• Contact
  • About
DONATE
NEWSLETTER SIGN UP
  • Login
East Anglia Bylines
  • HOME
  • News
    • Brexit
    • Health
    • Education
    • World
  • Opinion
  • Politics
    • Local government
    • Justice
    • Activism
  • Climate
    • Environment
  • Lifestyle
    • Community
    • Culture
    • History
    • Humour
    • Property
  • Business
    • Economics
    • Finance
    • Transport
    • Farming
  • ANGLIA
    • East Anglia
    • Bedfordshire
    • Cambridgeshire
    • Essex
    • Hertfordshire
    • Norfolk
    • Suffolk
  • Series
No Result
View All Result
  • HOME
  • News
    • Brexit
    • Health
    • Education
    • World
  • Opinion
  • Politics
    • Local government
    • Justice
    • Activism
  • Climate
    • Environment
  • Lifestyle
    • Community
    • Culture
    • History
    • Humour
    • Property
  • Business
    • Economics
    • Finance
    • Transport
    • Farming
  • ANGLIA
    • East Anglia
    • Bedfordshire
    • Cambridgeshire
    • Essex
    • Hertfordshire
    • Norfolk
    • Suffolk
  • Series
No Result
View All Result
East Anglia Bylines

Angela Rayner, and so-called Tory “scum”

Deputy Labour Leader, Angela Rayner, is in trouble for describing the Tories, at the party conference in Brighton, as “scum”.

Martin WallerbyMartin Waller
September 27, 2021
in Democracy, Party politics, UK
Reading Time: 5 mins
A A
Angela Rayner calls Tories scum

Angela Rayner calls Tories scum at the Labour Party Conference. Photo by 70023venus2009 on Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0)

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

I do not think calling your political opponents “scum”, or “bastards”, or any number of other terms of abuse, is good politics. It further coarsens political discourse in a country where it has already been thoroughly debased.

It is counter-productive, in terms of motivating voters who have in the past supported the other side to vote for you next time. You are in effect abusing them by proxy.

Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, is in trouble for describing the Tories, in a fringe event at the party conference in Brighton, as “scum”. She has defended it as the sort of language used by people like her, brought up desperately poor on a Stockport housing estate.

She has used the term before to a Tory MP and been forced to apologise.

Less reported: James Gray’s ill-advised suggestion

Meanwhile, to rather less publicity, a Tory MP has been forced to apologise for the suggestion that a bomb should be sent to the office of another senior Labour politician at the conference. James Gray, MP for North Wiltshire, said he meant “no offence”.

This year’s Labour Party conference is at the scene of the IRA bomb that targeted members of his own party in 1984 and killed five people.

Grotesquely offensive political debate is not the monopoly of any particular party, then. The LibDems have been responsible for some shocking behaviour at local level – though Gray’s remarks were less widely reported than Rayner’s.

Intemperate language

Rayner said what she did at a fringe Labour meeting. Such fringe events at party conferences tend to attract – how shall we put this – some rather intemperate language. It is where the party faithful go to let off steam, often after a few drinks.

In my early years in politics, the youth wing of the Tory Party would regale such gatherings with the chant “Reagan, Botha, Pinochet… Reagan, Botha, Pinochet.” (The equivalent today would probably be “Trump, Putin, Kim Jong-Un.” You get the picture.)

As it happens, Rayner has given an interview (£) to my former employer, The Times. She talks about growing up in awful poverty, with a father both frightening and often absent and a mother with bipolar disorder and so illiterate she once brought the children home dog food to eat, being unable to read the label.

“I always felt hungry as a child, and it wasn’t my fault,” she said. She became pregnant at 15, and managed to keep the baby.

Rayner’s genuineness cuts through

Rayner made her way out of childhood poverty to be what she is today, the second most senior politician in the Labour Party. She may one day be leader – don’t put down money against it. The backstory is compelling, and she has a genuineness not common in politics today that cuts through to voters who may be in the same plight.

In October last year the Tory Party opposed free meals for poor school children over the holidays, a motion brought after pressure from the footballer Marcus Rashford, who referred to the troubles his own mother had feeding him as a child.

“Tories voted to let them go hungry”

Several Tory MPs, and I put this as neutrally as I can, were heard to find the whole debate amusing. One MP suggested their opposition to the move might have been occasioned by Rayner’s “scum” comment. Rayner herself said at the time: “Tonight I voted to feed our country’s vulnerable and needy children. The Tories voted to let them go hungry.”

The Tories, as we know, U-turned on free school meals. Rayner, having experienced what she did as a child and seeing Tory MPs making light of it, was plainly angry. One can hardly blame her. Her anger came out at the weekend, in Brighton.

We know that the number of young Angela Rayners, brought up in something approaching destitution, is growing again. I won’t go through the depressing figures again – I have said enough here already.
Anger is not always the best way to approach political debate. Sometimes, I would suggest, anger can change things.


