Times article suggesting Rayner is a shoo-in for PM within months - please god no

[teawamutu]

Hopefully this link will work:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/27184a3f-e513-49a6-871d-bc8c71fa7804?shareToken=1740daa659156e3945fd8e025dbf6d22

She signed every anti-women motion. She said she'd save a bench in the Commons for Liam/’Lily' fucking Madigan. She's pointlessly fighty and I'd bet perfectly happy to try to change the Equality Act. At the very least she'd allow FWS to be undermined.

Talk me down and explain why this either won't happen or won't be a disaster, wise FWRers, please!

The Black Belt Barrister has a poll on who's lining up to take KS's place and the voting has AR on 51% with SM on 21%, not that it's scientific in any way, but half of the 16k voters think she's angling for it.

She lost her temper on one occasion and apologised. People talk about this incident as if it was a regular thing.

“Angling for it” is a strange way of putting it.

“Angling for it” = letting it be known she wants it without stating out loud that she wants it, I should imagine she's not the only one, they're not there yet but soon.

I understand how it works. But that particular word seems to imply shadiness. Not sure why.

I have always suspected that Rayner's elevation (now lost) was always tokenistic. ie she ticked two boxes - female (actual) and working class.

I think in a leadship election, unless no one else stood, she wouldn't suceed.

Burnham cant stand, unless they ignore the Party ruling that he cant resign as Mayor to then stand as a Parliamentary candidate (I wonder why the Party said that)

What I cant understand is how come so many articles refer to Ed Miliband being in the running.

Or this complete outsider that some papers keep writing about https://www.ft.com/content/0748eb0c-0569-4e03-ad8c-3981dcf5352c
Seem to think he has rank and file appeal https://archive.is/GNij8

But dont think "rank and file" are any part of the process of picking a new leader.

Labour Party Rule Book on Leadership elections
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn03938/

Well done Labour. It will be the Corbyn years all over again. Angela Raynor?? I bet Nigel is popping the champagne.

How do we know she won't lose her temper again and call some world leader or two scum?

Haven’t managed to check his actual politics (in 2 minutes) but he looks like he has more idea about leadership & service than most of the alternatives!

I genuinely believe you should judge her on her actions in office, and not on her religion. She's only been in office for a few months, and she also has to contend with her own backbenchers ranged against her measures to take control of borders and enforce the law.

We all have blind spots.

I think you need to differentiate between muslim extremists and everyday people of faith; just in the same way you would with people of any other religion.

Well as Corbyn got many more votes from the electorate than Starmer did, why would anyone sneer at that.

In case you have forgotten, Starmer "won" the election with fewer overall votes than Corbyn who lost when Party leader.

And yet MSM go on about Starmer's "stunning victory" and Corbyn's resounding defeat.

The point is that she reached for that description at all - when involved in a debate in the houses of parliament. It is indicative of not only a certain temperament, but also of a very crude political analysis whereby you are either with me or you are scum.

That says more about you and your loss of confidence in the political class than it does about Shabana Mahmood.

Well, I suppose the only thing keeping Starmer afloat is if you tick off the problems with the likely contenders to succeed.

Burnham - probably objectively the best choice (at least the one Labour figure who's popular with voters) but not an MP for the foreseeable future

Rayner - still has to get a clean bill of health from the taxman, and beyond that, while popular with members does not poll at all well with voters - the insiders saying she would be Labour's Liz Truss are not all wrong

Streeting - needs to scrub his social media of all references to Mandelson, popular with MPs and media but not with members

Miliband - been there, done that

Mahmood - probably won't stand, her base in the party is far too narrow

So we end up with the lobby hacks floating some pretty obscure names. I would struggle to pick John Healey out of a police lineup. I do recognise Lou Haigh, but the very fact of her name even being mentioned is an illustration of Labour's problem.

...fuck it, we're going to get Lammy, aren't we?

But, giving her verdict on who she would like to see on the steps of Downing Street next, the Rosie Duffield old Camilla: "If you saw Andy Burnham leading this party, you'd know what we stood for again."

