Oh no Rosie

[InandOutlander]

I'm so sad to see her go, she was the shining light within the Labour camp.

There are a worrying number of posters on here that don’t realise MPs represent their constituents and are aligned to a party, not the other way round. If that were the case why bother having MPs at all? Why not simply given each party that number of parliamentary votes and have the majority party act as an elected dictatorship for five years?

Goodness knows throughout the run up to the election, many women were loudly pointing out to Labour their problems and concerns in the now obviously very naive belief that there was a lingering integrity, actual socialist values, that we'd just misunderstood them. Many women who have been committed Labour voters and believers for decades clung to the belief that they meant what they said and once in power would turn out to be the government we hoped for.

Rosie isn't the only woman severely let down and disappointed to discover that no; they're exactly what women here thought they were.

We really as a sex class have to stop giving people so much generosity and benefit of the doubt. There's a point at which it moves from nice to naive and then at high speed to daft.

Her leaving the party is totally understandable, she is not a good fit for Labour and hasn't been for a long time. They've treated her badly, and everything in her letter is basically true.

However, if she was resigning, as she claims, because her conscience cannot allow her to remain in a party where people are claiming expensive gifts (which are within the rules) while implementing policies that harm the poor, she cannot hide behind the rules that say she doesn't have to trigger a by-election.

If she acts according to her moral conscience, she should be 'better' than the rules and allow her constituents to decide whether they still want Rosie, given that she only stood weeks ago as a Labour candidate and was arguably elected on that basis.

She chose, instead, to pretend that her constituents didn't elect her on that basis, but for her 'independent-mindedness'.

She is now saying that she will keep her £93k a year job on that pretence.

If we are talking about money-grabbing, that amount of money has to come into consideration particularly if it could be viewed as an unearned gift.

If it is not a pretence, then she should be willing to call a by-election in the knowledge that her lucrative job is safe.

I used to have a friend who was a member of Militant. He'd been in it for at least 20 years. Every time I saw him he'd complain about the extortionate subs, the boring meetings, the awful people, how he'd been bullied by the General Secretary.

And I was like, "Jesus, Tony, it's a voluntary organisation. You're not serving a prison sentence. If it makes you this miserable why don't you just leave? You'd achieve at least as much on the outside."

I don't think he could imagine that. In his union, if you were a lefty, you had to be in Militant. But I believe he eventually did leave. We all have our individual breaking points.

The dynamic is very like a bad marriage. And in politics, it's not exclusive to the far left by any means.

She must be doing some right to be elected in Canterbury so often. Against the swing too prior to this last election. The only Labour MP in true blue Kent for many years. She's too right wing for my liking but has the courage of her convictions on women's and children's rights. She could have just hung in there , said nothing and got promoted?

Given it is the Labour Party that are not following the principles they claim to hold, rather than Rosie, shouldn’t it be every Labour MP that resigns and call a by-election rather than the MP holding to the principles she was elected for?

But she is, in her letter, complaining about things that happened before the election. If they chose to stand for Labour a few weeks ago, and now can't in any conscience be a Labour MP, but in their letter complain about things that they knew about for a long time, that doesn't make any sense, does it?

Well quite frankly and very obviously because it wasn’t as bad and she didn’t know as much , pre election to post.

honestly some folks will do anything to blame the woman.

Seriously? People have been thinking she would quit Labour for a long time.

I'm not blaming the woman for quitting. I'm wondering whether she will take the opportunity to prove that she isn't just another politician out to get whatever financial reward they can. That she didn't shelve her principles to keep her lucrative job only to rediscover them the minute it was safe.

I don't mind at all that Rosie has chosen to major on cronyism, nepotism and greed, because those are the vulnerable spots, and she's a sharper political operator than she's given credit for.

Look at the Labour manifesto. It's light on policy specifics, but there's a whole chapter on restoring standards to public life. They banged on endlessly before the election about Conservative and SNP scandals - to be fair, they had plenty of material to work with - and gave the impression that they would be the sea green incorruptibles. It was arguably Labour's biggest theme.

