PM accepted £20,000 so his boy could study

“They” often have a lot to answer for.

Anniebach

Quote paddyann54 Thu 26-Sep-24 18:10:13
I assume the boy has his own bedroom and a set of headphones to keep unwanted noise out…isn,t that how most teens study nowadays.Why should he be treated differently.Isn,t Labour the party of the people? Of course theyaren,t they are tories in red ties nowadays…the clue is the”sir” in front of starters name .NO true socialist would accept an EMPIRE honour

Baron Neil Kinnock, Sir Gerald Kaufman, Baron Harold Wilson, Lord Darling, Baroness Margaret Becket ,Baroness Hardman, Sir Chris Bryant ? sorry but the thought of The Rhondda Valley voting for a Tory in red tie is so daft

😁

Good points!

Margaret Becket not a true socialist!

Good post anniebach]

OldFrill - best post of the thread so far

MissA - thanks for your cracking comments - you make me smile

I wonder whether Keir Starmer is being poorly advised on how he presents these kind of issues to the public? Of course, it is his perogative to keep his family life very private. But, when Blair was PM, for example, he used to talk openly about his "normal" family - how they all watched The Simpsons together, what they cooked for dinner etc. Boris used to tell anecdotes about Wilf, David Cameron said he watched the Xfactor with his kids and went on country walks , Gordon Brown talked about very personal family things like losing his baby daughter and his poorly son.
I'm not suggesting Starmer is wrong to protect his children's privacy, just that the defensive way he went about it in this instance backfired. There is even some question around the GCSE dates he used as being the reason for the flat rental.

The one thing people are criticising Starmer for is his lack of empathy towards pensioners and also towards some school children, and their disrupted education. I just think if we saw a bit more fellow-feeling from him about his normal daily life, he might be accepted better?
Even Theresa May talked about the bins and her preferences in shoes!

The children of the PM’s you speak of were very young, Starmer children are in their teens, should the world know what they eat ?

What's Lord Dazi getting from all these gifts in return?

Do you expect something back when you give to a friend?

Er?
Euan Blair was 15 and doing GCSEs while Blair was PM. Same age as Starmer's boy. I assume the next two Blair siblings down were also that age during his term in office?

I don't care what show size Starmer's son is, but a snippet or two about family interaction shows a bit of normality. Rishi's daughter was 13, we heard about her concerns for the environment in discussions with her father. The rest is private, rightly so.

* shoe 👞 not show!

We are all different, I don’t want to know what tv programmes
they watch or what they eat , you do , we know how they spend
Friday evenings,

while Blair was PM

escaped - once living in no. 10 or no. 11 the road is closed these days.

This is not at all the same as living on a "regular" street - even a rather exclusive one.

I thought Starmer said Friday evenings were for family time, so we do know how they spend them!!
For me, that was a completely normal piece of information, and I for one didn't criticise it all. Apart from the daft 6pm (?) cut off time.

True @NotSpaghetti.

escaped

Er?
Euan Blair was 15 and doing GCSEs while Blair was PM. Same age as Starmer's boy. I assume the next two Blair siblings down were also that age during his term in office?

I don't care what show size Starmer's son is, but a snippet or two about family interaction shows a bit of normality. Rishi's daughter was 13, we heard about her concerns for the environment in discussions with her father. The rest is private, rightly so.

Perhaps Keir Starmer is hesitant about discussing his family life since he mentioned that, when possible, he finishes work at 6pm on Friday to spend the evening with his family; this innocent remark has been seized on by many on social media as proof that he is lazy and exaggerated into him taking the entire weekend off.

The amount of puerile name calling, misinformation and point scoring against the Labour Party on social media is appalling, I have just deleted my X app because of it; one major offender is Richard Tice. The MSM are also manic in their criticism, they seem to be going through every Labour MP’s declaration of donations with a fine tooth comb. Let’s hope they are as diligent and critical with the findings of the COVID report.

Even before being elected, I remember Starmer speaking about his children, and not wanting to disrupt their lives if at all possible, including protecting them from all that being the PM's chikdren might bring. (Enbarrssment, namely, but I suspect his gaffe has caused them some)

He said that they had tried to say that getting a dog might help them, but he night stretch to a cat.

I admire the attempts their parents are making to protect their children from the media spotlight. I’m in no doubt the criticism being levelled at the Keir and Victoria Starmer for anything and everything would be repeated if their teenage children were found to have behaved badly - like most teenagers do.
The pressure on the family is intense. I heard Starmer speak at the hustings when he stood as leader. The way he spoke of his own parents and his family was with great warmth and humour. Today, the DMail has a piece by Joan Smith alleging he lacks emotional intelligence or empathy. Give us a break

Sensible man. Good choice. 🐈
A dog would only pee on an aide's handbag or in the posh fireplace!

My cat once did a wee wee IN my friends handbag.

I don't know what he was thinking!

...nice place for a wee?

eww!

My son barely revised at home at all but still got double A* awards in Science, A in Maths and English, Design Tech. And B’s in all others. That was the first year they did A* awards too, when only the very highest marks were awarded them.

I fully understand the Starmer's desire to keep their family life private, and think they have every right to do so.

I also think that their PR is terrible. People like Cummings, Campbell and Mandelson tend to be disliked and mistrusted, but they stop the opposition from spinning everything in a negative fashion, and ensure that any positives are put forward too. I can't imagine any of those men allowing the WFP withdrawal (a) to happen yet, and (b) to be presented as it was. That was a political disaster. Many people stopped listening to anything else the LP said, and many jumped on the media sloganeering and did their work for them by repeating the name-calling etc.

I can't understand why the LP's Comms team have allowed this to happen. Whoever they are they should be sacked and replaced with people who know what they're doing.

Lisaangel10

My son barely revised at home at all but still got double A* awards in Science, A in Maths and English, Design Tech. And B’s in all others. That was the first year they did A* awards too, when only the very highest marks were awarded them.

Not everyone is blessed with that kind of brain.

Allira

Lisaangel10

My son barely revised at home at all but still got double A* awards in Science, A in Maths and English, Design Tech. And B’s in all others. That was the first year they did A* awards too, when only the very highest marks were awarded them.

Not everyone is blessed with that kind of brain.

And most of us recognise that. I’m not sure the point of the comment