FRANK HAVILAND
No one enjoys a healthy pisstake more than I. And there’s certainly no more inveterate snob than the one I glimpse increasingly despairingly in the bathroom mirror every morning. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner (‘Ange’ to the The Frank Report faithful), is a regular feature of these pages, in what I hope is somewhat harsh – but always justifiable – lampooning.
Back in July, I observed the following on Labour’s proposed votes at 16:
“First up was wannabe leader Ange Rayner who, unlike most of the Cabinet left school up the duff at 16, and is therefore unusually well-acquainted with this particular demographic. “16-year-olds contribute to society” she said, “they should be able to vote”. So do illegals working in the black economy luv, but no one’s suggesting they should be given voting rights are they? My bad, of course they are!”
In January, it was the turn of Alastair MacMillan, who brutally took Rayner to task in his open letter:
“You clearly have never had the experience of firstly recruiting and then employing people, because if you had I suspect you would not be going down this path. Employing people is a nightmare already and your plans look set to make it even worse. Is it surprising that many business owners consider it easier to simply import their product or service, rather than go through the hassle of employing UK workers?”
Late last year it was the turn of Deputy Editor, Professor Roger Watson, who playfully alluded to Rayner’s self-appointment as “John Prescott in a skirt” in his piece A very wooden cabinet:
“Next to Starmer are three women, none of whom any sensible person would sit next to on a bus. First in line after the PM is Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner. The current occupant of the position once occupied by John Prescott does her best to emulate her predecessor for verbal eloquence, politeness and intellect. We have yet to see her right hook, but I am sure she could lay out an egg thrower with aplomb, just like ‘Two Jabs’ himself. Given the popularity of the Starmer government, she may not have long to wait before the eggs start flying.
So far I trust, all fair and above board. It should go without saying that Rayner would always be welcome to her right to reply, and would be positively encouraged to refer to me as a “penniless, balding, never-has-been”. I must confess however, that the recent public attacks on the Deputy PM have disappointed me. While this weekend’s actual story about Rayner was her hypocritical third property, the reporting seemed more a critique of her ‘sea-legs’, and her penchant for living it up:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the choice of photography and its ubiquity across social media suggests to me that the principle objection to Angela Rayner as Deputy Prime Minister is the thinly-veiled disapproval that she is unashamedly tattooed, unattractive, overweight, badly-dressed, ill-coiffed, enjoys a smoke and a drink, and is evidently working-class. But surely, those are all the best things about her?
Parliament was hardly lacking in these qualities before she came along – politics being famously, ‘show-business for ugly people’. Hairdressers’ nightmare, Boris Johnson, has made a career out of looking underdressed for a rubbish dump. Come election night, Nick Clegg was always ‘back on the fags’. And as for drinking, I suspect Ken Clark, William Hague and Charles Kennedy could have given Ange more than a run for her money.
But even the reasonable critique of hypocrisy over Rayner’s reported three properties (one of which is a grace and favour apartment in Admiralty House), seems a little pedantic. Are we really surprised that MPs are, if not blatantly ‘on the take’, at least firmly ensconced with their snouts in the trough?! Westminster is hardly alien to those with enormous property empires (Tony Blair, Lady Nugee and Nadhim Zahawi off the top of my head). MPs are three times more likely to own a second home than the general public, and the two MPs with the largest declared property incomes are the malingerers on the Labour benches. Personally, I’d never be too concerned that my MP was feathering their nest – provided I was guaranteed a little competence and patriotism in exchange.
Which brings me to my genuine beef with Ange:
Education
Having left school at 16, pregnant and without qualifications, Angela doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that she possesses either the requisite responsibility nor intellectual rigour for the demands of high office.
Car crash interviews
The ability to think on your feet is perhaps the greatest tool in a politician’s arsenal. It’s also undoubtedly the greatest test of their knowledge on a given subject, temporarily denied access to the soothing talents of scriptwriters and spin-doctors. The only possible contender for more car crash interviews than Angela Rayner is the one and only Diane Abbott; not exactly august company.
