RAYNER UPS HER GAME

Andrew Marr picked a fight with Angela Rayner on Sunday over her 'Tory scum' remarks, for which she has already apologised.  It was a strange attack line from Marr and Rayner deftly turned the tables when it was put to her that she apologise personally to the Prime Minister.

Click below for the clip.

Rayner is not the liability she once was.  She may have her snout in the trough just as much as the next MP, but her bolshie worker's dialect connects with a demographic that Labour has long abandoned.  Her last appearance at PMQs showed just how effective this can be when coming up against the Etonian waffle of Boris Johnson.  Having recovered well from 'scumgate' and upped her game, the Tories will be thankful that she is not at the despatch box on a more regular basis.

Conversely, the immeasurably dull and vacuous Starmer is a gift.

HYPOCRITE COX AND HAPLESS STARMER

It was a moment of total dejection for Keir Starmer as he was forced to listen to sour-faced Hollywood actor Brian Cox on why he abandoned Labour for the SNP.  The painful moment occurred as the pair appeared on The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday.  Marr reminded Starmer that Labour can't win power without a resurgence in Scotland, to which the Labour leader replied with his usual abstract waffle of nothingness.  Cox gave an abridged version of why he left Labour in 2015.

From a working class background in Dundee, Cox was a natural Labour supporter back in the day.  He went on to voice adverts for New Labour in the 90s, but became a supporter of Scottish independence in the wake of New Labour's fall from power.  Cox publicly resigned from Labour and announced he had joined the SNP ahead of the 2015 general election in which the SNP won all but three Westminster seats in Scotland.  He has since become a loud voice for IndyRef2 and Scottish independence.

Click below for the Marr clip.

While Cox harps on about Scotland and its politics, it should be duly noted that he has not actually lived in Scotland for decades.  He has three homes - two in the United States and one in the UK, but in England no less.  None of his children were born or raised in Scotland.  Sound familiar?  That famous SNP supporter Sean Connery was no different.

The hypocrisy doesn't end there.  While Cox's repeated assertion that he is a socialist serves as a reminder that the SNP is an inherently left-wing enterprise, it also begs the question: When can we expect the redistribution of his multi-million pound wealth and property portfolio?

LABOUR'S THUMBS UP FOR PLAN B

Keir Starmer's colleagues appear to be leaving him behind when it comes to Labour support for the 'Plan B' scenario.  What started earlier in the week as a few backbenchers calling for more restrictions has now spread to Labour's front bench.  On Thursday the shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth declared that Labour 'are in favour of Plan B'.  However, this was later contradicted by Starmer who said Plan B was 'the wrong focus'.  A Labour spokesperson confirmed Starmer's view by saying that the focus should be on 'making Plan A work'.

It appears that whatever Starmer's reservations are about Plan B, his front bench colleagues don't share them.  His shadow chancellor told Andrew Marr on Sunday morning that Labour were in favour of Plan B and they 'were relaxed about that'.  Well, clearly your leader isn't.

Click below for the clip.

Starmer knows that Plan B - in particular domestic vax passes - is a very divisive and controversial issue.  That is why he is squirming about it.  We suspect that when it comes to a Commons vote, his party will support the measures anyway.

STARMER SIDES WITH TRANSFASCISTS

Keir Starmer has thrown one of his MPs under the bus during an interview with Andrew Marr on day two of Labour's conference.  Unrepentant feminist Rosie Duffield has repeatedly fallen foul of trans activists with her supposedly 'controversial' views about protecting the sanctity and identity of womanhood.  The Canterbury MP skipped the conference due to ongoing threats against her from trans activists - let's just call them transfascists - and Marr was keen to get the leader's views on her stance.

"Is it transphobic to say 'only women have a cervix'?" Marr asked, referring to one of Duffield's most famous tweets.  Starmer was clearly uncomfortable with the question, but instead of sitting on the fence he leapt off it and came down firmly on the trans side: "It is something that shouldn't be said, it is not right".  Cue cries of anguish from feminists everywhere - and quite rightly so.

Little wonder that Starmer was reluctant to explain why such a statement was wrong.  He's definitely not following the science here...

On Monday morning Starmer's front bench colleague Rachel Reeves was asked a similar question by LBC's Nick Ferrari.  The shadow chancellor's epic stuttering in response to the question was comedy gold, but her desperate attempt to sidestep the question was still a far better course of action than her leader's cut and dried anti-female stance.

Also asked the question was Reeve's understudy Bridget Phillipson.  The MP for Houghton and Sunderland South actually did a much better job than both her superiors and successfully batted away questions from TalkRadio's Julia Hartley-Brewer...

