#7652

Good ‘work’ if you can get it

3 Likes
#7653

It just highlights the level of inexperience at the top levels of the current Labour PLP. The number of people who have actual experience of ministerial office and full glare political exposure is dwindling.

For me that was massively highlighted one day last week on radio 4. In the morning on Today Starmer came on and “set out his priorities” or whatever and although he didn’t exactly trip over himself he came across as massively unconvincing. And this was still during the whole “Boris took bribes” push, where he failed to land a glove. Then a couple of hours later Gordon Brown came on Woman’s Hour to talk about something completely different, but was asked about the whole cash for curtains thing and just effortlessly skewered the whole of Johnson’s defence with a pithy off the cuff one-liner about not being able to use being busy doing something as an excuse for taking backhanders.

2 Likes
#7654

ah PM Gordon Brown the effortlessly relatable media performer, I remember those days well!

3 Likes
#7655

Well quite!

9 Likes
#7656

So, if you’re on benefits you have them cut due to a second bedroom, but if you’re able to rent out your room you get a tax break.

Good grief

13 Likes
#7657

I only googled does having a lodger make you a landlord and that popped up.

It’s sick

#7658

Yeah just joking I know what you mean.
Tbf to him he was always good in political interviews, he just collapsed under the pressure of being told to “seem human” after he became PM, particularly in softer media settings.

#7659

It does say “and/or” there, not “and”, although I guess £10k pa to rent a room in a London flat isn’t inconceivable.

#7660

Since June 2015, I rent out a room in my London flat: (i) and (ii)

covered by both

sure 10k pa isn’t inconceivable but she is profiting from another persons need for housing.

#7661

not sure what to say that isn’t going to get rightfully flagged

#7662

To some degree I’m sure the IDGAF of being out of office makes it a lot easier to come over as confident and statesmanlike, but then Burnham shows that it’s still possible to be in the thick of it to some degree and still benefit from serious experience.

#7663

Oh yeah. Good spot. [By not inconceivable I mean conceivable, not justifiable btw]

#7664

oh yeah, I didn’t think you were saying justifiable.

#7665

why would a public figure on a high wage even want to share a space with a tenant like that. imagine the conversations.

1 Like
#7666

I don’t think that it’s just down to inexperience.

I think that only two of the New Labour ministers had ever served in government before 1997 (Jack Cunningham and Michael Meacher), but most of them had come up through activist and/or academic backgrounds during the 70s, before moving into parliament, and being of age in 1997 to be in the cabinet or government.

At the moment though, there’s a huge dearth of talent in the Labour party in the Gen X cohort. The NOLS/Councillor/PPC/MP fasttrack that was established and tightly controlled under New Labour has led to a clutch of lacklustre and careerist people in parliament - the kind of people who wore suits and took briefcases to university lectures rather than campaigning or embedding themselves in community action. Perhaps they would have become better had they been mentored more, but most of the New Labour ministers disappeared from the Commons after the expenses scandal.

The group of millennial/Gen-Z MPs coming up behind (eg Whittome etc) have more potential in this regard, I think.

1 Like
#7667

It’s really weird/suss isn’t it?

#7668

It’s probably some roundabout fiddle in some way, it always is (though I can’t quite piece it together, but it will be likely be beneficial on a level that is beyond just getting cash out of a lodger and more about leveraging that tax incentive)

1 Like
#7669

Noticed on a second read of that that she’s a director of a company that owns all the flats in that building, which might have something to do with it.

1 Like
#7670

No chance is someone paying 10k a year to live with their landlord. She’s never at the flat and it’s a tax fiddle

17 Likes
#7671

@colinfilth @Aggpass I see the strands all coming together here