Tag Archives: Angela

Angela Rayner caught lying (?) about Labour’s attack ad on Rishi Sunak

Angela Rayner: her blink rate means her comments about the Labour ‘child sex’ attack advert on Rishi Sunak are not credible.

Angela Rayner is the latest Labour bigwig to come out in support of that vile attack advert that claims Rishi Sunak doesn’t want child sex criminals to go to prison.

Party leader Keir Starmer has said he supported it, after initially saying he had not been informed of it and what it contained. He was a member of the sentencing panel that approved the current guidelines for child sex offences, back in 2012 – so in fact the current situation is more his doing than Sunak’s.

Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves has also spoken up in support.

And now Angela Rayner. But we have a doubt about the wholeheartedness of her comments:

Yes – the blink rate gives her away.

I did an article about this after seeing James Cleverly being interviewed on Laura Kuennsberg’s Sunday morning show. Here‘s what I said then (and don’t worry – the relevant part is quite early in the clip):

“The normal blink rate is around 16 times per minutes but Cleverly is going 19 to the dozen, all the way through,” I say on the clip.

“When we’re really interested in something, our blink rate slows down because we’re trying to take in more information – but when we’re stressed or anxious, which is normal if we’re trying to deceive someone, the blink rate goes up.”

Now go back to the Rayner clip, in which she blinks 13 times in 16 seconds.

If she had been in a television studio, she might have had an excuse – because studio lights may be harsh on the eyes. But from the background, it looks as though she was at home or in an office.

So there seems no other explanation for her blink rate but stress.

Is she lying about the advert? Or is she just unhappy to be having to support it? You be the judge.


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Voters cringe as Keir Starmer launches local elections campaign

Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner: prepare to recoil in horror at their local election launch video.

This was predictable, after Keir Starmer had Labour’s National Executive Committee block Jeremy Corbyn from standing as a party candidate in general elections.

Members of the public were always likely to consider Starmer unkindly; he just made it worse with the kind of cack-handed publicity drive we are more used to seeing from Tories like Theresa May or Liz Truss (heavens help us).

I mean…

Get the picture? That clip alone has managed to wipe away all the points Angela Rayner earned at Prime Minister’s Questions on March 29.

There’s worse, though. The following tweets may speak for themselves:

So if zombies and/or reanimated corpses get the vote, Starmer might have a chance.

As far as the rest of us are concerned – he can whistle for it.


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Crime triggers acrimonious exchange at PMQs

Labour’s Deputy Leader Angela Rayner ripped Dominic Raab a new one in a punitive masterclass on how to take apart a political opponent, using his government’s failures and his own record against him.

During a Prime Minister’s Questions that was led by the government and opposition’s deputy leaders, due to the funeral of former Speaker Betty Boothroyd, Rayner began by focusing on the government’s new anti-social behaviour strategy that she said had taken 13 years to arrive and could best be applied to Raab himself (referring to charges of bullying against him).

His best response was that he had never called anybody “scum” (a reference to her use of the word to describe members of his party).

Moving on to attack the Tory record on crime in general, Rayner quoted shocking figures that show 300 rapes take place every day but women brave enough to report them have just a 1.6 per cent chance of ever seeing their attacker face justice in court.

Raab’s response that 69 per cent of such cases result in conviction was pathetically weak; he was saying only one in every 100 rapes ever results in a conviction.

The figure supports Baroness Casey’s damning report on the “institutionally sexist” Metropolitan Police, which stated that rape might as well be legal in London.

And worse was to follow, with the revelation that the average wait for a rape case to reach court is now three years, and 175 have been abandoned because the victim was so brutalised by the experience that she felt unable to go on.

These are damning figures for which Raab had no coherent response.

And that’s the most damning part of it, because Dominic Raab is also the UK’s Secretary of State for Justice.


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Led By Donkeys MP second jobs scandal: Labour is no better

Backhander: another problem with MPs taking second jobs is that they don’t declare any interest when taking part in debates – you have to look up their details in the House of Commons Register of Interests to find out about it.

The film series in which Led By Donkeys exposes MPs who are happy to neglect their first duty – to their constituents – for a second job with a (fake) foreign firm has won huge public interest since its trailer debuted yesterday.

But let’s remember one thing while we’re looking at Tory MPs trying to get their noses in the trough:

Labour’s leader is no better.

In 2017, Keir Starmer was blocked from taking a second job with law firm Mishcon de Reya – by then-party leader Jeremy Corbyn (a man with better principles than all the MPs mentioned in the Led By Donkeys research, put together).

