YouSaid · the spoken record

Angela Rayner

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2023-12-11
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2023-12-11
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  1. “No, Gover gone by then, but I went through four or five education secretaries as well in my time because I was shadow education for four years. But I remember the first debate under Corbyn with the Tories and they obviously were jubilant because they could see the chaos that was going on. I had barely any staff.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Yeah, and then everyone was throwing Westminster Hall debates in and everything to make us crumble. I remember I had to do.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “No correction. We didn't have any. Ministers either. We had no staff and no ministers. The only one I had was Gordon Mars and bless his little cotton sal”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “And just to explain to listeners, so you're coming in, you've been in Parliament a year, and suddenly you are a shadow cabinet minister, you're managing your own team of junior ministers. No, correct.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “No, but we were in a particularly chaotic. And the thing is for me, I wasn't a carbonite. For me, it was about service. It was about, you know, you're here to do a job. And I've been given an opportunity. It was really scary for me because I'm like, I've been here five minutes. And I got shadow pensions. And I got shadow pensions when we had the Blake review, massive big 800 pages, single tier state pension, tata steele, and one of the other BHS, I think it was, pension schemes went down. And the whole argument around DB or DC pension funds. So I took it on when there was so much going on. Then when I was moved to education and then we had the biggest reforms to education.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Unbelievably quick. I did pensions before then. I was in the whip's office, and unfortunately two that I was whipping within a couple of months died. We had Joe Kaufman and Michael Meacher. So the whips decided that I'd probably lost. Right full of wits office, they've had enough by elections.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “It's real estate. It's real estate. So you also became a shadow cabinet minister, shadow secretary of state for education a year after you'd got into parliament. That's right. Unbelievably quite dependent.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Yeah, that's even more wild. So it goes in there and it can be quite seductive because this, oh, mom, people open doors for you. There's a status, you know, it's like, oh, this is right, horrible. Oh, hello. And then even on the front bench where you sit, there's a status in that. Even I've got a three-seater sofa. Like Rory knows, three-seater sofas in Parliament is real estate. It's real estate. So”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “It can be. Yeah, it can be. Yeah, we have got Christina McAvanilo and you've got Sharon, Graham in Unite. So the two big unions are now led by women, which is really fantastic. But yeah, that first conference was a real eye-opener. But I only went because it was a free holiday. And he's like, you've got a creche for your kid. 40 quid a day. So you don't have to pay any spending money.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Delegation to go to conference, you had to have two females out of the five, and one had to be a young member. Otherwise, the guys couldn't go. So I went into the office and Jim's like, kid, I've got a holiday for you. I'm like, an holiday. He's like, I'm going to take you to Bournemouth and pay you 40 quid a day. And all you have to do is sit in this room for a couple of hours. So I came out of it and I went to the branch chair at the time. I actually thought he was trying to have sex with me or something. I was really worried that this guy was trying to take me on a free holiday so he could have his wicked way with me and pay me. I'm like, I'm not that sort of person. And the branch chair had to explain to me, no, he's just our quotas in terms of like representation that he just needed you there for that reason.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “I honestly did not know what a trade union was. Talk endlessly about the minor strike. I really didn't know. I didn't know anything about it. The most left wing we got in our house is my dad used to religiously buy the daily mirror. Good on him. Right. That's the only thing. But that's as far as it went. Straight to the back page. It was straight, yeah, probably to the back page and cutting out the free ticket to Calais. And we go over there and that was the family holiday. But yeah, so I went into, I became a union rep and then realised that the union isn't all it cracks up to be at times either because I'm like, right, we're going to fight this. We need to do this. What help are you going to give us to the brand secretary? And they were a bit like, well, we don't do it like you. And that's a good impression of Jimmy at the time. I've brand secretary. So I became a bit of a nuisance, but it was really funny because I'd only been a union rep about six weeks, but I was a young member, right? So I was a young female member and in unison at the time for your full...”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “In this meeting, and some of the girls I was with said, You need to be our union rep, and I'm like, what's a trade union? And I literally became the union rep overnight.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Well, it's kind of the same as what no one's ever sort of gifted me where I've got to. I've always been elected and I've always had to prove myself. No one's ever said, I'm going to appoint you to that job. I've always kind of, like I say, as I was saying, I became a home help because nobody wanted to do the night shift. And in the private sector, they take just about anyone on. So I was there for a while. And then some of the girls I was working with said, oh, the council are employing people. And if you work for the council, you get a proper contract because I was casual zero hour in them days. And then you get sick pain, you get your travel time paid for. So as my ex-boss who I'm still in touch with affectionately says I was the last home help in stockpiles council. So I got in there and that's how I got involved in the union because no sooner had I been employed to work in the council, they wanted to outsource the home care service. And I'm like, I've just come from the private sector. So it's terrible. Why would you want to do that? So I started speaking up in this.