While fence-sitting on the issue appeases all and is clearly a more advisable approach than Starmer's disgraceful anti-feminist response, why must Labour politicians steadfastly refuse to recognise a simple biological fact?  While we don't stand with Rosie Duffield on much, if anything else, she is spot on in this debate.

WHAT DOES LISA KNOW?

Lisa Nandy gave an intriguing reply when asked by Andrew Marr on Sunday whether she thought England was on course to 'end all restrictions on June 21st'.  Given the collapse in the virus since January, the correct answer should surely have been a resounding 'yes', but instead Marr got this: "I'm not sure to be honest, I think it depends how the next few months play out".  The next few months?  June 21 is next month.

Was this a Freudian slip or had she genuinely lost track of time?  Ten minutes after she was interviewed, her Tory counterpart was also interviewed and asked pretty much the same question.  Dominic Raab dodged the question and said that the restrictions would not end before June 21.  However, as he answered a separate question about the vaccination of children, he dropped the revelation that - surprise, surprise - some restrictions would remain after June 21.  There would be 'something around' distancing and/or masks he confirmed when prompted by Marr.

Upon these pages countless times in the last few months we said this would happen, but we are intrigued as to how much prior knowledge the Labour front bench has.  When Lisa Nandy was grilled by TalkRadio's Julia Hartley-Brewer last week she trotted out precisely the same scaremongering nonsense that SAGE have been pumping out for the last month.  Has she also been briefed about what won't happen on June 21?  She also repeated Boris Johnson's bizarre assertion that vaccines have not been responsible for the decline in the virus.  It's all because of the lockdown!

Click below for that clip and note Nandy's reaction when she is faced with real tricky questions about SAGE's prediction of a 'third wave'.  She laughs, as if she knows the whole idea is absurd, but she's going along with it anyway...

It's also worth noting that in the above interview Lisa Nandy's location is given as London, yet in her later appearance on Marr she claimed to be the 'first shadow foreign secretary never to leave Wigan'.  Funny that, seeing as she was also on the other side of the country in Hartlepool two weeks ago.  The lies come thick and fast.

A BIT RICH, RAYNER

In an interview with Andrew Marr on Sunday, Angela Rayner was typically self-righteous in her condemnation of the PM's costly refurb.  The public deserved answers "because it's taxpayers' money" exclaimed Rayner.

Somehow she managed to passionately argue her case with a straight face and no sense of shame.  It has been less than two months since her own obscene abuse of the taxpayer came to light.  On top of £1,600 worth of first class train tickets, she blew more than two thousand pounds on top of the range Apple tech and accessories.  It's a wonder that Marr didn't bring that up.

Click below for the clip.

Further reading

Starmer's Pigs At The Trough

Angela's Apple Excesses

Rayner Quizzed Over Airpods

HAPLESS REEVES & REED

Floundering in the opinion polls, Labour are desperate for any angle to attack the Tories.  The David Cameron scandal has provided such an angle, only it is fraught with accusations of hypocrisy from a party whose last stint in power was marred by persistent accusations of sleaze and cronyism.

Labour frontbenchers Steve Reed and Rachel Reeves were happy to point the finger when interviewed by Sophy Ridge and Andrew Marr on Sunday, while repeatedly failing to provide any substance as to what Labour would do about the current lobbying rules.  Reeves stammered her way through tricky questions from Marr over similar accusations of sleaze against the former First Minister of Wales, Labour's own Carwyn Jones.

This is Labour right now, just huff and puff (no pun intended, Steve) - devoid of any ideas, guilty themselves of the things they accuse the government of and seen by many as just a pale imitation of the establishment stooges opposite.

Steve Reed on Sophy Ridge on Sunday

Rachel Reeves on The Andrew Marr Show

If only Labour had taken a stand against the never-ending coronavirus restrictions - instead of waving them through every time - then there would be no end of angles from which they could attack the government.  Unfortunately for them, Starmer's party defaulted to its natural nanny state position and will forever be tied to this disastrous policy.  Shame, losers.

MILIBAND MARRED BY BREXIT

Ed Miliband repeatedly clashed with Andrew Marr on Sunday over the Brexit negotiations and how the Labour frontbencher perceives the state of play.  Marr put it to Miliband that the EU are demanding that Britain remains tied to the single market, but Ed confidently informed him this was not the case.  Ed has not been a member of any government for more than ten years, so it's not clear how he can categorically refute any claim about Brexit negotiations as he is nowhere near the Brexit negotiations.

