Got News For You" in the early 2000s.

National average GCSE grade in Math is 4.
Most children are familiar with questions. Only some of them can find solutions.

Her experience of issues does not make her qualified to find good solutions.

I had my boiler broken many times. Still have no idea how to fix it, need to call a tradesman.

Her Workers Rights Bill, even watered down, is already causing huge harm to workers themselves. It's great that she didn't have enough time to concrete our green belt.

Be truthful, born into unpromising circumstances like Rayner, how many of us pontificating here would have achieved as much? For that alone, I respect her. She's done incredibly well. I just disagree with her politically.

She did do well for herself, but it does not make her qualified for the job.

She’s certainly achieved a lot more in her 45 years than I have in my 72 and I started with the advantages of a middle class background and a good education. I think it’s quite interesting that the majority of her detractors are women. Most men, whether or not they agree with her politics, don’t seem to find her particularly problematic.

What does qualify someone? Just the right education?

And what is the right education?

That's not your decision or mine, unless you are a constituent or a member of the PLP. I rather think she's probably a very congenial companion on a night out. And I'd pay to have dinner with her; heck, I would be happy to cook it for her. I'd like the time to explain that small businesses can't cope with the entire regulatory burden she'd want to impose.

She’s one of those people I think how did you do so well. I have the same thoughts of Gemma Collins.

Do you know what @Papyrophile? I’d love to have dinner with you, I reckon we’ve got a lot in common if we avoided politics.

Come over anytime BIossomtoes! I'm a decent cook too.

We'd never not talk politics though, but I think we could disagree amicably.

Thank you. I would but I live an inconveniently long way from you! If you’re ever in London give me a shout, it’s an easy trip for me.

Exactly.

That just sounds an impossibly snobbish comment. Intellect does not reliably correlate with an RP accent. One of the cleverest people I have ever met has barely any education past primary school.

Not Streeting. He is in hock to the private health care sector. Donations of £372,000 since 2015. (From Private healthcare/Hedge fund Managers/ firms working in private healthcare...)

Call me cynical @ElizaMulvil but scratch the surface and every politician is going to have accepted some "help" from somewhere, and some are likely to have "debts" that they are under pressure to reciprocate when they are in a position to do so.

What does qualify someone?

ability to see many (ideally all) aspects of the issue, not just the ones you have experienced, and ability to anticipate consequences of all options available and intelligence to chose the best long term one.

Just the right education?
No, some well educated people are frankly stupid. But education helps with the above. Like reading helps to enrich your knowledge of the world and understanding of people without having to experience many situations.

And how does Rayner not qualify?

I think the NHS is going to have to relent on keeping private care out. We've spent a ridiculous number of hours in our local eye hospital recently (brand new and well resourced, planned under Labour but built under the last Tory administration). Just chatting to other patients, once the acute stage of treatment is done, many are being referred to the same doctors for continuing care, which is important as most are ageing, but to maintain continuity of care, and most of us would prefer that, it may be necessary to pay some of the cost. The people who don't have the means to do so end up as emergencies, again.

Europe (and the US) have lots of hospitals and medical facilities that are privately, or charitably owned. They stay in business by being good, efficient and delivering excellent care. If you are privately insured, the best place in the world to be seriously ill, is the USA. It is also the worst place to have a mediocre health care plan. Medicare and Medicaid cover the old and the unemployed quite well, but in between a serious chronic illness like diabetes can be bankrupting.

Many of us did. That’s precisely why some of us are not automatically impressed by the “made good from a difficult background” argument alone. Hard work, resilience and improving your situation matter, but we want substance, judgement, competence (very much in short supply, administration to administration) and long-term thinking from the people leading the country - not blind faith in a corrupted ideology or a sense of moral superiority.

We are still waiting for leaders like that, and for many of us it is neither Angela Rayner nor the Labour Party.

she doesn't have these skills.
She sees the world from her own experience and pushes her ideological policies despite them being harmful to those exact people she wants to protect.

On the strength of the politicians we've endured for the last decade, I think I'm almost ready to bar any that have a PPE degree!

Can you give an example of a politician who does qualify?

agree completely

ETA: STEM is the way to go