Latest news with #MarieTidball
The Guardian
11-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Rachel Reeves's tears and standing room only gothouse for Macron's Westminster speech
In all of the coverage given to Rachel Reeves's tears during last week's prime minister's questions, one thing got rather overlooked. Crying in the House of Commons is not particularly unusual. It just becomes news when it's the chancellor who is the one doing the crying. Even the financial markets take an interest: weird how a woman having a normal feeling can cause turmoil, but no one bats an eyelid at male sociopaths. Only a day earlier, the new Labour backbencher Marie Tidball, who is disabled, was on the verge of tears while she was speaking against her own party's welfare bill. No one batted an eyebrow. The former Tory MP Charles Walker was twice in tears in the chamber. The first in 2015 when David Cameron and William Hague tried to strongarm him into trying to remove John Bercow as speaker; the second in 2022 during a vote on fracking in the 49-day tenure of Liz Truss as prime minister. And those are just the ones I can remember sketching. Then there is the crying that goes on out of sight and off camera. MPs frequently talk of being reduced to tears as whips and colleagues try to bully and threaten them into voting with their party in the lobbies. Most MPs try to pass this off as part of the job. 'Politicians need to have a thick skin,' they say. Possibly, though, you have to wonder at the hypocrisy. We are told that the reason Reeves cried was a personal matter. Though having an exceptionally bad week in one of the most stressful jobs imaginable and then hearing your boss refuse to back you during PMQs might make any of us cry. And the last thing you'd want to do afterwards is to be pushed into a press conference the next day to try and show you're OK. But that was what Rachel and the Labour party felt they had to do. It looked like an act of cruelty. It seems The Salt Path may not be all it was cracked up to be. The book and film claimed to be the true story of Raynor Winn and her husband Moth but an investigation by the Observer has uncovered alleged discrepancies in Winn's account. First, Raynor and Moth – aka Sally and Tim Walker – didn't lose their house as the result of a naive business investment. The Observer claims that Sally had embezzled tens of thousands of pounds from the estate agency where she worked as an accountant. Instead of being taken to court, Sally and Tim borrowed money from a friend to cover the amount she had stolen. When she couldn't repay the loan she had taken out, her house was repossessed, the Observer says. Then there is the question of Moth/Tim's health. Raynor writes that he had been diagnosed with corticobasal degeneration, a neurological condition that can cause increasingly severe physical and cognitive disability that invariably ends in death in about eight years. Moth/Tim is still alive 18 years after diagnosis, something Raynor puts down to the effects of their 630-mile walk along the South West Coast Path. The Observer has found nine specialists who consider this to be an impossibility. Sally/Raynor still insists that her account is the true one, has published medical letters on her husband's condition and is taking legal advice. This is a book that went on to sell 2m copies and became a film with an A-list cast. If the allegations are true, it's strange how none of this came out before. Emmanuel Macron may not have been granted the top venue for his address to both houses of parliament – Westminster Hall has been the stage for VVIPs like the Queen, the Pope, Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama – but it was still standing room only in the Royal Gallery. Which is more than can be said for some visiting heads of states. I've been to several similar speeches where there have been plenty of empty seats towards the back shortly before the event was due to start as peers and MPs decide they can't be bothered to turn up. Cue panic among the doorkeepers as they rush to save the visitor's blushes by rounding up as many members of Westminster staff as they can to fill up the spaces. Later that evening the French president attended a state banquet at Windsor Castle where he was introduced to the king, who was covered in medals from head to foot. All of them either awarded by his mother or himself. God knows what Macron and his wife Brigitte made of it. Perhaps you get used to this kind of thing when you're a world leader. Macron's visit also prompted talk of the next world leader to get the full state treatment. Donald Trump. The rumour factory is in overdrive. One is that the government is trying to get round the problem of Agent Orange giving an address to parliament by inviting him over when the Commons is in