The truth is revealed seconds later as Marr presses on with his line of questioning and Miliband does a complete u-turn, saying: "We don't exactly know what the proposal is".  Ah, right, but seconds earlier you were pretty certain about what it wasn't.  Marr lets this go, but then dives in with a killer question about Labour's backing for a post-Brexit deal.  He hits Miliband with this after Ed has waffled on several times about how disastrous a no deal scenario would be.  "We'll look at the detail" is Ed's response as to whether Labour would back a deal, but Marr is having none of it and accuses Miliband of being 'mealy mouthed'.

Miliband knows how tricky this issue is for Labour.  It was a key reason Labour support collapsed north of Watford in the last election and he had been one of those northern MPs who fully supported Starmer's second referendum con trick.  He also knows that any vote on a Brexit deal would be fraught with danger for Starmer's leadership because if MPs are whipped to support it there would be a major rebellion that could include senior frontbenchers.

Perhaps it was no great surprise to see Miliband suddenly launch into an attack on Boris Johnson at this point, but his deflection flounders and he begins to almost rave as Marr corrects him.  Hard to believe that this was once Labour's leader, especially considering that neither of his polar opposite successors get this animated during interviews.  Click below for the extraordinary Miliband meltdown.

WHAT ABOUT WALES NICK?

The Shadow Home Secretary was tasked with a very poignant question from Andrew Marr on Sunday.  Nick Thomas-Symonds, who also represents a Welsh constituency, was asked about the performance of the Labour government in Wales during the pandemic.  Marr brought up the Welsh government's poor record on care homes and potential probe by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.  He failed to mention also that testing in Wales is the lowest across the four nations to the extent that Welsh DWP staff were recently advised to get tested in England.  The Welsh government has also botched the dispatch of letters to vulnerable citizens - sending out thousands of letters to the wrong addresses - not once, but twice.

Thomas-Symonds responded to Marr's question was disingenuous to say the least.  Labour politicians in Westminster have been unrelenting in their criticism of the UK Tory government throughout the pandemic, but faced with criticism of the Labour government in Wales, Nick says "nobody is suggesting this isn't challenging for all governments across the UK".  He then instantly reverts to point scoring against the Tories by claiming that excess deaths in Wales are lower than in England.

We live in eternal gratitude that these people are not overseeing the pandemic across the UK.

McDONNELL'S BARE-FACED LIE

John McDonnell told Andrew Marr this morning that he'd "kept out of the leadership election".  Is that so John?  Funny that, because less than two weeks ago this email dropped into the inboxes of Labour members, endorsing Rebecca Long-Bailey.

The email sparked claims of a 'stitch-up' and with widespread reports of missing ballots alarm bells are ringing.  If the missing ballots are merely an innocent glitch then it makes a further mockery of this epic process.  McDonnell himself has said he'd support shorter leadership elections, but they can't get things right after three months (and counting).

In addition to his email, McDonnell also attended the recent 'Rally for Socialism', an event in support of the Long-Bailey and Burgon campaigns.  In the last week he has retweeted three Long-Bailey messages to his Twitter followers.  This is hardly 'keeping out of the leadership campaign' is it?

McDonnell's denial that the Corbyn regime wanted to 'crush' its opponents within the party is also laughable.  The dozens of moderate MPs driven out during the last Parliament can attest to that.

THE DELUSION AND DENIAL OF DICKIE BURGON

Richard Burgon at a meeting in Crawley recently (ooh, diverse)

Dickie Burgon spoke to Andrew Marr yesterday and exposed just about everything that is daft about the hard left following the election.  Asked what lessons had been learned from the result, Burgon should have answered 'none' because everything that he said thereafter was nonsense.  It was 'Bregsit' and the right wing press that cost Labour the election and he hastened to add that Corbyn's socialist policies were not a factor.  The problem with Burgon's 'Bregsit' argument is that he and his hard left colleagues were complicit in Labour's Remain stance.  None of them made any concerted efforts to drive Labour back to their 2017 position of accepting the result.  Therefore he can't extricate the hard left from blame in this regard.

When asked about the rise of Keir Starmer and a potential shift in policy back to the centre, Burgon comes out with a humdinger of a statement:  "I don't think there's a future for the Labour party politically, morally or electorally, by trying to triangulate our way back to power".  So, rather than seek to win an election, he'd rather confine Labour to a talking shop of unelectable socialist principles?  Fair enough Dickie.  Enjoy perpetual opposition.