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “workers on television through everything from the moment I went into school it was steeped in everything teachers were people that told you what to do they weren't people like you police were people that kept you either kept you out of trouble or you know were around to sort you out you were not police social workers were not people like you it was it wasn't people that just said they're not people like you it was the whole system put you in your place right from there and they still do try to put me in my place you watch my timeline and you'll see there is people that will still say yeah andrew's all right but she's a bit thick how can i be thick and be one of the most successful politicians in the uk how can i survive you've been in that environment rory you've been in that environment how can i survive eight years as i have if i was stupid and you know couldn't understand things”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “People like that. There was this, you know, people like me, we were considered like write-offs and I really didn't want to be that. I wanted to prove I could be a good mum and part of being a good mum for me was providing for my child.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Yeah, well, the trade union route wasn't one that I knew about either. So I worked in the private sector as a home carer because he'd just about have anyone at the time and I wanted to work nights because my nan said she'd look after Ryan when he was a baby after she finished work and that's the night shift and I wanted to work because I really did not want people to think I was what they expected of me. So I had this real sense of needing to get out and do the work.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Yeah, I'm like, I'm trying to reassure him, but he's really, you know, and I think a lot of young people today are like that. They're on this treadmill of, if you don't succeed there, then you're not going to be successful. And I can see the pressure that's on young people today. And my Charlie's one of them, but he's breathing, he's achieving. The doctors told me four times they wanted to switch the machine off. They said there's no hope for him. And he's 15 walking, talking, having the best time of his life.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Yeah, but he's such a ray of sunshine. I always say, my Charlie is a kid, everyone thinks he's going to get. Yeah, because he's so adorable, like nothing ever faces him. I remember him coming out a nursery and he's running to get to me. He was so tiny and he looked so, you know, like the Milky Bar kids. He had these massive, huge glasses on from about the age of six months. And he looks, because Prem Babies always look a bit mangy, like they need a dinner. So he's all like with his big glasses on and he's like waddling to me. And the pavement dips because you know how you get the dips in the pavement. Obviously he can't see it. And he goes flying. And he literally scrapes his face along for I'm in tears. I'm in flood. Oh my God, Charlie. And he's like, mummy, I'm okay. And he's stroking my face as he's got gravel and his glasses are all scraped. He's stroking my face. And that's Charlie. He's such an adorable. He's doing his GCSEs this year. He's absolutely worried sick about them. And I'm like, son, I've set the bar low in the family.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “He's registered severely shots out of Blind Jace. He's a little tiny bit, but not much. Yeah, and he has, I can never say it. The dyslexia for numbers, I can never discalculate whatever it is. He has epilepsy as well.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Yeah, he was born at 23 weeks Weighing less than a pound, he was £465. So he's like one of the tiniest that has ever survived my character.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “I never had an ambition to be a politician. In fact, it was quite an adjustment for me because I went from my home help who I rose through the ranks of the union to look after collectively the home carers, which were all paid very poorly but very well respected and loved to be paid very well to everybody thinking I'm a crook and how dare you you're just doing it for yourself. I was like, wow, this is quite a change. It was poacher term gamekeeper if there was ever one.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Particularly that when you only dream in my teens was to learn how to drive legally so that I could be have the freedom because I can fix cars as well. So I could do like I'm not a qualified mechanic but I can fix cars”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “So, my brother served in Iraq, and he used to be a die engineer before that on his old YT scheme. And now he does like building maintenance security. So he manages a big building. And my sister, she's part-time mum and part-time working parcel company.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “I think my mum recognises our childhood and she's quite angry now because she's more understanding of how debilitating her obsession was with being a wife and being in love with my dad to the point where she wasn't resourceful to have her own resilience to make her own decisions. And I think she looks back on it with some regret, but she's also incredibly proud of all three of us because my brother and my sister and me were all doing well, we're all successful in our own field and we're all incredibly...”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “That's my dad's mum. She used to look after us, and we go there. So we have our weekly bath, rank order, brotherthirst, me and my sister, and then my mum in the same bath water. And then my nana down of a twin tub. And she'd do our washing for us and wash our uniforms and we'd have our food there. And then we'd walk, walk home the two miles from Minan's and a Sunday evening, freezing cold sometimes to get back.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Could have been a risk of it if it wasn't for Banana. So my nana worked three jobs and we used to go to Minan's on a Sunday and she'd make us Tati Ash, potato ash. It's great dish with dead fresh bread, which we never had at home because there was no bread ever at home. So we used to just like...”