Emily Thornberry

My reservations are about her position re women, although I think trans women need respect and dignity I am a sex realist - a woman is an adult female. She used to be too aligned to stonewall and self ID. Others can correct me.

“Johnson also appears to have been indirectly paid more than £200,000 for a meeting with Maduro in February last year — despite claiming he had not been paid. Johnson was accompanied to the meeting by Maarten Petermann, a hedge fund manager.
In the previous September, the documents show that Petermann's company Merlyn Advisors signed a contract with Johnson. Weeks after attending the 45-minute meeting with Maduro, Johnson received £240,000 from Petermann.
The cache of files also suggest that between October 2022 and May 2024, Johnson was paid approximately £5.1 million for 34 speeches.
The documents also indicate that Johnson held a dinner for Lord Brownlow of Shurlock Row,
who provided £58,000 to cover some of the cost of the renovations to his No 10 flat, in the small dining room at the residence in November 2020. Just 24 hours earlier lockdown restrictions banning people from any social meetings indoors had been introduced.
In a further potential breach, the files suggest that in June 2020, the day after the surprise birthday party in the cabinet room that led to his police fine, Johnson and Carrie Symonds, his then fiancée, now his wife, hosted three guests for a “private appointment” at Downing Street.
One of Symonds's close friends who ­specialises in “vibrational” music treatments; the friend's mother, a fellow natural medicine practitioner; and a journalist were welcomed in the “flat/garden”, according to what is said to be a record of the prime minister's activities that day. Social gatherings indoors were still forbidden in June 2020.
Johnson did not respond to a request to comment.”
More from the same article…

“Boris Johnson 'lobbied UAE for $1bn venture after leaving office'
Leaked files show he sought backing from Mubadala, Abu Dhabi's $300bn investment fund, while serving as 'principal adviser' to Bia Advisory

Steven Swinford, Political Editor
Boris Johnson has been accused of secretly lobbying the United Arab Emirates on behalf of a billion-dollar private venture after standing down as prime minister.
Johnson is said to have acted as the “principal adviser” for Bia Advisory, a “climate finance solutions” firm seeking the backing of Mubadala, Abu Dhabi's $300 billion investment fund, according to leaked files obtained by The Guardian.
Shelley Williams-Walker, who previously worked for Johnson in No 10, is said to have described securing Mubadala's backing as “the big prize”.
Johnson hosted Khaldoon al-Mubarak, the chairman of Manchester City and the CEO of Mubadala, at least three times while he was in No 10.
In 2024 Johnson visited Abu Dhabi and leaked files suggest he raised the Bia Advisory climate finance venture. A draft of a let-
Leaked documents indicate that the former prime minister leveraged his connections to lobby Saudi officials
STEFAN ROUSSEAU/PA

ter prepared two months later for him to send to Mubarak said: “As I briefly alluded to when we met, I am now acting as principal adviser to Bia Advisory.”
The letter said: “As you know, a key part of my legacy as prime minister of the United Kingdom was coalescing world leaders around a series of concrete commitments at the Cop26 climate summit in 2021.” He added that he “would very much welcome the opportunity to engage with your team about what we hope might prove a [tempting] investment opportunity for Mubadala”.
However the letter was put on hold pending agreement from the Advisory Committee”
Part of an article in yesterday’s Times. Just a reminder of why we now have a Labour government with a huge majority (because people have short memories sometimes…)

Entering day 2. 44 for Phillipson. 35 Powell. Others not out of
single figures. Early days

Iam64

I don’t. Please delete if this breaches guidelines. She appears to be a very heavy drinker

Is this your opinion? What is it based on?

This was in response to someone saying she appears to be a heavy drinker .. bizarre statement to make ..

Appears ? Is ? Proof? Honestly that’s nothing sweeping statment..

Looking forward to reading their statements. I am a Labour Party member and will miss Angela R on the front bench. Emily is very experienced, legal background and thinks things through. However someone from the north would be useful to particularly represent that part of the country.

A vey unlikely winner much more likely is one of the northern candidates, impossible to say who at this stage, hopefully a more substantial politician than AR.

Aveline

I'd want someone from outside the London and South East bubble. Someone who knows what the actual populace is thinking rather than what the London centric media are spouting.

I think the Cabinet is more of a mix ater the reshuffle.

However - there is only one Cabinet member from Wales and only one for Scotland. Both are Secretaries of State for their respective countries.
This despite the fact that there are 32 Welsh Labour MPs and 37 Scottish Labour MPs in Parliament.

Even if the Cabinet has more of a spread of MPs, they all, with the exception of two, represent English constituencies as far as I know.