Nowadays, it seems he likes to say he was only “in discussion” with that firm – as though it doesn’t mean he was talking with its people about working for them. Watch him get contradicted by a Sky News reporter here:

I wonder how Sky News will be treated by a future Labour government, considering the way Starmer has abused and persecuted dissenters in his own party?

A huge problem with MPs having second jobs – besides the fact that it reduces their work for constituents to a part-time hobby – is that it makes them employees of organisations that may (and many do) wish to influence politics in the UK. But that isn’t the only way it can be done.

Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, has said the party will end the scandal of MPs’ second jobs – as though that will be the end of the corruption.

What about the donations she (along with other Labour MPs) takes from pro-Israel lobbyist Trevor Chinn? As matters stand, there is no reason they shouldn’t take his money – but what are they obliged to do in return?

Here’s a ray of hope, though: fortunately some MPs still remember the reason they were elected to Parliament, and are prepared to point out the failings of their fellow representatives. Here’s Zarah Sultana:

Needless to say, she has been sidelined by Starmer.

Another backbencher, sidelined by Starmer, is Richard Burgon – whose Private Members’ Bill to ban MPs from having second jobs is currently going through the Parliamentary process:

He has spoken forcefully about the issue in the House of Commons:

How many of you expect this excellent legislation to be filibustered out of existence by the usual Tory suspects?

None of this should be allowed to override the main point of the Led By Donkeys exposure, though – that sitting MPs are demanding huge amounts of money to shill for commercial interests while their constituents suffer in poverty and hunger.

Let’s have a look at some of the figures:

It’s corruption fuelled by greed, pure and simple.

And the fact is that it will continue because there is no way to compel MPs to stop.

Or will the tide of public opinion be enough to make these avaricious pigs lift their snouts from the trough and do the right thing – for fear of being ousted at the next election?


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Labour takes on a new ‘funny tinge’ after re-admitting Angela Smith

Keir Starmer kept quiet about this – and who can blame him?

In the midst of renewed concern about the overt racism in the Labour Party under Starmer’s leadership, it has been revealed that Angela Smith, the woman who described people of colour as having a “funny tinge” was quietly re-admitted, some time ago.

Here’s Cornish Damo to give you the details:

Let’s have a quick reminder of what she said, back in 2019:

She did subsequently apologise.

But she is now back in a party that is happy to harbour overt racists.

What conclusion does she think people will draw about her, then? Or about Labour itself?


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IEA think tank representative humiliated on live television

The far-right Institute of Economic Affairs think tank has been accused of influencing successive Conservative governments – most particularly the disastrous short-lived administration of Liz Truss.

It is therefore welcome that IEA representative Emily Carver was absolutely destroyed by Labour’s Angela Eagle on the BBC’s Politics Live on Wednesday, November 2.

I actually saw this when it was broadcast and made a mental note to write something about it – but Maximilien Robespierre has beaten me to it and said what I would have, if I’d had the chance.

Watch:

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Angela Rayner offers us hope. What a shame Keir Starmer can’t do the same

Keir Starmer (right in both images) and Angela Rayner: he’s already tried to get rid of her (apparently). Is it because she is more popular than he is and his ambition is stopping him from stepping aside?

It seems Angela Rayner has managed to bring hope to the crowd at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool – and beyond – with an inspiring speech.

Here’s Maximilien Robespierre‘s take on what she had to say:

Sadly, Ms Rayner is not the leader of the Labour Party, and the man who is – Keir Starmer – hasn’t had anything like that good a reaction from people in Liverpool, including those who have been attending the conference:

It must be encouraging for Starmer, though, that the verdict on Tory leader Liz Truss was uncompromisingly negative.

Given the (current) fact that the UK’s election choices are between the Conservatives – who are at an all-time low with Truss (the “backwash” of the party, as Joe Lycett memorably described her) – and StarmerLabour, it seems possible that he’ll win the next election, despite being unpopular even in his own party.

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Starmer ‘rule breach’ looks like Tory mud-slinging ahead of local vote

Keir and the beer: but isn’t the real question what the person who took the image thought they were doing? VoyeurGate, anybody?

Did Keir Starmer have a bottle of beer in a Durham MP’s constituency office last year?

Yes.

Was it against the rules at the time?

Probably not. There isn’t really enough information to be sure.

Skwawkbox has provided a handy list of the rules here – and that site considers Starmer to have broken the rules.

But the BBC takes a more nuanced view.