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Trouble. But however, when I had my son, it was Shorestart, going there, realising I didn't cuddle my I changed his nappy. I put him to bed, but I didn't give that emotional support because I didn't realize I didn't have that. It sounds silly to say it, but my ex-husband, when I see him with the children, they jump all over him. He's so loving and it's just so natural to him. I had to learn how to accept my kids jumping on me and giving me a cuddle because I'd recoil it, be like, it's too much. Even now, I saw my brother last Sunday. And I gave his partner a cuddle and we both looked at each other and was like, nah. Because we just don't do it.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “If she'd have got support for her much earlier interventions, then I recommend my mum would have had a much different life. That's why I go on and on about Shorestar. And I'm not making a political point. But Shorestart, right, my mum couldn't hug us. My dad was my mum's world and universe because she was brought up to think you're nothing without a man. Okay. So everything in my mum's life revolved around this one individual. And that's all she wanted to achieve in life. We were byproducts of my mum's relationship with my dad. She had no love in her life. She didn't get cuddles. She didn't know what healthy relationships was and she didn't know how to be a parent. I grew up in that environment looking for loving all the wrong places, not having any self-worth for myself and not making good choices. It was the 90s, early 90s. This was a dangerous time for girls like me off councillor estates. I could have got myself into serious.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “So, my dad's in Bolton, and my mum's in Stockport in Hazel Grove. She's in supported tenancy. So she's got her own little flat and she's got a communal area and they all look after her and she's very happy there.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Yeah, so they go up to like a hill, they have that in the car, they'd have like these aerials, he had home aerial kits as well, but they'd have these aerials. And then they'd channel 19 as anyone could speak to anyone. And then you'd move it to another channel. And they all had nicknames.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “They might know what we're talking about. I'm sure my age now as well. But yeah, my dad used to be on the CBs and he'd be out. It was just a thing, he'd be out, and we wouldn't, it wasn't my dad's responsibility.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “He was just what I would describe as typical, like, I would say working class, but he didn't really work that much when we were growing up. But he'd be out, you know, he'd be out in his car, he'd the CBs. And remember in those days everyone had a CB radios and all of that. So he'd be out doing that.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Yeah, I mean, my mum would have said it at the time and she still says it. She said, I could only love one person and that was your dad. So if my dad was being nice, then my mum was happy. If my dad was out, then my mum was miserable. Her whole life revolved around.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Yeah, I got two siblings, but I was the eldest daughter. So Q in my household, it fell on me to look after my mum and to be around and do as much as I could. But I was really angry with my mum because I felt like I saw other people's mums. And I thought, why is my mum not like that? Why doesn't she do these things? And I thought my mum was incredibly lazy and selfish. And I didn't really understand how mental health could really debilitate people. And now I look at my mum. And I think she's an absolute hero because I've never been in despair at that point. I've never been, and I don't think it's something that you can rationally do, but I've always tried to have my own resilience to never get to that point because I've seen where people go when they get there. And it's not nice and it's awful for somebody to get there. But for my mum to, with her challenges, for my mum to dig herself out of that place time and time again, I think that's heroic now. But at the time I didn't see that as a child.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “I think when I was growing up, I was really angry because the house was dirty. I didn't get the support that my friends did. You know, my mum couldn't cook. I used to go around my friends' houses to ask for Sunday dinner. Like, can you ask your mum and dad if I could stay for dinner? And they'd say, you can't stay today. You stayed yesterday. Angela'd sit on the curb outside and wait for them to come back out and play out. I was really angry at my mum because I just thought.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “They could. They kept me safe. I was on the books. Today, those kids, if you can't get your teenager into school, they're off-road. The school will come down on them and say, you either homeschool them or you're going to be fined or you're going to have this. So these kids are dropping out of the system now earlier than before.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Can I just interrupt quickly? I think it still is common. And I think, at least when I was at school, and I lost my belief in education probably about the age 12, 13 because I started, I was quite feral. And the outside world was much more interesting to me than school ever was because I was already behind because my mum couldn't read or write, so I hadn't seen a book. So when I went into school, no books at home, no. So when I went into school, I was already behind my peers. And then as she step up into secondary school, it gets a lot harder. And I was already just about keeping up because I was behind everybody anyway. And homework wasn't a thing in our house. My mum couldn't help me. My dad wasn't. He was out. So yeah, so when I got to secondary school, things outside of the classroom had more of an impact on me, whether it was things that I found more interesting or crisises at home. So I was already behind. The one important thing about my childhood is my teachers and my school kept me in school as long as”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “She'd never been to school, she never really went, so she couldn't read all right. She had this learning deprivation. And my mum wanted to do.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “Her parents, they didn't work, so it was. I remember going to the local social club every Sunday with them when the lads would smoke in one room and the girls would play bingo in the other and we'd wait for the fish man to come with the prawns and we'd have some of them for 50p. And that was every Sunday night. But my mum never really had a belief in herself. So my mum had this learning deprivation. She couldn't read all right.