There are some politicians who perform very well in media interviews. These politicians come to an interview fully prepared and on top of their brief. Even if they face a hostile interviewer their situation is not hopeless, if they know their subject and are prepared enough for the interview. It’s possible for an intelligent politician to look good to the public after a heavy and probing interview even if their interlocutor is very hostile.
Then there is the other sort of politician being interviewed. The political figure who flounders, who doesn’t know or understand their brief, who is woefully unprepared and who substitutes slogans for verbal competence. Politicians whose performance during an interview gives commentators, cartoonists, political opponents and the general public something to laugh at.
Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner I’m afraid definitely comes into that second not so admirable category of politicians. In a recent interview with Sky News Ms Rayner managed to look out of her depth, lacking in knowledge of her subject, like she didn’t have a handle on her brief and worst of all, at least for her, she gave everyone interested in British politics something to have a good laugh about.
She obviously didn’t know her subject, she got easily caught out by a question about migration levels and the number of houses that need to be built to house Britain’s rapidly increasing population. She seemed unaware that there were bound to be questions about how and why 5 out of 7 of these proposed new homes might well be going to those who have recently migrated to the UK. I find it astonishing that with the subject of migration and housing being a matter for live and sometimes pungent debate by Britons on free speech positive platforms like X, Ms Rayner wasn’t better prepared for a question like this.
Linked is a short segment from the interview with Angela Rayner being questioned by Trevor Phillips. The video clip was uploaded to X by Conservative Party MP Robert Jenrick.
https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1865777200642883596
Ms Rayner came over as a bit dense to be frank. Well, a bit more than normally dense but as dense as a block of Osmium or as dense as a Boxing Day turd, to use a very British expression. She didn’t think on her feet and I’m beginning to wonder if she can.
As can be expected her response to the question about housing and migrants has seen her mocked mercilessly online with one wag portraying two Angela Rayners on different ends of a see-saw with one saying ‘we need to build houses’ with the other Rayner saying ‘we’ve got lots of houses’. Others pointed out that Ms Rayner had previously been associated with a personal housing scandal when there were questions asked by the Press and the public about the tax arrangements of a house sale that Ms Rayner had been involved in. Greater Manchester Police later investigated the issue of Ms Rayner’s house sale cleared her of any wrong doing regarding tax law but mud as they say sticks and her past housing issues have been brought up on social media for discussion again.
What’s scary is that Ms Rayner is Deputy Prime Minister, a position that should be occupied by someone who is able to explain, excuse and defend government policy and do that in both hostile and friendly interviews. If she can’t do that then she shouldn’t be in the job. What’s also scary is that Ms Rayner is probably an intellectual titan when compared to others in the Cabinet, certainly when compared to ‘Lamentable’ David Lammy the Foreign Secretary, whose forays into diplomacy have so far failed to impress either myself or others.
I’ve lived under many British governments, some good, some bad, some radical and some not so radical and some like John Major’s that I still feel broadly indifferent about. But I’ve never lived under a government that could be described as a ‘government of all the talentless’ which is what we’ve got at the moment. Sadly that’s the sort of government that Britain at the moment is landed with.