Labour itself says Starmer was at the office of City of Durham MP Mary Foy for an online event ahead of the Hartlepool by-election – a neighbouring constituency. As pubs were closed, getting take-out food was the logical course of action.

Rules in force at the time said people should work from home if they could. It could be argued that this was an occasion in which working from home was not possible – and there was an exemption for “work purposes”. There were no specific rules for meals at work events or for socialising at them.

Durham police have investigated and said they were satisfied that no rules were broken.

That wasn’t enough for North West Durham Tory MP Richard Holden. He argued that “this location was not the usual workplace” of Sir Keir, and there was “no necessity” for him to attend the event.

Really? If it was billed as an online rally with Keir Starmer and Mary Foy, then it was probably reasonable for him to attend, and if it was organised by Ms Foy’s constituency party, then it was probably reasonable for him to attend it there.

And now there’s a question about Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner attending – which, again, is probably neither here nor there, considering the restrictions described above.

So on balance, This Site tends to agree (for possibly the first time!) with Starmer: “We’re a few days away from local elections, and Conservative MPs are trying to throw as much mud as possible.”

There isn’t any correspondence with the so-called Partygate scandal because the Downing Street gatherings were social events. Boris Johnson was fined for attending a party, not a work event.

So this issue is nothing more than a distraction – and a shot in the foot for the Tories.

That’s because, by concentrating on alleged lockdown rule-breaking, the Tories are focusing attention on their own wrongdoing more than anybody else’s. Their prime minister has been caught breaking those rules; Starmer is only accused.

And the simple there are far worse failings in Keir Starmer’s Labour Party that the Tories could be exploiting.

What surprises This Writer is that either party is anywhere at all in the polls. Other political organisations should be walking all over them while they squabble about this.

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Is this the new Tory energy policy – going cap in hand to tyrants?

Begging bowl already loaded: this is actually a stock shot to illustrate Boris Johnson’s junket around the world, trying to chum up with foreign dictators in return for cheap oil. But what does he have to offer in return?

Boris Johnson’s decision to traipse around the world’s dictators with his begging bowl in hand has been mocked harshly by MPs in the UK’s Parliament.

He is currently in Saudi Arabia to sign a business deal with the government there, days after it carried out the largest mass execution of civilians in modern history – 81 people including seven people from neighbouring Yemen, with whom the Saudis are at war.

Called out over it by Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner during (Deputy) Prime Minister’s Questions, Dominic Raab had no answer other than a complete non-sequitur about the Salisbury Poisoning of 2018 and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

He was upbraided by Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle for harking back to the past,

And his claim wasn’t even accurate!

None of his bluster cut any ice with MPs, though – as a subsequent question by Alistair Carmichael showed:

And it struck a jarring contrast with Raab’s own words about the “despotic regime” in Iran that has just released Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe after six years.

After Ms Rayner welcomed the development – and asked for an inquiry to determine whether Johnson’s “lazy words” in 2018 had lengthened her prison term, Raab suggested she should not give “succour” to Iran:

What an odd thing to suggest about a dictatorship that only released her because his government had finally paid a decades-old £400 million debt in order to gain access to that “despotic regime” and its oil!

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Starmer Labour’s lurch to the right gets eviscerated on live TV

Taking the knee: Starmer and Rayner claimed it was in solidarity with victims of racist prejudice but it seems more likely they were going to follow up the gesture by drawing weapons and taking aim at the same victims.

I wonder how all those new, allegedly-genuine, Labour members feel about the policies and viewpoints they claim to adore being dissected and destroyed on live TV?

That’s what happened on Monday (February 21) on the BBC’s Politics Live. We can go through the content in a moment but let’s hear it first:

First up: Angela Rayner’s support for the murder of people accused of terrorism.

In fairness, her comment was, “Shoot terrorists and ask questions later.” It suggests she means genuine terrorists deserve to be shot, rather than people like Jean Charles de Menezes who was wrongly identified as a suspect by the Metropolitan Police – who shot him anyway.

But how do you identify who is a genuine terrorist and who is innocent – especially in an emergency?

That’s why Rayner’s comment was so dangerous, and why people like Sonali Bhattacharyya are right to be scandalised by her advocacy of it. She claimed to be “soft left” but seems to be more “hard right” as far as this is concerned.

Cressida Dick is mentioned because she was the senior Met Police officer in the operation that led to his fatal shooting.

Ms Bhattacharyya’s observation that Rayner’s words seem like posturing for the right-wing press is right on the button – especially at a time when Starmer Labour is trying hard to create a false distinction between it and the party as led by Jeremy Corbyn by saying he was (seen to be) soft on crime.

