Tom 💙

🌹 ~ Derbyshire Dales ~ Rarely does much of note

[Shabana Mahmood MP @ShabanaMahmood]

It is an honour to remain as Home Secretary in @andyburnham’s Cabinet.

I may be biased, but it's the best job in the business.

We have begun the work of major reform, to make our streets safer and our immigration system fair for all. Now let’s finish the job.

[Richard Johnson @richardmarcj]

@peter_sarris @1967Rogerwade And by now you have a party that is almost entirely a middle-class liberal party, with an often misplaced, patronising charitable concern for the working-class.

This is exactly the politics that Labour was established to replace in the early 20th century.

[Brendan May @bmay]

Andy Burnham campaign badges are out.

[Damian Low @DamianLow3]

Rayner has been cleared, but the media ran 30 front pages in total, averaging 4 front pages a day during the peak of the story.

Farage's £5 million gift has had two front page stories.

Why would there be such a difference in reporting standards for the two?

[Angela Rayner @AngelaRayner]

I welcome HMRC’s conclusion, which has cleared me of any wrongdoing.

I have been exonerated by HMRC of the accusation that I deliberately sought to avoid tax.

When purchasing a home of my own with a mortgage, I did not own any other property and had no personal financial interest in the court-instructed trust set up to manage my son’s financial award. I was advised by experts that I should pay stamp duty at the standard rate.

I set out to pay the correct amount of tax. I took reasonable care and acted in good faith, based on the expert advice I received, and HMRC has accepted this.

I have always sought to act with integrity, and I believe politicians should be held to high standards - that is why I resigned from government and cooperated fully with HMRC. 

I wanted to ensure that I paid every penny that I owed, and have done so. I am relieved that my family can now move on - and that I can get on with my job.

[Pippa Crerar @PippaCrerar]

Full story: Angela Rayner cleared by HMRC over tax affairs paving the way for potential leadership bid👇

https://t.co/lhiPuWUxSI

[Joe Smallman @JoeLSmallman]

Jokes aside, sort of outrageous it took all of this for Natalie Fleet to get a ministerial role. Genuinely one of our best.

[Tom 💙 @Tomthetablet]

@NatalieFleetMP Congratulations Natalie! I’m sure you will do a fantastic job x

[Karl Turner MP @KarlTurnerMP]

I’m hearing that @UKLabour MPs are being briefed to say that if there is a change of leader it is inevitable that there will be a GE now. Why would anybody brief that? It isn’t true. We have a tendency to make matters so much worse than they have to be. It’s as if we like losing.

[Angela Rayner @AngelaRayner]

Our party has suffered a historic defeat.

Many good Labour colleagues have lost their seats despite working hard for those they represented. We have lost good Labour administrations and lost the chance for more.

What we are doing isn’t working, and it needs to change. This may be our last chance.

The Labour Party must now live up to our name: we must be the party of working people.

We’ve heard the same on the doorstep as we’ve seen in the polls - the cost of living is the top issue for voters of all parties. People have turned to populists and nationalists because we have not done enough to fix it.

Living standards are barely higher than they were a decade and a half ago. People feel hopeless - that the cost of living crisis will never end, and now they see oil and gas companies use global instability to post record profits.

Once again, ordinary people are paying the price for decisions they didn’t make. It’s no wonder that across the UK, working people feel the system is rigged against them.

Things can be so much better than this. Countries including Spain and Canada have shown that economies can grow and people can thrive when governments stay true to labour and social democratic values and put people first. We need to learn from that.

In London, we lost young people who fear they will never afford a home. In my patch and across the north, we lost working people whose wages are too low and costs too high. In Scotland and Wales, people do not currently see Labour as the answer. 

We are in danger of becoming a party of the well-off, not working people.

The Peter Mandelson scandal showed a toxic culture of cronyism. 

Decisions like cutting winter fuel allowance just weren’t what people expected from a Labour government.

For too long, successive governments have allowed wealth and power to concentrate at the top without a plan to ensure the benefits of economic growth are shared fairly. The result is an economy that does not work for the majority, with wealth concentrated in too few hands. This level of inequality, alongside squeezed living standards, is the outcome of a model built on deregulation, privatisation, and trickle-down economics.

But we have the chance to fix this. 

1/2

[Joseph Gellman @joseph_gellman]

The banter timeline scenario where no one calls her bluff and we accidentally end up with Catherine West as Prime Minister

[Europe Erects @EuropeErects]

United Kingdom: Following the landslide in 2026 Richmond upon Thames local election, with the local branch of the Lib Dems winning 54 of 54 seats, the council declared the creation of the Liberal Democratic People's Republic of Richmond upon Thames.

#RichmonduponThames #LibDems

[Gaius @Gaius_is_sus]

Pictured: Ed Davey addressing the Richmond-upon-Thames council

[Diane Abbott @HackneyAbbott]

There is a myth, very widely held in Labour, that we achieved an huge popular victory in 2024 under Starmer.
In fact we won 9.7 million votes, over 3 million fewer than in 2017 and half a million less than the 'disastrous' 2019 poll.
We won because the Tories imploded in 2024.

[Matt Gaetz @mattgaetz]

Let’s hope Bibi doesn’t start saying the Vatican is 2 weeks away from a nuclear weapon.

[Lord Norton of Louth @LordNortonLouth]

Cakes by @Tomthetablet and @hann4hparrish for this morning's @UniOfHull @PoliticsatHull Parliament class on devolution. .

[Angela Rayner @AngelaRayner]

This result must be a wake up call. It’s time to really listen - and to reflect.

Voters want the change that we promised - and they voted for.

If we want to unrig the system, if we want to make the change we were sent into Government to make, we have to be braver.

A labour agenda that puts people first.

That’s what all of us across our movement need to rededicate ourselves to this morning.