Burgon also repeated his bizarre assessment that the successful leadership candidate won't have a "mandate to ditch a single socialist policy from the last two manifestos".  Er, they will have a mandate from the members who elected them.  That point asides, what we can learn from this is that should a victorious Starmer attempt to diverge from the hard left policies of the last five years he is going to come up against vociferous opposition.  This won't just merely be 'members led', it will include the Parliamentary Labour Party, because one of the successes for Corbynism from December's election was that the PLP is now loaded with more hard left MPs than ever before.  There is trouble ahead for Starmer, should he win, but as we have already learned - the left are happy to be out of government as long as they can retain control of Labour itself.

Watch the full nine minutes of mind blowing idiocy below.

As per usual, Burgon was brutally ridiculed online following this interview.  Many found his "we can't go back to the future" line most amusing.  In truth the whole nine minutes were a joy to behold.  The denial, the delusion, the hopeless dreams, the inexorable stupidity - Richard Burgon is a gift to the Tories and one hopes he maintains a presence on the front benches following the leadership election.

CORBYN'S DODGE & DEFLECT

Jeremy Corbyn's appearance on the Andrew Marr Show this morning was a 25 minute epic of someone refusing to answer question after question after question.  From Brexit to open door migration to Northern Ireland he wouldn't be pushed to provide an answer either way.  Corbyn's election strategy was laid bare in this interview - to be all things to all people, a desperate and cynical attempt to con as many people as possible into believing that maybe, just maybe, this commie prick is speaking for me.  It's a disastrous approach, primarily because it assumes that people cannot think for themselves and are stupid enough to fall for this shit.  However, we are not yet living in his communist dystopia - we are still free to think and act as we see fit.

Let's ensure we continue to enjoy our hard earned freedoms on December the 13th.

MARR EXPOSES LABOUR'S LAME EXCUSE

Diane Abbott appeared on the Andrew Marr Show this morning and faced some rather tricky questions about Labour's reluctance to agree to an election.  The circular logic of Labour's lame argument was deftly exposed by Marr to which Abbott stuttered and stammered her way back into repeating the same excuse over and over.  Labour have consistently accused Boris Johnson of being untrustworthy (and a liar) and yet they are now saying that they will accept his word on no deal should he come before the Commons and rule it out.  Of course they know he won't do that anyway, therefore this is nothing more than an election-blocking tactic by people who are scared to face the electorate.

Watch the full cringeworthy exchange below.

MARR TACKLES TROUBLED CORBYN

Jezza appeared on the Andrew Marr Show this morning to answer some tricky questions about the calamitous start to Labour's 2019 conference.  There was more embarrassment overnight as it emerged a senior aide to Corbyn had resigned, coinciding with a leaked memo in which said aide (Andrew Fisher) demolished the party with a series of devastating soundbites.  Marr discussed Fisher's resignation and then went on to question Corbyn's potential longevity as leader.  The bulk of the interview was dedicated to Labour's Brexit muddle.

Watch the interview below, if you can bear the constant distraction of Drunk Steve and his traffic cone (yes, he's made his way to Brighton too)...

Dreadful posture by Jezza throughout this interview, you'd be mistaken for thinking that he was the one who had suffered a stroke, not Marr.

FLINT VS MILIBAND

Andrew Marr entertained two former New Labour ministers today, expressing somewhat diametrically opposed views on Brexit.  Caroline Flint and David Miliband both campaigned for Remain, but since the Brexit betrayal Flint has pretty much switched sides.  She was a signatory to the strongly worded pro-Brexit letter to Corbyn last week and was one of the few Labour MPs to back May's deal.  Miliband on the other hand is the same stuck Remain record that is synonymous with establishment politicians of his ilk - Brown, Blair, Cameron, Mandelson, Starmer (and his brother).  Three years on it's long overdue that this record was put to rest and we moved on as an independent nation.

DISGUSTING LAMMY LOSES IT

This morning Andrew Marr confronted daft Dave Lammy with a speech he gave at an anti-Brexit rally.  In that speech Lammy compared the Tory ERG (European Research Group) to Nazism and South African apartheid, all the while applauded and cheered by then Tory MP Anna Soubry (although for some reason the BBC have cropped the video so you can't see her in the background).  When confronted with such extreme language a normal two-faced politician might seek to tone things down a bit.  There's nothing normal about daft Dave...

Disgraceful Lammy.

SHAMI TALKING SHITE

Baroness Chakrabarti must have drawn the short straw to go on Marr this morning.  It was a dreadful performance, akin to an MP trying to filibuster a piece of legislation by talking utter drivel for as long as possible.  Asides from the headline-grabbing "Don't patronise me" outburst from Andrew Marr, we learnt nothing new whatsoever.  All we know is that Labour is going to frustrate the Brexit process as much as possible in order to create the chaos necessary for it to have any chance of coming to power.  Labour not putting the national interest first - who'd have thought!!!