Grantanow

Labour need to stop fighting among themselves.

Too many big egos in politics altogether.

I suppose that is why they become politicians.

Aveline

I'd want someone from outside the London and South East bubble. Someone who knows what the actual populace is thinking rather than what the London centric media are spouting.

I can't remember who said it, or where I read it yesterday, but I read a comment by a cabinet minister from the NE who claimed 'We have beaten Reform in the NE'.

As I live in a NE county where the county council has been taken over by Reform and every village around me is sporting wall to wall St George's Crosses I wonder if she might need to get out a bit more... Being a northeastener clearly isn't particularly helpful)

(I 'think' it was Lucy Powell, but not definite on that)

I'd want someone from outside the London and South East bubble. Someone who knows what the actual populace is thinking rather than what the London centric media are spouting.

I've always tended to like her in her public pronouncements, but this is a time when the 'emperor's new clothes' are stripped and we hear more about her than we previously have. I think she's a lightweight sometimes posing as a heavyweight politician.

Absolutely non of them! One ridiculed white van and flag fliers, one ridiculed private schools for their Astro turf and just happens to play for a hockey team that yes, pays to use a private school for use of their Astro turf and the other one called a party 'whistle blowers' for highlighting grooming gangs! What an absolute nasty shower!!!!!

Grantanow

Labour need to stop fighting among themselves.

Absolutely Grantanow.

For me, as a member of the Labour Party, I find their in-fighting soul destroying.

I know they say “Labour is a broad church” which is true and admirable.

But, the apparent determination of some within that “church”, to undermine and disrupt may ultimately be the downfall of the party. Why can’t they see this?

It’s something that has always disheartened me about Labour - they appear to be their own worst enemy!

For the first time in years, Labour is in government. FFS work together or you risk jeopardising that.

Grantanow

Labour need to stop fighting among themselves.

I think that a fight is exactly what is needed to stop Labour’s terrible lurch to the right.

The leadership needs to be forcibly reminded if what Labour should stand for. Which is definitely not trying to satisfy Reform voters and impose more pointless austerity on the nation.

I've literally never heard of her, so I've just Googled her ....

Still absolutely no idea who she is!

MayBee70

windmill1

The choice appears to be a second-rate bunch conjured up from a shambolic second-rate party. And all steered into unknown waters by a very vague Captain Flip-Flop.

So who would you like to have governing this country?

Who would you like to see running the show?

What an almightly mess.

Labour need to stop fighting among themselves.

MaizieD

Allsorts

I do think Labour in general has had assertive training, not letting anyone getting a word in and talking over interviewer until they have made their point, it's a technique to use us for allotted ait time to make their point on one issue. I don't listen to them anymore, they are empty vessels.

All the parties do it.

That’s becauseMP’s are fed up of interviewers not letting them answer the question they’ve been asked.

Allsorts

I do think Labour in general has had assertive training, not letting anyone getting a word in and talking over interviewer until they have made their point, it's a technique to use us for allotted ait time to make their point on one issue. I don't listen to them anymore, they are empty vessels.

All the parties do it.

Yes it was St George flags, my memory wasn't exact. Her wording, possibly open to several interpretations did cause a furore at the time, but thank you for the clarification Rosie.

I do think Labour in general has had assertive training, not letting anyone getting a word in and talking over interviewer until they have made their point, it's a technique to use us for allotted ait time to make their point on one issue. I don't listen to them anymore, they are empty vessels.

Rosie51

MaizieD

TerriBull

Islington based, far too London centric everyone will remember her for "I've never seen anything like it" comment when confronted with house bedecked with Union Jacks.

That's not what she said in the tweet she was condemned for.

It just said 'Image from Rochester' over a picture of a white van in front of a house draped with 2 St George's crosses.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30142579

You're either thinking of something else or making it up.

In the link you provide, further down she is quoted as having told the Daily Mail "It had three huge flags covering the whole house. I've never seen anything like it before. I've never seen a house completely covered in flags" She could have looked closer at the photo she posted because those flags simply don't cover the whole house at all. An attempt at damage limitation after a snobbish post.
I can't see where Terribull has said the comments were part of the tweet, and she clearly isn't making it up.

Aaah. Thanks for the elaboration.

I didn’t read the whole article and, at the time, I understood that it was just the tweet that did it…

Mind you, I don’t see anything wrong about expressing surprise at seeing a house front almost totally covered with St George's crosses (not Union Jacks) It wasn’t a common sight at the time. But people will read into politicians’ words and actions whatever suits their own agendas.