recess. So sorry, Donald. We would have loved to hear you. But we're closed. One by one, some of those Tory MPs who either stood down in the face of the inevitable or lost their seats at the last election have joined the ranks of Reform. Next to join Team Nigel Farage has been Jake Berry, who was party chairman during Liz Truss's brief time in No 10. I could have sworn I heard Berry on the radio a few weeks ago slagging off Reform. Given that Nige has already promised something in the region of £80bn worth of tax cuts with his pledge to raise the income tax threshold to £20K, a man who was at the centre of crashing the economy in 2022 looks to be an ideal fit. It's coming up to the anniversary of one of my more spectacular – and embarrassing – brain fades. On a Saturday in July last year, I was just having breakfast when the phone rang. It was Vicky Dawson, the organiser of the book festival at the Buxton International Festival. 'Where are you?' she said. 'Er … I'm at home,' I replied. There was a pause. 'That's not ideal,' she continued. 'You're supposed to be speaking at the Opera House in 10 minutes. We've got 600 people waiting to hear you.' 'But that's not until next Saturday,' I said. 'It's in the diary.' 'Then I think you'll find you put it in on the wrong day,' she observed. If it had been me left with explaining to a theatre why the speaker had not shown up, I would have been shouting and screaming at me. I guess this is why she is running a major festival and I'm not. Instead, she couldn't have been nicer. These things happen, she said, understanding it had been a genuine mistake. 'Could you come back next year?' So on Wednesday 23 July I will be at Buxton Opera House. I expect to have some well-deserved piss-taking from Vicky and the audience for only being a year late.
The Guardian
09-07-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Ministers offer another concession to enshrine safeguards for disabled in flagship welfare bill
Ministers have made another concession to their flagship welfare bill over an amendment tabled by the Labour MP Marie Tidball, in a bid to enshrine safeguards for disabled people. Tidball's amendment called for a series of protections, including that future changes to the personal independence payment (Pip) be co-produced with disabled people and experts; that the government commit to a clear summer consultation before new eligibility rules for Pip are applied to new claimants; and that measurable targets be set to close the disability employment gap. Ministers had already scrapped a proposal to tighten Pip rules for existing claimants, removing the clause entirely from the bill last week to avoid a major rebellion. It also delayed changes for new claimants until after a review led by Stephen Timms, the minister for social security and disability, concludes later this year. Speaking at the end of a debate on the report stage of the bill, which was called the universal credit and personal independence payment bill, but has now been renamed the universal credit bill, Timms said the government would accept much of Tidball's amendment, calling it a 'helpful checklist' for changes. This included, he said, Tidball's suggestion in her amendment that his review work with a 'disability co-production taskforce', which would have a majority of representatives who either had a disability or were representatives from disabled people's groups. Any conclusions on the review would be based on 'consensus', he said, adding: 'The outcome of the review will be central to the legislation that follows.' However, Timms said, he would not accept Tidball's proposal for a 12-month timetable for the review, saying he did not want to 'rush' a process scheduled to end in autumn It marks the second time in just over one week that the government has been forced to make big revisions to its controversial legislation, after a week of chaos in the Commons last week which left Keir Starmer's authority bruised forcing him to abandon a central plank of the bill. Alongside Tidball's proposals, several backbench Labour MPs – including Rachael Maskell – have tabled their own amendments, with Maskell's arguing someone who has slipped out of and then back into the LCWRA eligibility criteria either side of April 2026 would still be able to claim the higher rate. It comes after the UN organisation for disabled people's rights on Tuesday asked the UK government for details about the impact of its welfare bill, expressing its concerns about potential adverse effects in a rare intervention. The UN committee said it had received 'credible information' that the welfare changes would 'deepen the signs of regression', and sought information on 'any measures to address the foreseeable risk of increasing poverty rates amongst persons with disabilities if cuts are approved'.