Tags: OpinionParty politics
Previous Post

Furious government reacts with threat to hauliers: ‘We will deal with them’

Next Post

Another Eye-Catching Initiative

Martin Waller

Martin Waller

Martin Waller worked for The Times as a financial writer for some three decades. He is now retired and living in Suffolk

Related Posts

Demonstration in front of the Home Office by the organisation Global Justice Now in 2018 against the hostile environment. A group of people are holding a long banner that says 'End the hostile environment'.
Activism

Migrants organise to beat ‘hostile environment’

byMariam Yusuf
November 28, 2023
Original Gladstone Budget box
Business

Tories sink the economy while Labour’s response is dismal

byProf Richard Murphy
November 28, 2023
Geert Wilders smiling in a crowd
Democracy

Look to the mainstream to explain the rise of the far right

byAurelien Mondon
November 27, 2023
A photo of a full House of Commons
Opinion

Tory MPs: rats from the sinking ship

byBen Smith
November 17, 2023
Lord Cameron and PM Rishi Sunak in Downing Street
Democracy

Sunak’s hokey-cokey: is Cameron really what it’s all about?

byPeter Thurlow
November 15, 2023
Next Post
spacestation: galactic Britain

Another Eye-Catching Initiative

PLEASE SUPPORT OUR CROWDFUNDER

Subscribe to our newsletters
CHOOSE YOUR NEWS
Follow us on social media
CHOOSE YOUR PLATFORMS
Download our app
ALL OF BYLINES IN ONE PLACE
Subscribe to our gazette
CONTRIBUTE TO OUR SUSTAINABILITY
Make a monthly or one-off donation
DONATE NOW
Help us with our hosting costs
SIGN UP TO SITEGROUND
We are always looking for citizen journalists
WRITE FOR US
Volunteer as an editor, in a technical role, or on social media
VOLUNTEER FOR US
Something else?
GET IN TOUCH
Previous slide
Next slide

LATEST

Artificial intelligence graphic

Artificial Intelligence in the newsroom: do we trust it?

November 29, 2023
Demonstration in front of the Home Office by the organisation Global Justice Now in 2018 against the hostile environment. A group of people are holding a long banner that says 'End the hostile environment'.

Migrants organise to beat ‘hostile environment’

November 28, 2023
Original Gladstone Budget box

Tories sink the economy while Labour’s response is dismal

November 28, 2023
Woman with hand held up to signify "stop"

Norwich Women’s Rights: urgent action needed

November 27, 2023
Geert Wilders smiling in a crowd

Look to the mainstream to explain the rise of the far right

November 27, 2023
Ramsholt Quay, River Deben

Our favourite stories: Some things I know about the River Deben

November 26, 2023

MOST READ

Looking across Norwich Market towards the Norman Norwich Castle.

UK is always in our hearts, but it’s difficult to live there

November 24, 2023
Solar powered device that produces clean water and hydrogen. It's pictured on the deck of a punt on the river Cam, with St John's College's Bridge of Sighs in the background.

New floating device cleans water and produces hydrogen

November 22, 2023
Wine, cheese and bread at a street café in Paris

Wine, the pint bottle and European standards

November 23, 2023
Man reading a phone in bed

7.02: your first WhatsApp of the day…it’s AI wanting a word

November 24, 2023

Tags

Activism Anglian Water Brexit Business Cartoons Climate Community Conservatives COP26 Crime Democracy Economics Economy Elections Environment EU Farming Government Health History International Women's Day Labour Law Letters Local elections 2023 Net zero NHS Norwich Opinion Our place in Europe Pandemic Party politics Pecksniff Politics Poverty Sewage Social care Tax Trade Ukraine VAWG Wealth Welfare Wildlife Women
East Anglia Bylines

We are a not-for-profit citizen journalism publication. Our aim is to publish well-written, fact-based articles and opinion pieces on subjects that are of interest to people in East Anglia and beyond.

East Anglia Bylines is a trading brand of Bylines Network Limited, which is a partner organisation to Byline Times.

Learn more about us

No Result
View All Result
  • About
  • Authors
  • Complaints
  • Contact
  • Donate
  • Letters
  • Privacy
  • Network Map
  • Network RSS Feeds
  • Submission Guidelines

© 2023 East Anglia Bylines. Powerful Citizen Journalism

No Result
View All Result
  • HOME
  • News
    • Brexit
    • Health
    • Education
    • World
  • Opinion
  • Politics
    • Local government
    • Justice
    • Activism
  • Climate
    • Environment
  • Lifestyle
    • Community
    • Culture
    • History
    • Humour
    • Property
  • Business
    • Economics
    • Finance
    • Transport
    • Farming
  • ANGLIA
    • East Anglia
    • Bedfordshire
    • Cambridgeshire
    • Essex
    • Hertfordshire
    • Norfolk
    • Suffolk
  • Series

Newsletter sign up

DONATE

© 2023 East Anglia Bylines. Powerful Citizen Journalism

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In