But Ms Duffield also batted away the prospect of Ms Rayner becoming PM, adding: "I think that she's very popular with Labour members and union backers, but not the public.

"I think her associations are also problematic. It's factionalism within the Labour Party. Keir Starmer was meant to be this not factional person.

"She's more of the kind of union left faction of the party, but also not left enough for some. And she hasn't shown any of that left leadership under Keir Starmer.

"So it's a bit confusing. And also the tax probe continues," Ms Duffield added. "She isn't in one of the families that's got all the power, and I kind of like that about her."

Meanwhile, she called Mr Streeting a "great politician" who listened to "all points of view", although she expressed concern that Mr Streeting was tainted by the Peter Mandelson scandal having been a close associate with the peer in the past.

Asked if she believes there to be a "dark horse" waiting in the wings for Sir Keir to resign, the former Labour MP flirted with the possibility the "credible and serious" Bridget Phillipson could be one to watch.
Currently serving as Education Secretary, Ms Phillipson has previously run to be deputy leader, being beaten by rival Lucy Powell.

https://www.gbnews.com/politics/labour-keir-starmer-resign-leadership-race-angela-rayner-rosie-duffield

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

Really Rosie?

I am aiming to judge her on her actions in office rather than her religion but I think we would be foolish to ignore her potential but serious conflict of interest and the possible chilling effect that her religion has on those around her.

For example, she does not support a ban on first cousin marriage. How much of Starmer’s outright refusal to support a ban come from her influence or the influence of other Muslims in government? How can he sit in a meeting and make a robust criticism of the practice, if people are present that may well have married first cousins in their family?

How can he propose a rebalance of the justice system and police approach to ensuring that Muslim communities are policed properly and not left to ‘police themselves’ as West Midlands police admitted in Birmingham (which will be relocated in many other cities). Some Muslim leaders take any criticism very badly.

How can he propose to drop the official definition of Islamophobia which is (unnecessary as religion and race are already protected strands in hate crime aggravator) if there are Muslims present in the meeting or committee who insist this should go ahead despite the impact of freedom of speech for the rest of us? Shabana Mahmood was previously a supporter of the definition but is now reportedly more cautious but the way things work with people desperate to be polite and not offend, she is going to have to effectively give permission to have a negative view of this.

She is currently saying the right things and I really hope she’s going to be good and sensible but when are we going to see some action? Hopefully soon as she’s been in office for 5 months already.

If she’s telling the truth about her faith being a very important part of her life, she is very likely to find herself with a clash between that and the interests of the state at some point. The question will be, will her faith or the country win? We really need her not to have too many blind spots.

Noo not Lammy 😬

The fact that we're about to outsource control of a 150-seat majority to the membership of the Labour Party should be terrifying.

You may think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

It is.

Labour leadership elections in the wake of an election defeat are one thing. They've never done this before while in goverment.

It will be a bidding war, and just like how Liz Truss got to be PM, the winner will be whoever most shamelessly panders to whatever batshit policies make the members horny.

I do not like Morgan McSweeney, and I despair of usually sensible people like Tim Shipman who've bought into the legend of his genius, but if McSweeney had one thing going for him, it's that he was the only person at the top of Labour except maybe Shabana Mahmood who thought the party should try to appeal to the median voter. God knows how many insane proposals he shot down. The rest of the Labour leadership have an attitude to the median voter which is basically "the electorate is too low class for us, here Nigel, you have them."

It was at a time when the leader of the Tories was referring to Muslim women as “letter boxes” and gay men as “tank top wearing bum boys”…..Not really surprising she lost her temper a bit at a Labour Party event.

Since when did two wrongs make a right?

She is a practising Muslim and the doctrine is that a Muslim’s first priority is to other Muslims.

'The' doctrine? which one?

They said the same thing when Kennedy ran for the presidency - he's a practicing Catholic, and their first loyalty is to the Pope.

That was the 1960s, fortunately we've moved on from condemning entire groups of people as if they were all incapable of independent thought or opinion.

As it turned out, excessive loyalty to the Pope turned out not to be a feature of JFK's presidency. Or life, for that matter.