The Guardian
06-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
One year of Labour - Politics Weekly live at Crossed Wires festival
One year on from Keir Starmer's election victory and Labour are well behind Reform in the polls, while the government is already having to bend to the will of its backbenchers. So how can Starmer recover? Kiran Stacey talks to Jonathan Ashworth, the chief executive of Labour Together and former MP for Leicester South, and Marie Tidball, the Labour MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, about the party's first year in government, live at the Crossed Wires podcast festival in Sheffield
Daily Mail
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
The toll it takes: Looking back at the times MPs cried in the Commons amid mystery over Chancellor Rachel Reeves' tears during PMQs
The House of Commons has witnessed fiery clashes, impassioned pleas, and witty verbal sparring, but every so often, Parliament takes a teary tone. Watch below for a round-up of the times MPs were overcome with emotion. Tears roll down Chancellor Rachel Reeves ' cheek during PMQs Tears rolled down to Chancellor Rachel Reeves' cheek during PMQs yesterday as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer refused to say she was secure in her job, as he was battered over his welfare surrender. She is said to have admitted to Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle that she was 'under so much pressure' minutes before taking her seat in the Commons. Disabled Labour MP's emotional reaction to Welfare Reform Bill Disabled Labour MP Marie Tidball broke down in tears as she urged the Government to reverse proposed cuts to PIPs on 1st July, saying she was voting against it with a 'heavy and broken heart'. She said the payments 'helped build the bridge to the deinstitutionalisation of disabled people'. DUP MP breaks down recalling his mother-in-law's death DUP MP Jim Shannon could not hold back his tears, recalling how his mother-in-law died alone during the Covid-19 pandemic. The emotional moment came about as he asked if a 'full and complete disclosure' of information would be made to police, who were then investigating the 'Partygate' scandal, in January 2022. Rosie Duffield moves MPs to tears sharing domestic abuse story MP Rosie Duffield delivered a poignant speech on her domestic abuse ordeal, moving colleagues to tears, in October 2019. She spoke during a debate about the Domestic Abuse Bill, revealing how she suffered verbal abuse and financial control. Rachel Reeves bursts into tears paying tribute to MP Jo Cox Rachel Reeves, was overcome with emotion as she paid tribute to MP Jo Cox, who died after being shot and stabbed multiple times, ahead of a constituency surgery. Reeves burst into tears as she spoke about how the slain MP's children would not be able to see their mother again, in June 2016. MP struggles to speak after hearing story about starving child Heidi Allen, then Conservative MP, was visibly emotional and struggled to speak after hearing Labour's Frank Field talk about a young boy who was 'crying through hunger'. She told MPs that she 'doesn't know where to start after that' as she stood up to respond, in March 2018. Mark Francois' tearful tribute to Sir David Amess MP Conservative MP Mark Francois paid a tearful tribute to his friend, Sir David Amess MP, who was murdered at a constituency surgery by a British ISIS sympathiser Ali Harbi Ali. Francois choked up as he said Sir David was the 'best bloke he ever knew', in October 2021. Labour's Naz Shah in tears during Gaza debate Labour MP Naz Shah wiped at her eyes with a tissue in the Commons after telling MPs of the plight of children in Gaza and calling on the UK to 'ramp up its effort to end the bloodshed'. The Bradford West MP, who was a shadow Home Office minister at the time, then watched on with a solemn look as the Government responded to her question, in November 2023. MP's emotional speech about the loss of her baby Labour MP Vicky Foxcroft delivered an emotional speech, opening up about the loss of her newborn daughter Veronica, at five days old. Speaking during a Baby Loss Awareness Week discussion in October 2016, she said it was 'the hardest speech she has ever had to write'.
The Independent
01-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Disabled Labour MP tearfully calls out party's welfare cuts
Disabled Labour MP Marie Tidball delivered an impassioned speech on Tuesday, criticising her party's proposed welfare cuts. Ms Tidball, who has a congenital disability, voted against Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer's bill, which passed its second reading by 335 votes to 260 – a majority of 75. The legislation would introduce changes to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and the health-related element of Universal Credit. Ms Tidball said she was compelled to enter politics due to previous Conservative spending cuts and tax increases. Watch the video in full above.