He wasn’t; Blairites such as Starmer like to make the claim, though. It harks back to Tony Blair’s attack on the Conservatives, back in the mid-1990s, and his 1993 slogan, “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.”

Anyone can see that this focused on rehabilitation as much as on punishment, but Starmer’s crowd has chosen to ignore the former in order to appeal to readers of right-wing low-intelligence tabloids.

Shadow Skills Minister Toby Perkins tried to laugh it off. He pointed out that Rayner’s comments were made on Matt Forde’s political comedy podcast. But this is not a laughing matter. Is it?

It’s very telling that at one point he said, “I think what Angela Rayner was trying to get away with-” before catching himself and rephrasing. So she was trying to get away with a claim about Labour’s attitude to terrorism, was she? Moments before, she had been making a humorous comment about her own, personal, attitude. Which was it? I couldn’t be both!

The weird part of that is, Labour’s attitude to terrorism really isn’t different now from its attitude under Jeremy Corbyn. There has been no policy change.

Ms Bhattacharyya went on to point out the apparent hypocrisy of Starmer Labour’s new attitude. Having taken the knee in support of Black Lives Matter protests, Rayner is now apparently saying she would prefer it if people like George Floyd (whose death prompted them) were murdered by police as a matter of course.

She might have said it humorously on a comedy podcast but if Mr Perkins is trying to use it to justify Labour’s claim to be tougher on crime than Corbyn, then she was also putting it forward as a genuine expression of policy direction. That’s hypocritical and Starmer himself needs to straighten out this tangle.

Next, host Jo Coburn made matters worse for Starmer by pointing out that, after being elected Labour leader on a “continuity Corbyn” platform, he has ditched all the promises he made.

Ailbhe Rea of New Statesman agreed that Starmer appealed to the left to take the leadership and was now going to “run to the centre” in his bid to become prime minister – in the belief that he has to do so in order to be electable.

Her claim that Starmer and his people are comfortable with making comments like Rayner’s because they “hope their voters/members who are less comfortable with that will know that it’s not fundamentally what they mean”. So, definitely hypocrites, then. Now the claim appeared to be that they had said they want to shoot people accused of terrorism but didn’t mean it. This story twists like a snake – which is what the Labour-representing participants are starting to resemble.

Asked to comment about the new attitude to crime in relation to Labour’s 2019 manifesto, Mr Perkins dug himself deeper into a hole by referring to the election result as the worst defeat the party had suffered since the 1930s – ignoring the fact that more people voted for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour than for Ed Miliband in 2015, Gordon Brown in 2010 or Tony Blair in 2005. Corbyn’s 2017 vote count was larger than Blair’s in 2001. In fact, the only time a Labour leader in the last 30 years has earned more votes than Mr Corbyn was 1997.

So when we hear Starmer say “a vote for him is a change of direction”, we hear a political leader determined to haemorrhage votes.

Ms Bhattacharyya had the perfect counter for Mr Perkins, simply by pointing out that Starmer was elected leader on his 10 pledges to continue Corbyn policies – policies that Mr Perkins had just rubbished.

And Mr Perkins then claimed that Starmer’s leadership offer was to say that the Corbyn manifesto of 2019 was “unrealistic in its totality”.

So, Starmer was elected Labour leader on a promise to continue policies that he was also saying were “unrealistic” in their “totality”. Nobody should buy that.

Jo Coburn re-inserted herself to draw attention to an opinion poll that shows Labour ahead of the Tories on issues including the economy, crime and immigration – trailing only on Covid-19 (because Starmer has supported Boris Johnson to the disastrous hilt, perhaps).

Asked to comment, old Tory Ann Widdecombe agreed that Starmer is trying to get away from left-wing Corbynism but said his problem is that much of Labour membership and support is left-wing and Corbynist, and aligning with them makes him “unelectable”.

But is it?

Labour nearly lost its de facto control of Bristol City Council on February 17 when the Green Party candidate in the Southmead by-election came within a few dozen votes of taking the seat.

Turnout was just 21.2 per cent, though – in a ward with considerable poverty. And it’s not the usual by-election apathy – in the 2019 general election, 47 per cent of the poorest people didn’t vote.

So Labour’s electoral victory isn’t conditional on appealing to an ever-diminishing crowd of right-wingers.

It should be considered conditional on enticing an increasingly-disillusioned – and growing – population of the UK’s poorest citizens into voting for the party.

Starmer isn’t going to do that – ever. And certainly not by pandering to bloodthirsty fascists.