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Well, my mum and dad, I mean, my mum had bipolar and my mum, I called it a learning deprivation because my mum never went to school. She was one of 12 on Withn's Shore Council Estate, the biggest councillor estate we had. And she said, I followed the fair. That was my mum's assessment of her childhood.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “Well, I've heard what you said about that, and there is part of that that you know you've got the whip, you've got the butt, I don't know what other solution there is to that because I do believe you have to have some discipline. This is why I think the conservatives are in real trouble at the moment because there isn't any discipline at all. And they're actually the government which makes it even more scary than the opposition being in that situation.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Needed to be in government, and I still to this day I'm eight years I've been on the front bench, eight years, and in other eight years there's only been one time that I've really felt and made a difference and that was when I worked with Justin Greening on the sex and relationship education in schools. But other than that, I feel like not made much of a difference at all.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “Because adults. Don't answer that, don't you? Because I don't. But the thing is that it really made a big difference to people's lives, people that needed opportunity, that needed that hope. People like me in 97 who had a young baby who had government ministers at that time saying, I got pregnant because I wanted a council house. I mean, it's the most ridiculous thing to say. And feeling scared, feeling like, where's my life going? And then having a government that was saying, actually, I'm going to, if you work hard, if you do this, I'm going to give you an opportunity. You can go into education again. Yes, you failed your GCSEs because I was looking after my mum and I had other issues. It wasn't because I was thick and I couldn't do it. Okay, we'll give you a second chance at going to college for free. We'll give you opportunity. So it was a government that was really listening to and understanding the challenges I faced, but then putting solutions forward. So that's why I felt in those years that, yeah.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “Yeah, there was the issue around Jeremy, but I still think that that Labour government would be better than what we've got. If you look at the COVID inquiry, Boris Johnson is on the stand today. And, you know, it's appalling what happened. If you looked at our manifesto at that time, there was commitment to NATO. There were good people around that shadow cabinet that would, you know, it's not a presidential election. We knew that Jeremy had weaknesses. Publicly, I said that I didn't think Jeremy was a good leader because he couldn't make decisions. He was all over the place. I like someone who, I might not agree with you, but make a decision and stick with it and then stick with the principles of why you're making that decision. But we were a party that was dysfunctional because not everyone was trying to get us into government at that time. But for me, I've seen Labour governments and I've seen Labour leaders and I might not have agreed with everything that Tony Blair did as leader.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “I think, first of all, they felt that we weren't listening to them. They felt that we didn't understand the frustrations and they felt we weren't giving them a credible alternative. So they didn't feel like we were an opposition that was ready for government. They didn't even feel we were a credible opposition, let alone a government in waiting. And they felt they weren't being listened to. They felt they were being taken for granted that in our labour heartlands, they felt like, oh, well, we were just expecting them to vote, even though we weren't necessarily listening to some of their frustrations. And our messages weren't getting across. We looked like, I mean, if you take the similarities to today, and this is where the conservatives are in real trouble, is we're in chaos. We were in fighting. We wasn't looking outwards towards the country. We wasn't looking to the photos. We just looked like a rabble that was shouting at each other, whether you were Corben eye or not, it was damaging for the whole of our labour movement.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “Yeah, and I think the strategy that me and Kier have had since we took over the leadership of the Labour Party was first to recognise the thumping defeat we had and that the Labour Party, as some people who were close to me said, Angie, we didn't leave the Labour Party, the Labour Party left us. You know, my voted Labour for a very long time said you didn't give us an option. And then they were very angry with us because they said you're to blame for us having Boris Johnson. They still do not let me forget that.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “I think it was the complacency in which she felt that she had a right and that she was going to get elected. I think the Conservatives were complacent. They were jeering. They were jubilant almost in the run-up to that. And they underestimated their opponent and they underestimated where the British public were. And I think I take some great lessons from that. And I think you have to and you have to understand that people at the moment are angry with the Conservative government. They're angry at the last 13 years. But that anger doesn't necessarily mean that they're enthusiastic about another political party. And you've got to understand that a lot of trust has been taken away from politicians because of actions of some. And therefore, it's really difficult for people to have that optimism that things will change, especially in really dire economic times.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “Well, Rory, you saw what happened with Theresa May and the police she had ahead of the 2017 general election and then it just kind of tanked when we got into the short campaign.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “I think you do, but you have to make sure that you hold on to that if. Absolutely. Because it's weeks a long time, especially in these times in politics. So you certainly have to hold on to the if.”

    2023-12-11 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 50. Angela Rayner: From zero GCSEs to Britain’s most powerful woman? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source