Now one key rule of politics is that it's a really bad look for the government to believe there's one rule for them and another for the rest of us. That's why partygate sank Boris Johnson. It's an even worse look when you've just won an election explicitly campaigning on you being the ethical party that will restore standards.

We didn't know about the freebies. We might have had our suspicions about donor money sloshing around Labour, but we didn't know the specifics. After all, Keir is a rich man - remember his pension is so huge he needed a special piece of legislation to protect it - and is surely able to buy his own suits.

They could have limited the damage by holding their hands up and saying, look, this was within the rules, but we know it looks bad when voters are struggling economically, and we'll change the rules. We're sorry and we won't do it again. Instead their instinct has been to double down.

It's the optics that matter. In the grand scheme of the national budget, Angela Rayner acquiring a personal photographer isn't even small change. It's damaging because it's blatant self-service. It is not a normal perk of the DPM's job. John Prescott isn't an especially modest man, and he never had a personal photographer following him around.

It seems that the Labour leadership are taking the piss.

I know this thread is about Rosie, but I hope that her resignation will encourage a much closer look at Lord Alli.

If she's focusing on greed and saying that it's unacceptable to do stuff that doesn't sit right morally, just because it's within the rules, then that has to apply to her job too.

I've got mixed feelings to be honest. Part of me is delighted and also relieved to see Rosie Duffield finally break free of those utter tossers. I think her resignation letter is smoking hot. And given how I recall Labour accepting Natalie Elphicke's and Dan Poulter's defections from the Tories in April/May, I think they'd look a little foolish if they tried to take the moral high ground now.

That said, I do think @noblegiraffe has made some valid points about Duffield's constituents, and I feel uneasy for those who campaigned for her only a couple of months ago.

Well, it is Sunday. Lets see what next week brings.

I'm wondering whether she will take the opportunity to prove that she isn't just another politician out to get whatever financial reward they can.

Well she has started to do so by taking a stand against sleaze and nepotism within the Labour Party. By not accepting £32000 worth of clothing bribes plus glasses, tickets and stays in luxury penthouses. By not simply sucking up to party controllers in order to gain renumerative ministerial positions. Given Parliament has only been sitting a few weeks we will have to wait for her contributions to debates, private members bills, voting records, work on behalf of constituents etc.

She accepted a £93k a year, 5 year guaranteed job on what now could be considered false pretences. Instead of openly addressing this, she chose to lie in her letter so that she could keep that job.

She comes off as just another self-interested nose-in-the-trough politician on that basis.

She has a chance to prove otherwise.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/29/rosie-duffield-keir-starmer-women-problem-labour

RD says Starmer had a problem with women.

The fact that you misunderstand the basis on which we elect MPs is down to you, not Rosie.

The fact that you keep claiming that she was a Labour candidate was irrelevant in an election where a lot of tactical voting went on to 'get out the Tories' suggests that you misunderstand how people actually vote.

I would be extremely disappointed if my MP simply went along with his party rather than stood by the principles he was elected under, regardless of what crazy plan his party came up with. But then, I live in Scotland so have seen the disastrous outcome of the sort of politics noblegiraffe espouses.

I never much rated Starmer, but I would have hoped the failure of the Corbyn experiment would have convinced Labour people that leadership cults are a bad idea. Seemingly not.

As for the Inner Party, they think we're a bunch of dumb illiterate serfs who should be grateful for their wise guidance.

This.

What sort of politics am I espousing?

To think you can’t question the morals of accepting large gifts while playing the system to line your own pockets and expect that not to be flagged up?

If that is not what she has done, then she has an easy way to demonstrate that.

That people are twisting themselves in knots to try to justify her not doing that suggests that actually playing the system for financial gain is fine so long as you like the person doing it.

If you'd been abused and bullied in the way that she has been, You'd be stuck with the same sort of decision. Do I give in to the bullies, or do I stay and fight for what I believe in and refuse to be intimidated in that way?

That’s interesting.