As a self-declared socialist, Rayner’s hardline policies such as banning zero hours contracts (despite their popularity), increasing workers’ rights and boosting union membership alongside the disastrous notion of a wealth tax, suggest she has zero understanding of the reality of employment.
Begging Muslims for votes
In the run-up to last year’s general election, I thought it was utterly shameful watching Angela Rayner raffle off British foreign policy in exchange for votes:
“I know that people are angry about what’s happening in the Middle East… If me resigning as an MP now would bring a ceasefire, I would do it. I would do it. If I could effect change.”
Rayner’s plans to come up with a description for the ‘unacceptable treatment, prejudice and discrimination against Muslims’ will likely sound the death knell for free speech, introduce blasphemy laws by the back door, bolster the already blatant existence of two-tier justice, and accelerate the civil unrest simmering on our streets.
With Keir Starmer’s popularity sinking to its knees faster than a Ukrainian rentboy in the vicinity of SW1, the farcical prospect of Ange taking the reins is all too real. Her rivals claim she is ‘primed’ and ‘ready to take over’, while her alliessuggest Starmer will be ‘gone in a year’. The most damning evidence, naturally, comes from Rayner herself, when she claimed she would ‘never’ consider putting herself forward as Prime Minister.
While the keys to Downing Street may have been regularly won on the ‘playing fields of Eton’, I’m not convinced that the likes of Cameron or Johnson have taken Britain in a positive direction. Give me a working-class MP any day of the week: David Davies, Frank Field or even John Major for that matter. Similarly with Ange, I like the fact that she’s a real person. I admire that quality within her in much the same way I admire it in Jeremy Corbyn or even Anjem Choudary – you know exactly what brand of poison you’re getting. The trouble with Ange isn’t that she’s working-class, it’s just everything else about her.
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Frank Haviland is the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West and The Frank Report, which you should probably subscribe to.
This article (We Need to Talk About Angela) was created and published by Frank Haviland and is republished here under “Fair Use”
See Related Article Below
UK “Faces Social Unrest” if Labour Pushes Ahead with Islamophobia Definition
Britain will face social unrest and reinforced perceptions of a two-tier society if the Government pushes ahead with plans for a formal definition of Islamophobia, the head of a new campaign group has warned. The Times has more.
Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, has set up a working group to provide recommendations to the Government on “appropriate and sensitive language” to describe “unacceptable treatment, prejudice and discrimination against Muslims”.
Fiyaz Mughal, the founder of the Tell Mama organisation which monitors anti-Muslim hate incidents, is leading a campaign against the definition, which he believes risks having a “chilling effect” on free speech and creating a “blasphemy law by the back door”. The campaign is called Keep the Law Equal.
While the definition will not be legally binding, Mughal raised concerns that the police, prosecutors other public authorities and employers would adopt it and that criticism of any practices associated with the Muslim faith would effectively become an offence.
He suggested it could curtail public discourse about the grooming scandals amid concerns that a disproportionate number of Asian men have been responsible. He also said that it could discourage legitimate debate about the hijab, the niqab and sharia courts.
“We are seeing a sense of people being very unhappy about two-tier application of the law, two-tier society,” he said.
“The same narrative is being potentially, I’m hearing, it’s being used around this definition. Why are Muslims getting extra protection? Why do they have to have more laws?
“I worked with the police. We have seen the systems work really well. We need proper enforcement of existing laws, not additional definitions which in fairness given that the world has also changed, given our country and the dynamics has changed, any definition that marks out one community is going to cause major social divisions. and it’s happening in our society. We don’t need social divisions. We need the implementation of existing laws which are more than sufficient.
“It will raise community tensions and it will just add to the narrative that actually one community is getting a better deal than another. And that just leads to local anger.”
He said it would have a “chilling effect” on free speech. “It creates a sense of a deeply chilling effect, where people are scared to raise things about religion, which can be used against them, and where digital traces can be placed online that are difficult to remove,” he said.
Worth reading in full.
Featured image: The Telegraph
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